Sending a Signal that it’s Fembruary

Posted on by Marvin

Uncharacteristically, I’d quite forgotten that it’s actually FEMbruary, that month celebrating with great respect all things to do with female miniatures, shunning the demeaning and downright dodgy.

Genius Fembruary originator, Alex at Leadballoony, has got a whole big heap of all sorts going on this year and so regrets that he won’t be running a review and round-up as in previous years, but that doesn’t mean no Fembruary – not at all. Alex suggests that maybe it’s time for Fembruary to just exist free of a formal organiser and encourages us figure painters to still go forth and “paint some fantastic female figures from your collections and tag them as Fembruary!” And so I shall.

“I see no ships”

In previous years I painted for Fembruary:

Once again, I have once again turned to Bad Squiddo’s fabulous range of believable female miniatures – always perfect for some Fembruary figures. I’m also returning to WWII with some sailor girls from the WRNS.

At the peak of it’s service during WWII there were 74,000 women in the WRNS (universally known as the Wrens) involved in over 200 different jobs. Their wide range of duties included driving/motorcycle despatch; admin/clerical work; radar plotters; wireless telegraphists; bomb making; weapons analysts; electrical work; harbour transport; catering; range assessing; flying transport planes and providing weather forecasts. Over 300 Wrens were killed in wartime service.

Two Ordnance Wrens in Liverpool reassemble a section of a pom-pom gun during the Second World War. From the collections of the Imperial War Museums., Public Domain.

The set shows five WRNS taking part in signalling duties.

The team of signallers include a Wren using a signalling lamp, another using semaphore flags, another interpreting signals with a telescope and two other ratings furiously scribbling down the messages.

My last group of marching Wrens painted back in 2019. I had discovered them as unidentified 54mm figures on eBay from a seller in Kent but later found that they were made in the late 70s or early 80s by MJ Mode, a manufacturer that – entirely coincidentally – I later discovered had its operations based in exactly the same suburb as I was then living in!

With half of February already gone, I need to get started as soon as possible. Thankfully some others have been more on the ball than I. I heartily recommend that for other Fembruary female figures you check the bloggers below.

From the talented brush of Wudugast comes forth:

Also, Rantings from under the Wargames Table blog brings us:

  • Faith and Deceit: Agatha Fox the spy in rain mac and Sister Maria aka ‘the nun with a gun’ – so that’s how you solve a problem like Maria!
  • Gnome on the Range: Two more Fembruary femmes with the delightfully named Blink Berenwicket the gnome and a fabulously diffident-looking female ranger.

That wizard of the diorama Imperial Rebel Orc and Alex himself at Leadballoony have indicated the possibility of some other Fembruary creations, so I’m watching out for those. And the ever entertaining and creative Mark at Man of Tin – is he Fembruarying this year, I wonder?

Adelaide Hall

Posted on by Marvin

“If my husband can be a merchant navy officer, I’m going to be a soldier.” Adelaide Hall.

Seems most appropriate during Black History Month to post two figures I’ve painted of Adelaide Hall, successful singer and businesswoman. As one of the world’s first jazz singers, through her improvised wordless rhythm vocalising she pioneered scat singing and enjoyed a career that spanned eight decades.

Adelaide Hall was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1901. Her family tree included a lineage to the Shinnecock Indians of Long Island. From 1921, Hall quickly developed a very successful stage career in the US, making a strong reputation appearing in all-black performer shows of the time. As a sought-after and successful singer, Hall made enough money to move to affluent Westchester County in New York where she received some racial threats and hostility from some white residents but also had support from her many fans.

Unknown author – The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 6 September 1934, page 20, CC BY-SA 4.0.

In 1935, Hall moved with her husband to the more racially integrated Paris where they set up a jazz club and toured extensively. In 1938, she moved again to London where she would remain until her death in 1993. Her move continued her success and in 1941 she replaced Gracie Fields as Britain’s highest paid entertainer.

In London, she also opened clubs. A club that she owned in Britain was bombed by the Luftwaffe and she later reopened another on Regent Street. The arrangement worked well for, if work ever went quiet, she could always perform a show in own club. Her move to London just preceded the Second World War in which she would play her part in the war by entertaining troops as a member of ENSA (Entertainments National Service Association). It is this point in her career that Bad Squiddo’s figures represent.

“The first big wartime variety concert organised by ENSA was broadcast by the BBC to the Empire and local networks from RAF Hendon in north London on 17 October 1939. Among the entertainers appearing on the bill were Adelaide Hall, The Western Brothers and Mantovani. A Newsreel of this concert showing Adelaide Hall singing We’re Going to Hang out the Washing on the Siegfried Line accompanied by Mantovani and His Orchestra exists.” Wikipedia

Unfortunately, ‘hanging washing out to dry’ was about the only thing the Siegfried Line was useful for as the Wehrmacht moved swiftly into France and Belgium in the Battle of France. The ENSA members operated as part of the armed forces.

As such Adelaide Hall was enlisted as an officer and entitled to a uniform, as she related in an interview to presenter Sue Lawley on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs in 1991;

SL: And you wore a uniform?

Adelaide Hall: Yes, and they made me a Lieutenant.

SL: Did that mean the boys had to salute you?

Adelaide Hall: Oh, yes! And I had my own jeep (laughs) and driver. My pianist was with me… [It was] a beautiful uniform, I loved it and I couldn’t stand the collar – very stiff for me, but you get used to anything, I suppose.

While painting, I got a feel for my subject and her music by listening to BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs broadcasts. She was recorded twice, once in December 1972 and again nearly 20 years later in January 1991. By the time of the last recording, Adelaide was in her 80s. A 6-minute extract only of her December 1972 broadcast remains:

Adelaide Hall was very well-respected in the industry and played with many top musicians and artists including Fats Waller, Josephine Baker, Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington. Since her death, Adelaide Hall and her accomplishments have not been forgotten such as being acknowledged in Vogue’s list of ‘7 Remarkable Black Women Who Shaped British History’ and the award of a Black Plaque at Abbey Road Studios where she once recorded with Duke Ellington.

“I had a lovely uniform made by Madame Adele of Grosvenor Street and it was smart. Oh, you should have seen me in it! With the Sam Browne (belt) and a lovely cap, and the greeny-beige shirt and tie.”

Adelaide Hall

“I went through Germany twice – and I must say that I enjoyed it. I was a bit on edge, but I persevered. I said, if my husband can be a merchant navy officer, I’m going to be a soldier.”

Adelaide Hall

The Finale of FEMbruary IV

Posted on by Marvin

As promised by Alex at Leadballoony blog, the roundup of entries for 2021s FEMbruary Challenge IV was posted on International Women’s Day, yesterday – https://leadballoony.com/2021/03/08/2021-fembruary-iv-round-up/ Bravo Alex! It’s been another successful year’s challenge.

There’s increasingly a great range of entries encompassing all kinds of painting styles, interests, genres and figure manufacturers, so why not pop over and take a look at the kind of female characters being painted in the hobby nowadays?

Oh, and my humble offering of five female SOE agents brought home the “Most Thought-Provoking Entry” category – my first success in the FEMbruary challenge! Click below to read more about these phenomenally brave agents from WWII:

(#Fembruary 2021) SOE Sisters II: Annie Norman

Posted on by Marvin

Annie Norman

  • Born: UK.
  • SOE Rank: Bad Squiddo Games Supremo.

My Fembruary SOE Agent number 2 is Annie Norman, the lady behind Bad Squiddo Games and producer of these fab little WWII agents. Of course, it’s another nicely sculpted figure by Rob Macfarlane.

The blue spotty dress design was borrowed directly from the figure painted by John Morris on the website which looked really nice but which was horrible to reproduce. Full respect to John Morris, and his fine job with the polka dots! Mine are a little more unevenly spaced, and it won’t win any print design competitions, but for my first polka dot dress paint job – well, it’ll do!

Painting Annie Agent’s glasses was interesting. The last pair I had to paint was at 20mm scale where a couple dots for eyes was about sufficient.

Crimean Russian admiral with spectacles.

So, at 28mm I had to reveal a little more behind the lenses.

Finally, any good SOE agent is well-trained with a firearm for any high-tension moment when self-preservation becomes paramount.

More SOE Fembruary ladies to come…

SOE Sisters No.1: Nancy Wake (#Fembruary2021)

Posted on by Marvin

“I don’t see why we women should just wave our men a proud goodbye and then knit them balaclavas.“

Nancy Wake

Nancy Wake

  • Born: Wellington, New Zealand, 1912.
  • SOE Rank: Captain.
  • AKA: ‘Hélène’, ‘The White Mouse’.
  • Died: London, England, 2011.

It’s Fembruary and my first SOE agent is now operating under cover in France! One of five female WWII agents courtesy of Bad Squiddo Games, Nancy Wake was once described as;

“…a real Australian bombshell. Tremendous vitality, flashing eyes. Everything she did, she did well.” Training reports record that she was “a very good and fast shot” and possessed excellent fieldcraft. She was noted to “put the men to shame by her cheerful spirit and strength of character.”

Something of her independent spirit can be gleaned from how she ran away from home at the age of only 16. Living in France at the outset of WWII, she and her husband aided allied airmen to escape from France after 1940 until she eventually had to escape herself (something she was very good at – the Germans calling her ‘the white mouse’ because she kept slipping out of sight). Sadly, her French husband was captured, tortured and executed, a fact she only discovered at the end of the war. Her survival technique included her natural brazen self-confidence, Nancy later saying;

“A little powder and a little drink on the way, and I’d pass their (German) posts and wink and say, ‘Do you want to search me?’ God, what a flirtatious little bastard I was.”

The sculptor seems to have captured that nerve and poise with this pose. Nancy is attractively dressed and nonchalantly strolling on her way while casually examining her fingernails, but her hidden steel and deadliness is nicely represented by a dagger tucked away just out of sight by her side.

Alongside the Maquis, she certainly took part in a number of firefights and battles with the Germans, later confessing to reluctantly having to kill a sentry with her bare hands, in a manner she’d been trained repeatedly to use by the SOE.

Nancy survived the war and was decorated lavishly by a grateful UK, France, New Zealand, Australia and USA. She emigrated to Australia with her next husband, an RAF officer, where she unsuccessfully stood as a Liberal candidate in elections there.  After her 2nd husband died in 1997, Nancy returned to the UK where she lived at the Stafford Hotel in Piccadilly, London. Here she ‘would usually be found in the hotel bar, sipping her first gin and tonic of the day and telling war stories‘. She ended her days living at a home for disabled ex-servicemen and women until she passed away at the ripe old age of 98 in 2011.

So ends my humble salute to Nancy Wake of the Special Operations Executive. I have purchased some cheap plinths for my ladies which I will probably pop them on to them for a final post. In the meantime, my next instalment of these SOE sisters is hopefully coming soon!

Nancy Wake in uniform.

FEMbruary 2021

Posted on by Marvin

It’s that time of the year again that many of us figure painters, makers and bloggers look forward to. Fembruary has been declared by Alex at Lead Balloony blog. I’ve not missed a Fembruary yet and there’s no way I want to miss out this year.

My previous Fembruary submissions:

  • 2020: Empress Catherine I of Russia
  • 2019: Soviet snipers
  • 2019: Women’s Royal Naval Service (Wrens)
  • 2018: Empress Catherine II of Russia

So I’ve been taking a look at my figures as usual to find something which could satisfy the core aims of Alex’s great idea which is namely to paint and post some female miniatures in the ‘name of fair representation in the hobby’. In his blog post, he goes on to say “Given that this is intended as an encouragement to think about inclusion in the hobby then it makes sense if your entries are kick-ass ladies, and not the product of some socially awkward mini-sculptor’s sexy fantasies…” A final round-up is in early March (in time for International Women’s Day, on the 8th March).

For more details on Fembruary, see the Lead Balloony post and you could do a lot worse than check out his son’s very impressive Amazon quartet while your at it.

Nancy Wake in First Aid Nursing Yeomanry uniform, 1945, Public Domain,

If it’s kick-ass ladies that Alex wants to see, then my selection should more than fit the bill. This year I couldn’t resist Bad Squiddo’s wonderful new range of WWII female SOE agents. All of them, with one exception, are based on real life heroic agents who served the cryptically named Special Operations Executive. The characters include:

  • Krystyna Skarbek
  • Nancy Wake
  • Virginia Hall
  • Noor Inayat Khan
  • Annie Norman

The first four are based on real WWII SOE agents, the last one is Bad Squiddo supremo herself, Annie Norman, aka “Gestapo’s Most Wanted”. Annie might, of course, even be a genuine agent too but I’m not allowed to talk about that…

Krystyna Skarbek, SOE agent, Public Domain

I’ve also had my eye on another female figure from Bad Squiddo but it’s doubtful I will get time to paint that before Fembruary’s deadline, so (like a good SOE agent) I’m keeping that very ‘hush-hush’ for now.

Man of Tin blog has submitted some lovely Fembruary work in recent years – are you in again this year, Mark?

I’ve been painting figures again this week, so more news on that to follow.

Girl Soldier: Women of the Future!

Posted on by Marvin

I’ve recently been reviewing a website which covers the collectable postcards of French printer/publisher Albert Bergeret. Bergeret was a former soldier serving between the years of 1879 and 1884. Developing his knowledge in modern printing techniques, he launched his own series of popular postcards and established a thriving company in a career that lasted until he died in 1932. Early on, he covered contemporary subjects such as the disastrous Andrée’s Arctic balloon expedition and the controversial Dreyfus Affair.

‘Zoavettes’: “In the distance the enemy advances, but we know how to stop it!“

One of the series in particular caught my eye however, as it seemed to chime with my previous Girl Soldier series of posts on the imaginary depiction of women soldiers. As a former soldier, I wonder how much Bergeret himself was directly involved in this series.

A French NCO holds a ticket for lodgings. She wears a kepi, full pack and a dark, braided sleeveless jacket.

The series in question imagined what “women of the future” would look like in a series titled Les Femmes de l’avenir.

#9. 2nd lieutenant

Presumably, this series was intended to be quaintly amusing, in the same manner that Ellam’s Girl Soldier series of postcards were. Today, some of these ‘future women’s roles’ now sound amusing only by dint of their being so commonplace to modern ears – females as a doctor, a lawyer, an artist, a student, a mayor?! Oh là là!

A female doctor? Sacré bleu!

As predictors of future fashion they are amusingly inaccurate, and yet as prophets of social change are curiously prescient at the same time. The series of trade cards envisaged military roles for women to include:

  • A Zouave
  • An NCO
  • A general
  • A marine
  • A drummer
  • A ‘garde champêtre’ (a sort of French local police)
  • A master of arms

Unlike the original Girl Soldier series of illustrations which I posted on, the ladies’ dress owe little to real military uniforms and seem to borrow much from pantomime and fancy dress. The shapely costumes and bare arms may have been an early 20th Century appeal to the erotic (‘the right to bare arms’, perhaps?!). That said, if we are to accept literally that these are ‘women of the future’ then, I suppose a degree of fantasy and creative license can be granted on that basis. Bergeret clearly imagined that sleeves would become very unpopular and that swords and bicorne hats would be back in vogue…

A Marine

Bergeret also produced a separate two-card only series also on the topic of female soldiers, called “Zouavettes”:

Salut! These Zouvettes here make reference here to the visit of Edward 7th to France in 1903, a popular Francophile whose efforts led in part to the Entente Cordiale.

As with the Girl Soldier series of postcards, however patronising these images might have been intended to have been received by the public, there must have also been a degree of unintentional empowerment and liberation inherent in the sight of women fulfilling these roles. And after all, many roles such as these for women really were the future!

“An Audience with Empress Catherine” #FEMbruary 2020

Posted on by Marvin

I have now completed my submission for the 3rd Annual FEMbruary Challenge! I posted on my FEMbruary figures recently and promised that I’d share something which ‘would complete the scene more fully’. Well, I went a little further than planned…

Entirely coincidentally, Catherine the first is the 2nd Russian empress called Catherine that I’ve painted for a FEMbruary challenge, Catherine the second (the Great) being painted back in 2018:

  • Catherine I
  • Catherine II

I had some real trouble with basing. At first, I just glued the figures to pennies with modelling clay as usual without thinking of what Catherine and the ladies of court might be standing on. Then I spent time, filing down the clay and adding some PVA glue to smooth the surface. Next I painted a tiled floor which looked great apart from being hopelessly uneven!

So I scrapped that and went back to the drawing board. I found some cheap HO scale mosaic card floors which I though might look the business in some kind of a stately garden.

Adding some hedges and flowers, the palace garden idea took shape. My Capability Brown talents in full flow, I made a gravel path alongside a hedge. Helpfully, my Strelets Roman Senate set also came with a roman statue which I added to my design. I wasn’t sure how to paint a marble statue but a little cream colouring with satin varnish seems to have worked well enough?

Aside from the statuary, there are the two court ladies I presented previously; one a lady glancing with a fan and the other patting her lap dog.

A woman of the nobility observes the general’s greeting.
“There’s a good boy!” – said Catherine to General Repnin…

The other characters that I was planning to introduce are also from Strelets’ “Court and Army of Peter I” set. The Russian general is bending to kiss the hand of Empress Catherine, a fact correctly identified by a commentator on my last post.

There’s also some guards from the same set, veterans of the Great Northern War, which I’ve painted up to watch over her imperial highness. I know the early Strelets figures aren’t to everyone’s taste, but I do love the expressions on these guys.

Finally, you may have noticed the large house in the background. This is courtesy of Paperboys on Campaign 18th Century buildings book, which I had purchased recently anyway with a view to placing some of them on the wargaming table, their scale apparently being far more suitable to my 20mm figures than the 28mm they’re originally designed for.

The building is unfinished but I only needed the rear facing the garden. It’s far too small for any of the grand St. Petersburg palaces of course, but perhaps it will stand for a wing or even a little ‘out-building’ in the grounds of one?

And with that, like a genuflecting general, I bow graciously out of FEMbruary. Don’t forget to check out the other varied and fabulous work being created across the blogosphere for Alex at Leadballoony’s FEMbruary by checking out his original post here –

Leadballoony’s 3rd Fembruary Challenge!!

A sample of these glorious creations include;

My young daughter shows she’s a FEMbruary supporter by helpfully adding a sky effect in the background of my photo!

Court Appearances: FEMbruary 2020

Posted on by Marvin

FEMbruary has been declared! For the 3rd year, I’m formally throwing my hat into the ring for FEMbruary 2020. Begun in 2018, this cracking idea by Alex at Leadballoony blog invited modellers to share their work on female miniatures or otherwise join in as “part of an ongoing conversation about how women are presented within our hobby”. In previous years, Suburban Militarism has submitted:

Catherine the Great by Bad Squiddo Games

This year, I’m turning to my preferred 1/72 scale. The figures I’ve chosen are from Strelets’ “Court and Army of Peter the 1st” ‘big box’ set which I’ve had for a little while now in my far-too-large pile of unpainted items. It features soldiers and guards from Tsar Peter I’s newly formed professional Russian army, and also contains a number of unusual and entertaining court figures, including Peter the Great himself.

For FEMbruary, I’ve taken from this set three aristocratic ladies in fine dresses, one of whom is the Empress, Peter’s wife. I’ve already glued them on pennies and PSR’s description of each is below:

“Empress Catherine I (1684-1727) – Peter’s second wife, whom he married in 1707 and was named Empress but only really had power after his death. The marriage was a very happy one.”

“Court lady – In ‘German’ or western dress, with a large wig as required by Peter.”

“Court lady – As above, but this one pets a small dog at her skirts.”

Much of the court personalities from this set will of course fit the era for my new War of the Spanish Succession project. As such, they could as Plastic Soldier Review state; “work equally well at the court of Louis XIV or any other monarch, so the potential is quite considerable. However a top quality paint job is about the only hope for these otherwise rather unsatisfying figures.” Gulp! The pressure is on to meet that challenge, and I hardly need confess that I’ve not painted 18th Century ladies dresses before, never mind a dog…

The figures seem to show those early Strelets characteristics of imagination and fun, with a distinctive sculpting style which divides opinion. In the main, I haven’t found flash to be a particular issue with Strelets figures but these courtly ladies underwent some serious plastic surgery with my scalpel. In the case of the lady and dog, her face quite literally went ‘under the knife’!

Always up for a challenge, I’ll share my progress, good or bad, in due course. In the mean time, do pop over to Leadballoony’s blog for more on other FEMbruary figures and participants!

Crimean Personalities: La Cantinière

Posted on by Marvin

Another one from the Crimean Personalities series.

As I’ve indicated before, none of the French “Last Assault on Sevastopol” figures are named individuals as in other sets, but it is possible to positively identify at least one more of them from some Roger Fenton photographs. And here she is below:-

Fenton’s image of a cantinière during the Crimean campaign.

The photograph shows a ‘vivandiere‘, or equally a ‘cantiniere‘, a woman attached to a French infantry regiment. They primarily provided food and drink, organised washing, ran the canteens and tended to the infirm or wounded.

These ladies were formally enrolled into the army, they were subject to its discipline and rules, and were assigned next to the musicians in the Order of Battle, parading whenever necessary with their attached regiments in uniforms which closely echoed the men’s.

Fenton’s cantinière tends to a wounded, or possibly just profoundly drunk, Zouave…

Though traditionally called vivandières, during the time of the Revolutionary Wars it seems such women became known as cantinières (i.e. those serving wine in canteens). With the restoration of the Bourbon Monarchy, the army was instructed to eliminate the title of cantinière and officially restore the more traditional vivandière. Regardless, the troops themselves simply continued to use cantinière, however.

During the time of the French 2nd Empire, the cantinière had become a romantic icon of the French Army and Napoleon III doubled their numbers in time for the Crimean War with at least one assigned to each regiment.

So it was no surprise that Roger Fenton should encounter one and indeed seek to capture some images of these remarkable female soldiers.

Another view by Fenton of the same cantinière.
© National Army Museum .

Strelets figure certainly bears some resemblance to the lady in the photograph. They have reproduced the cane in the photograph as being a riding crop, but the addition of some brass paint makes it a little more cane-like again. For the colours, I’ve simply chosen something appropriate to match a French infantryman. The eyes however appear to have been sculpted – and painted – into a squint or wink!

I was planning to hold back on this figure until next FEMbruary, but with that challenge being so far off it seemed wrong not to paint her at the same time as the rest of her Crimean French compatriots.

Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3584693

Of course, the proliferation of French cantinières were not the only female presence on campaign in the Crimea. Roger Fenton took other images of women including the formidable Mrs Fanny Duberley, a popular wife of a captain in the 8th Hussars. She kept a very entertaining journal of her experiences which can be read online here. Another modeller, Tony at Tin Soldiering On blog, recently created his own brilliant version of this spirited lady (see links below) by altering an old mounted Airfix Maid Marion figure. Brilliant!

http://tonystoysoldiers.blogspot.com/2018/11/interfering-with-mrs-duberly.html

http://tonystoysoldiers.blogspot.com/2018/11/mrs-duberly-on-parade.html

As for me, jut one last post still to come on my own Crimean personalities…