Real life and Cibo's Little Dudes

The past few weeks have been a challenge for me. In late March, I suddenly and tragically lost someone very near and dear to me. It's a pain that will forever accompany and I will never be entirely whole again.

The hobby is a diversion from the challenges of real life for me, painting allows me a moment of meditation where my mind is only on the brush, the paint and the figures. I haven't painted much these past few weeks but when I have, its been a haven from the pain of the loss.

Anyway, I finished some initial units for my 10mm Risorgimento project. First up is a unit of Neapolitan line infantry. I painted them in the bigia (a fatigue shell jacket of sorts) and white summer trousers. I imagine other units will have the aquamarine trousers to go along with the blue/grey bigia.

The figures are from Cibo's Little Dudes and the flags are from Tiny Tin Troops. Very pleased with the product and service of both vendors.

Next up are some red-shirted Garibaldini. Cibo only offers one pack of  Garibaldini infantry. Luckily I don't really need any cavalry and I think I can do some conversions to make some artillery crews. I plan to order more figures to flesh out my Bourbon and Garibaldini armies and I will pick up a Papal army as well.

 

10mm Risorgimento

There are certain conflicts that have long interested me: Mexican American War, Flodden, French Wars of Religion, First Schleswig War, The Boyne, etc. One other that has had my eye since a young boy was the Risorgimento, I remember flipping through the pages of the book The Soldier by Richard Humble and Richard Scollins and seeing a color plate depicting  red clad soldier of Garibaldi raising his musket in victory and that seed created the life long interest in the Wars of Italian Unification.

The book that inspired so many hobby projects. If you are a wargamer and don't have it, I highly recommend it. 

I have started (and stopped) many projects to collect, paint and wargame with toy soldier armies for the Risorgimento. Recently, I stumbled across a Swiss-based 10mm range for the conflict called Cibo's Little Dudes. The website only show's a partial range but when I contacted the owner, he provided me a catalog of a complete range filled with all of the belligerents. I placed a decent sized order via paypal for some  Garibaldini and Neapolitan Bourbons. Twelve days later, I received a small package filled with beautiful sculpts. I quickly painted up a few sample figures.

Here we have some of Cibo's Little Garibaldini Dudes. The sculpts are more on the caricature style (something that I like). Sculpting is very crisp with enough detail and the metal is high quality. They paint up nicely.

How do they compare with Pendraken? Well here is a side by side with some Pendraken French sculpts painted up as Neapolitan infantry. Roughly the same height but the sculpting style is different (Pendraken looking more anatomically correct and slighter in heft). I would say they are compatible and will look fine sharing the same wargames table (probably in separate units).

Here they are posed with some other Garibaldini I painted years ago. This older base consists of (L-R) Old Glory dismounted ACW cavalry, old style Pendraken ACW sculpt and newer French FPW Communard. 

I anticipate ordering more of Cibo's Little Dudes and I anticipate ordering more Pendraken from the same conflict. Both are beautifully sculpted ranges and I want both of them on my wargaming table...it's just a matter of painting them!