Pre-Bardin uniform project: heavy carving

Today, I present you some plastics hardcore carving results. I'm still not finished with my project to paint all possible units that wore the French pre-Bardin style infantry uniform by using the same HaT set - but at least, I'm getting near to finish one of the biggest of Napoleon's allies - the units of the Kingdom of Italy.

Among them, I found two units that brought me to a certain challenge. Both uniforms share a greyish vest/trouser colour that is not that often seen on uniform plates. But what both have in common is the fact, that under normal duty circumstances, they certainly wouldn't have worn any backpacks. So for the first time, I had not only to remove some cords or swap a head, but had to remove a chunky part of plastic that hadn't been intended to be ever removed.

This was pretty challenging. Although the plastic of the figures is not that hard at all, it's a massive block of plastic that has to be cut off. In addition, I chose grenadiers as basic figures, which required a headswap with the fusiliers. At the first try, I underestimated the effect that - when half cut - the resistance of the plastic decreases, which ended with the scalpel blade slicing halfway through the tip of my left hand's thumb. Ouch

But after all, I managed to scrape off the backbacks. You can't just slice it away, you must also try to achieve the overall shape of how the soldier's back would look like, including a little bit of texture which looks like belts etc.
Well - the final result looks pretty nice to me and was worth the work .

The first example is a soldier of the medic company standing guard - for example while guarding a field hospital. Brown, light grey, white and black... I really like the combination of the colours. In addition, this is a rather unusual subject because you seldomly see units that are not directly battle-related.

When you see this figure from a small distance, it appears as if the backpack has never been there. :-D

The second one is is a galley guard. These chaps were the sentinels who guarded the convicts who had to row the galleys that some nations in the Mediterranean region still used in the Napoleonic age.
Working on a ship, this guy logically has no need for a backpack at all. So I had to remove it for him as well. In addition I decided to make the base look as if the figure was standing on deck, right in front of the guardrail.

I always liked that green of the Italian uniforms - in addition with light grey cuffs'n collar, trousers and vest, this figure looks really pretty. Although you wouldn't see those guys on a battlefield at all.

In both cases, I wasn't able to find representations of drummers or officers. In case of the galley guards, I found out that they were subordinated to the navy staff of officers and had no own officer's staff at all. In case of the medics... well, I don't know. Maybe someone else might help me?