ACW Commission: Gun Carriages

I usually enjoy my painting sessions, but for some reason, painting guns has always been more a chore than a pleasure. I always like to base the guns before painting for extra durability, but this makes the nooks and crannies difficult to reach.

I have always primed my guns black, applied a silver drybrush, then picked out the wood work with my detail brush. With 15mm guns, where I'm only applying one color to the wood, this works well enough. With 28mm guns, where I try to highlight the wood grain, it makes for a pretty tedious process.

Today I decided to reverse my usual plan of attack and prime the guns in the wood color. Here are the 8 Confederate guns primed brown and the 10 Union guns primed green.

To make sure this technique would work, I went ahead and finished one gun carriage tonight. I'm pleased with the look of the piece, and priming in the wood color made the job much faster. I think I'll be using this technique from now on.

The barrels will be painted separately, then glued on during basing. If I glue the gun before painting the carriage, my paint jobs always look sloppy around the elevating screw.

ACW Commission: Union Generals Finished

There are nine generals to command the US forces. The figures are a mixture of Sash and Saber, Foundry, and Perry Miniatures.

Foundry McClellan

Sash and Saber

Sash and Saber

Perry Doubleday

Perry Meade

Foundry Grant

Foundry John Bell Hood

Sash and Saber Confederate

Not too sure on this one: could be Perry.

Over the next week, I'll be painting the 18 guns. Then it's on to basing.

ACW Commission: Mounted Union Cavalry Finished

There are twenty Union cavalrymen here, enough for five units under Glenn's Civil War rules. Most of the figures are Sash and Saber, but there are also four Foundry cavalrymen. The Foundry figures are noticeably larger than Sash and Saber, but as they are in different units, I doubt anyone will notice.

We're definitely nearing the end now. I have ten Union generals and 18 guns left to paint, and then I'll start basing.

ACW Commission: Union Dismounted Cavalry Finished

I had a bit of a setback this week. After I sprayed the Union cavalry with enamel black paint, the paint clouded up. I thought I could paint the figures with some acrylic black to hide the cloudiness, but the bottom halves of the figures were grainy, and the grainy paint obscured some detail. I had never had this happen before.

I decided to clean up the figures and start again. I soaked all 30 dismounted and 20 mounted figures in Simple Green for two days, then spent another two days scrubbing the paint off with an old toothbrush. With a new can of paint, I primed the figures again, and this time the paint was good.

So I ended up going five days into the hole on these figures. I managed to make good time in painting them, though, finishing in four days.

The figures are a mix of Wargames Foundry, Perry Miniatures, and Sash and Saber.

Next up are the re-primed mounted Union cavalry.