"What details do you paint on your 6mm infantry?" Topic

Or, in other words, what details don't you paint on your 6mm ACW figures? For the Rebs, do you still paint different colored pants, jackets, blanket rolls, etc. It seems they would take appreciably longer to paint than their Union counterparts.

I have not painted mine yet (four years in the lead pile…) but when I do I will be painting different color pants and jackets and bedrolls. Since I will be doing them in production line order it will not be too much work. I will paint every X model one way and then do the same for the next color scheme.

I do paint the Rebs with different colour pants, etc – but I do them in batches and then parse them out, i.e. I will paint twelve figs with butternut pants and grey coats, twelve in grey coats and pants, etc and then mix them up when I base them

@Frederick: Are your figures molded on strips or individually?

Joe

I'll be able to give you an informed opinion starting next week.

I've just finished my Union forces.

link

The boys in grey soon!

You did a great job on your Union troops. Is there anything you did not individually paint?

I mix up pants and hats and bedrolls but I work in big batches typically so it's pretty easy. Every 6th hat is color Y, then color B, and so on.

Yes, much as per Extra crispy.
The extra time is only in opening and closing the additional bottles of paint and brush cleaning.
I used some 5 to 7 different colored pants and jackets.
The result is… very "Rebel" look.

MG

I haven't done any 6mm ACW lately but varied is ideal.

For most Rebs, I'd certainly make them unique. I think I had 1,000+ 10mm Gallic foot and no two were the same.

@79thPA

Joe, for my Union troops I undercoated them black, I drybrushed the body area (and kepis) with a dark blue then again with a mid-blue. Light blue on the trousers, a touch of brown/black/grey/bone on the hair, a touch of flesh on the face, black on the kepi brims and all over the hats. green around the base leaving shoes and boots black, brown on the musket, flesh on the hands, black on any belts and cartridge box, light grey on breadbag and strap. Brass and red on the drum, black drumsticks, brown on flagpoles, gold on finials. Varnish and done.

After being humbled two + decades ago, by a talented painter, I sometimes did some mustaches and certainly stripes on trousers and linings etc.

Then I stopped being myope….

I vary it, but tend to paint the Rebs in consistent colors for a base (typically 20-24 infantry using the strips used by Heroics & Ros). Since I get two "units" in a pack, I paint one half one way (maybe gray pants and brown tops with dark gray blanket rolls) and the other half a different way (maybe pants and tops in two different shades of grey with a light brown blanket roll). I use three or four colors on the hats if they are slouch and not kepis.

Details I paint: pants, tops, blanket roll, rifle stock, rifle barrel plus bayonet (if there is one), dot of flesh on face and two hands, and hats. I may put a dot of black on the cartridge box if it is evident.

And all of this blends together on the table top and if you are more than two or three feet away, you can't distinguish mounted cavalry from infantry. The artillery still sticks out.

I use Baccus figures. I paint 40 strips at a time. Each group of 10 strips is painted in the same colours and then the strips are mixed together, 2 strips to a base. In one lot of 10 strips, all the guys on the left will have Union pants and brown jackets. The guys second from the left have light grey pants and poo brown jackets and so on. Blanket rolls are done in two different colours for each lot of 10 strips. Ditto for the haversacks. I also paint the cartridge boxes and put a strip of gunmetal down the brown muskets.

The secret is to paint to a system for ease of painting, but to end up with a result that looks random. Works for me.

I'm about two thirds of the way through painting my Union troops. I paint (in this order):
jacket
trousers
musket stocks and flag staffs
musket barrel
face & hands
hair (one shade of brown for them all)
kepis and hats
black bits (belts, pouches, scabbards, shoes)
ground colour on strip base
off-white for canteen and bread bag strap
bread bag
canteen
gold bits
red on drum rims

I'll be starting my Rebs in a few weeks time. I'll probably be mixing up the colours a fair bit but aiming to keep them with about half the jackets and half the trousers in grey. Hats and blanket rolls will be in a mix of colours as well.