First Arditi are Complete-y!

 I apologize for the title of the post. I'll show myself out.

Still here?

 Here they are, the first of what will be two arditi stands:

I know there are who people would prefer I paint eyes or rosy cheeks or shadows and stuff. My painting style inspiration for 54s has always been Britain's Deetail figures and their Seaforth Highlander set 5188 and similar.

 

The figures are by Dulcop and feature one of their least animated poses - which is hard to imagine. Indeed, they almost ended up looking like a synchronized swim team:

Where's Esther Williams?

But wisely, I think, I reconsidered the basing arrangement.

The straps on the guns are brittle to say the least - the lump on the middle figure's strap was there already - and I believe it was glued together as a repair by the previous owner. The strap I repaired has s similar lump but it's not visible in this picture. Trust me, it's there.

I have the next three ready to enter the painting queue - they are jumping the line because I am nearing the completion of the rifle infantry and assault troops for these armies(for now). It also took I think three days from start to finish and maybe an hour or two tops of total effort. I still have to do a few head swaps for the Italian cavalry (and then paint them), order additional machine gun teams for both sides, and paint some single figures to function as gun crews.

I don't need any of those things to field an interesting and amusing game, so it feels like I am entering into the home stretch here at least for the core of this collection (I see adding British and Germans as a nice to have, but not necessary, side project to this)

As a result, I am tempted to pick up the pace to complete everything for this collection - but I also know that's a sure fire way for me to burn out. Slow and steady wins the race.