Imperial guard marines in 1/72 and 40mm

 Hi guys

A couple of reviews, and a journey to building the Imperial guard Marine battalion in 1/72 and 40mm.

A few years ago I came across Kozak miniatures, a provider of 3D STL files for printing historical figures, including Napoleonics, I was not really impressed by what was offered, there were some accuracy issues with their French cavalry, especially the horse furniture, (their recent Russian sculpts are quite good though, I have bought all their 1805 Russian files for a future project, there is a point at which Kodak’s uniform accuracy change from suspect to good, I’de suggest carefully studying the pictures before buying) but I lingered on their Imperial guard marine files, what collectors of French can resist the marines? However I decided to give them a pass for the following reasons, 1) they have a lozenge shako plate instead of the correct eagle 2) as they are in parade dress I expect all the correct accoutrements to be present, but they are missing shoulder boards, and sword knots, 3) while you get 7 poses in the set, they are stiff, and there’s only 2 marching poses, one of which is a sergeant 4) there are no command figures, which was the nail in the coffin for me, as I have converting skills but lack the skills to sculpt humans from scratch. Which brings me to the second review of this post, fast forward to the present, I stumble across Picolorigolo’s Thingyverse page https://www.thingiverse.com/Picolorigolo/designs and find a marine drummer, officer and several other usable officer files, this page is a treasure trove of character files for Napoleonic collectors, 9 pages of mostly Napoleonic files, all are very useful for adding to units or command stands, highly recommend checking them out.

So I decide I have enough to work with to make the marines, however I will need to added/change the missing details, and create more marching poses, here is a list of what I did, 1) changed the shako plate to an eagle, and changed some of the faces, all Kodak miniatures have the same face 2) added shoulder boards and sword knots 3) re sized the ammo pouch and back pack, I think the original ammo pouch was a little small for my liking, and the pack was riding a little high, 4) created 8 marching poses. 

In retrospective, I should have sourced a suitable set of heads, maybe from Piano, and did full head swaps, and I would have added a rolled bonnet under the ammo pouch, I forgot this detail. 

I have finished painting the 1/72 version, the 40mm version has been put aside for later attention, the drummer, officer with chest braid and standing bicorne officer are from Picolorigolo’s Thingyverse page, the mounted officer is from Piano wargames.