These ten 15mm scale plastic Confederate soldiers are manufactured by “Warlord Games” and came free on a sprue accompanying Issue 393 of "Wargames Illustrated" . Soon to be released as part of the Nottingham-based company's "Epic Battles: American Civil War" game for its Black Powder rule-set, the line of infantrymen is one of two needed to form a single base of miniatures, and are based upon the uniforms of an Alabama unit.
The figures were primed using a double-coat of "Citadel" Abaddon Black and then slowly had all their details 'picked out' started from the ground up. Initially, I was awfully tempted simply to stick to basic black for all of their shoes, but then decided to select three models where I'd apply a combination of "Vallejo" Heavy Sienna and "The Army Painter" Strong Tone Quickshade to their footwear.
I did something similar with the troops' trousers too, as I didn't just want all of them to be marching in the colour pants. As a result I applied some "Vallejo" Heavy Bluegrey and "Citadel" Nuln Oil to eight of the soldiers' trousers, and Vallejo" Heavy Sienna and "The Army Painter" Strong Tone Quickshade to the remaining two; making sure not to pick any Johnny Rebs who already had brown shoes.
For the Confederates' jackets I either went with a mixture of "Vallejo" Sombre Grey and "Citadel" Nuln Oil or "Vallejo" Heavy Blue and "Citadel" Drakenhof Nightshade. This choice of colours might seem a little odd for a Southern unit but the Alabama recruits actually wore "a dark blue frock coat" and "black broad brimmed felt hats at the war's start," So I wanted to capture that uniqueness with my palette choices.
I later gave all the Kepi hats a dash of "Vallejo" Sombre Grey and "Citadel" Nuln Oil, their blanket rolls a smidgeon of either "Vallejo" Heavy Sienna or White with a wash of "The Army Painter" Strong Tone Quickshade, and their belt buckles a touch of "Vallejo" Gold and (more) Strong Tone Quickshade by "The Army Painter". Finally their hands and faces were layered with "Vallejo" Heavy Skintone, shaded in "Citadel" Reikland Fleshshade, and lastly highlighted with extra dabs of "Vallejo" Heavy Skintone.
With the first of my ten "Epic Battles: American Civil War" infantry lines "successfully completed, I have made a little more progress on the two remaining plastic Raptor models I own for "Unmatched". These "Mondo Games" dinosaurs have now had the majority of their large claws and numerous teeth 'picked out' with "Vallejo" White, and now just need one last 'big push' to be table-top ready...
Thanks Joe. The ACW figures take a lot of time and patience though, so are proving a bit hard to simply pick up and paint. The raptor's white claws are obviously considerably dirtied up with a "Citadel" Agrax Earthshade, so look ivory(ish) to the naked eye when finished.
The ACW figures look very good and put my own painting efforts to shame - raptors looking good too, though I don;t reallylike the white claws !
Thanks Dave. The ACW stuff has come out a little bit more shiny than I'd have liked despite my using "Vallejo" Matt Varnish on them. But hopefully, as with Gloss, a lot of the shine will go with handling. One of the Raptors is now finished and should be posted up soon.
Great work on your ACW models Simon, they turned out really well, and the raptors are almost there too
Cheers Roger. I think 100 of the ACW figures ranked up en-mass will look really good on the table-top. Just not sure I'll be able to face another 900 afterwards though, LOL!!!
Should have at least one of the Raptors posted up this weekend, and hopefully next week will see the first of my Fembruary entries too. I've managed to get a couple of good quality painting sessions in this week, so made quite a bit of progress on a few models.