Hello Again. I am working on some of the above in preparation for a ACW raiding game. This is one of my projects for 2019 and an excuse to get some of my own figures painted for a change!
I normally take my photographs outside because the better light can make a big difference to the overall quality. Today it was a little overcast, (and very cold), so I did not linger for very long.
My ACW collection is a mix of Wargames Foundry, Perry and Redoubt. I feel this provides a nice mix of height and build in my units and any figure which appears vastly out of scale is placed along side a smaller figure which has a wedge of thin plywood under the base to make them look taller.
Above are two Foundry figures which are part of a unit pack I bought a few years ago. I noticed a sale on the Foundry website where unit packs were being sold at a greatly reduced price, (which bought them in line with the figure price of everyone else!), so I purchased two packs of Union and Confederate cavalry.
My horses are painted using an 'oil paint wipe' method, (ala Peter Guilder I am told), where the figure is deflashed, degreased, primed and painted in a lighter enamel shade of the required colour. Then a darker shade in oil paint covers the whole figure and is gently wiped off. Do not use a cloth that sheds fibres as these will adhere to the figure and spoil the finish. I have used my finger here and wiped off the excess on to a cloth in between wipes. When the oil paint is dry I paint in the saddlery.
On looking at the photograph of this figure I was surprised to see how stark the highlighting on the trousers looked. On looking at the figure in daylight it was not that apparent.
I feel this maybe another example of a 'wargames distance' observation. When I photoshopped this picture I cropped it which made the figure about four times larger. This then magnified everything on the figure. Across a wargames table it does look quite acceptable.
The uniform is a representation of the later war 'cadet grey', for the trousers and the 'English blue cloth' for the jacket. As the war progressed the Union blockade took more effect and what imports were received became more important to the Confederacy. England was the source of a lot of material but the 'blueness' of this cloth led to 'blue on blue' fire being received by some Confederate units. Texans at Antietam comes to mind.
My grey horses are painted as before except after the enamel I paint a thin layer of acrylic white, (mixed with a little Vallejo 837 pale sand), and then a fine stipple of oil based pastel is applied with a colour shaper. This resembles a paint brush but has a rubber point instead of bristles. I researched grey horses beforehand and printed off some pictures from the internet to use as reference when I did this.
I varied the shirt and coat colours to make some figures stand out more. Soldiers were always asking home to supply clothes so a good mix of civilian clothes always provides some colour to my units.
I placed the flag bearer on a base with an officer. The Flag is from GMB and on the white horse here you can see some Army Painter soft tone to define the muscles on the horse. I have also used Windsor & Newton Peat Brown ink in the past for the same effect.
Something you do not always see in wargame cavalry units from this period is plenty of piebald and skewbald horses. I have many of these in my units.
I read a number of features by a Gustav Adolphous, on the internet, who studies the uniforms of the Confederate Armies and he has described 'white uniforms' which were available to them. I added some coloured trim here for the far figure. However troops did not like to wear then as the colour white was associated with 'slave clothing'. Despite this the use of white uniforms was widespread.
Apart from red, I try to make the colours of civilian clothing look a but washed out. Here a pale green fits the bill.
Lastly another officer. I use this and the chap above to act as commanders for my cavalry units. This also gives my sharpshooters something to fire at in future games!
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