First signs of Spring in the air here, the Crocuses are popping their colourful heads above the ground and it's warming up .... just slightly. I'm working out the months painting schedule and the plan is:
Old John Strelets mounted Confederate Generals set (x12), Strelets Union Personalities on foot (x35) plus assorted plastic Engineers and gunners, 4 lovely Russian Falconers and finally 4 Airfix US cavalry which are not on the order of painting list BUT I simply cannot resist them!
Geoff 2mm bases for half scale DBA. Now I'm back in the swing of things I'm sure I can get these painted as Geoff has been incredibly patient.
Noel The final 5 Epic ECW infantry sprues/regiments before we start on the cavalry next month. This will be a total of 21 Regiments of Foot each of 80 figures painted so far. This will be a solid couple of weeks work.
April will then begin with more US cavalry for Mark.
'Battle Cry' ACW side project. The above represents a comfortable amount of painting for me and still leaves me plenty of spare hobby time for the start of 'Twydall' shunting layout and the new side project using Epic ACW sprues. I have now decided that I'm keen to carry on with this but I don't want to go down the whole expansive terrain building rout again so I'm going to build it based on the simple 'Battle Cry' ACW board game using 60mm frontage bases and a printed 13 x 9 hex grid fleece mat from Tinywargames with 75mm grid. I'm sure this will keep me engaged for a good 6 months or so at least.
The Epic ACW's are coming along and I'm enjoying doing some again. Progress photo below. I'm just deciding which flags to go with as the Epic flags are on the small side. I think I may go with wargame Designs. I bought a box of Union Cavalry and Zouaves from Ebay for just £22.00 which will give me my Union and Confederate mounted and dismounted cavalry bases, a couple of skirmish bases (2nd Sharpshooters?) plus the two Zouave bases which is all I require. As the box includes 3 sprues each containing a command strip and 3 infantry strips there will be a leftover 60/80 figure Zouave unit going FREE is anyone doing Epic ACW can use it (Norm?).
Photos below show the fine Strelets Confederate Generals set. I noticed that the horses feature a mix of nosebands and non nosebands which seems to be born out as correct at the time of the Civil war by research, a nice touch Strelets!). The black undercoat and flat brown drybrush is my go to method now for ACW's (both sides) and the Pony Wars commission, in fact I even use it for the Epic Pike and Shot as it quickly establishes high light points and gets all of the tricky pikes and muskets/rests/ etc done from the start and an additional careful dry brush of Flat Earth gives a highlight. Let's just say that it works for me.
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| The great man himself! |
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| Superb detail in these plastic figures. |
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| John Bell Hood, Texas. |
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| Tried to get variety into the Reb uniforms. |
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| Just bases and varnish required. |
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| Todays painting, Zouaves. |
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| A great value set for £22.00! ( note, same set for Rebs just Grey sprues!) |
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| The alternative to a wet palette, useful for dry brushing and horse painting etc. |
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| Pure nostalgia, Decades since I last painted Airfix US Cavalry! |
