Peninsular war continues

I have reached what I regard as a milestone in my Napoleonic Peninsular collections.  I now have 6 battalions of french infantry, skirmishers, a battery of foot artillery and two regiments of cavalry.  To face them I have completed 3 regiments of British infantry, skirmishers, a squadron of hussars and battery of horse artillery.  Phase one was supposed to be a brigade each plus artillery plus one regiment of cavalry.  However I found myself in a groove with the french so just kept going.  The Brits were more of a slog- all that red- but very satisfying to see the end result.  My little British force is shown below- terrible picture and I will post some better shots of each unit as these are based.  Figures are Front Rank, Foundry, Perry and a couple of conversions for the officers.

Have decided now to consider this the end of phase one am now ready to move into phase two. Two things I should now sensibly do.

Firstly, I decided not to base the units as I went along partly because when I started I wasn't sure what rules to use- then I played Black Powder and Im hooked.  I decided on my basing scheme but then- apart from one french gun have not based anything yet as I didn't want to break the painting flow.

Alternatively, the original plan involved balancing out the forces with a brigade of Portuguese including a regiment of Front Ranks lovely cavalry.  And I was set to do that- but then Front Rank released their reinforcement packs of French infantry.  Absolutely brilliant and just what the range has needed for ages.  I bought two packs- one with bicornes.  I thought I would put them aside until I was ready to paint more french.  But looking at them and taking inspiration from Clarence Harrison who has converted Victrix revolutionary French to Spanish infantry I wondered how much conversion it might take to make these French into Spanish.

You can see Clarences fine figures at the link below:

www.quindiastudios.blogspot.co.uk

I have now undertaken literally minutes of research and decided that- provided I am willing to ignore a number of historical inaccuracies (I am) this could work.  I don't know what the fascination is with conversions but I get a perverse pleasure in turning figures that are supposed to be one thing into something else.  Maybe its because in some way this makes my figures feel unique, or perhaps its just that its fun to mess about with a Stanley knife and green stuff- who knows.  Anyway I am going to experiment and see what happens.

I've decided to undertake the following conversion. I have removed the pom pom from the shako and I have given the majority of the figures big Spanish looking (imho) facial hair.  Possibly reinforcing national stereotypes- who knows.  So pretty simple and the results shown above.  In terms of painting I intend to create a scruffy looking unit from the 1810 to 1811 period so before shipments of British arms and uniforms come through in significant amounts.  Figures will have a mix of old beaten up white uniform and brown peasant cloth.  I'll do six figures mix in Spanish Officers and see what happens.  Will post the results when finished.