Spanish Big Man for ‘Sharp Practice’

After a long pause of a year or two, I’ve returned to painting some ‘Big Men’ figures for the Sharp Practice skirmish rules.  These are the officers and NCOs who form such an important part of this highly entertaining ruleset by Too Fat Lardies.

The first such ‘Big Man’ I’ve painted tonight is this 28mm Spanish officer figure from Brigade Games.  I love his portly stature and casual stance.

The sculpt appears to have been based on the Dennis Dighton portrait of Don Juan de Gonzalos, colonel of the Regimiento Imperiales de Toledo, right down to his bushy sideburns and  his pose of smoking a cigarette (Spanish soldiers of the period were notorious smokers).

So that’s the way I’ve painted him, in his brown uniform with yellow facings, as depicted in my trusty Uniforms of the Peninsular War 1807-1814 by  Philip Haythornthwaite and Michael Chappell.  You can see there are a few small differences, particularly with the hat … but the figure gives the overall effect.

I’m now starting work on a Royal Navy officer, also from Brigade Games, to lead my small naval detachment of sailors and marines.

Next step will to be to put together some sort of multi-player scenario involving a swirling melange of various British, Spanish, and French soldiers, naval types, guerillas and civilians, all with differing objectives, and then host a well-overdue game of Sharp Practice sometime in the not-too-distant future.