"help with irregular Indian inf&cav for Indian Mutiny" Topic

What suggestions does anyone have about painting irregular Indian cav and infantry as troops for a raja during the Indian Mutiny. I have the Foundry infantry and Cavalry from the Sikh War range with units of matchlocks and sword and spear. Thanks for the advice in advance.

For irregular Sikh cavalry a variety of colours is useful with a predominance of blue.

A basic white with unit colored turbans will do as well.

Flashman, Are you asking about the irregular regiments that stayed loyal and served with the British or the mutineer regiments? I can help you, but need to know which you are asking about first.

Terry

I'm talking about the irregular troops that were fielded by a prince or the Rani. Not regulars from the East India Company. The matchlockmen and sword and spear troops that fought for an Indian ruler.

Track down the book "A Season in Hell" about Lucknow – the front cover (though of British and allied) gives a great idea of the color of India in the era. You can use it as your guide for the types of Irregulars you are referring to. I will be doing so one day with mine (already own the figures but in 15 mm). Some of the units will be uniform since some of the princes did have nicely uniformed units.

As Doc Ord says, mainly white with some unfying colours to turbans and sashes to identify units works well, (examples on the Foundry website look good) or a garishly-coloured unit to identify a Rajah's bodyguard works well.

take a look at period paintings – there's a ton of colour; to me just white clothing is accurate, but really bland for Indians. They used about any colour you can think of; red, yellow, green, blue, pink, purple; stripes, dots, etc were also used. So don't be afraid to use some colour!

Typical Eighteenth or Ninteenth century Irregulars.

From the book 'The Golden Calm' (I highly recommend this book – loads of good period painting of troops and buildings in Delhi c.1840 I think).