Project Manager James brings you the first part of his Hussar hobby guide, delving into building and painting the recently released figures from Perry Miniatures. A lot of amazing quality metal, resin, and plastic miniatures make their way through the Wargames Illustrated office; I'm often tempted to steal goodies to work on at home. Most of the time I'll fight that urge - there are already various ongoing personal projects, along with things I'm painting for work, and there's only so much time in the evenings and weekends. Once I saw Alan Perry's flamboyant and beautifully detailed plastic Austrian Hussars, for their ever-growing Napoleonics range ... well, one moment all was well, then there's a hazy blank spot for an hour or so ... suddenly I'm at home and starting to put clippers to a frame of Hussars. Whoops! It was at this point, as the dream-like smog caused by pretty new figures cleared, that I realised: The Austrian Hussars were going to be a rather challenging set of figures to build They were going to be an even more challenging set of figures to paint I don't actually have an Austrian army I don't even have a Napoleonics army. Good work James, well done! Taking on the challenge I decided to chart my trials, triumphs, and tribulations with the Hussars in a series of guides, rather than baulk at the challenge and return them to the office in shame. I would emerge triumphant with some painted figures! Maybe my hobbying would lead to the start of a new army for a new period; there's always that potential with really beautiful sculpts. Maybe this unit would ensure I never touch Napoleonics again: taking on models that go far from my comfort zone could break me. Whatever the case, I hope that in following my Hussar adventure you will pick up some useful tips to apply to your own Perry plastics! Mount up As I got the build underway I realised these models needed some serious consideration! I paint in a systematic way that involves lots of sub-assemblies. To achieve all I wanted with these figures I'd have to do some mental breakdown of parts and what I should glue together, to make sure my painting (much of which I planned on doing with an airbrush) was as easy as possible. With that in mind, I decided that the horses would be the only thing I'd actually build in full before painting. For the Hussars themselves, I'd paint certain details (such as heads, pelisses, and sabretaches) separately and fix everything together as a final step. The mounts would be easy though, right? Well, sort of! There are some quirks to the
