Confederate ACW army progress

I've been working away a lot the last couple of weeks so haven't made much progress. I've managed to get some more of the soft plastic figs painted though. I've also tried out a couple of highlighting techniques for fun.

I tried to do all the variants of the figs (not many!) . All the flag holders are holding those furled up flags so I may get some separate flag dudes as it would be nice to have some unfurled flags on show. I just painted it red and added a darker red wash. Does anybody know of any tutorials on painting furled flags??

I tried some different highlighting techniques. The first fig (far left) is done my normal way - Base colours then washed in GW Agrax eartshade. The next guy has been dry brushed in grey (yes I know it looks blue!) and for the guy on the right I just highlighted some of the raised grey areas. I think I may do more with the highlighted areas. I don't really like the dry brushed guy.

I'm taking the rest of my first 20 man regiment on holiday so i'll get them finished and see how they look together. After that I'm going to do some cavalry.

New project ACW armies

Now the Bolt Action army is done, I'm moving onto the next project. I've wanted to do an American Civil war army for ages now and now is the time to start.

At Salute earlier in the year I picked up some cheap ACW infantry. I managed to get 120 plastic figures for about £20. They're not great quality and were a mixture of Confederate and Union soldiers. I decided to use these as the base for my confederate army as there wasn't much variation in the figures so mixing the 2 will look better on the bases.

Last night I painted up 2 figures to see how they'd look.

I'm pleased. They look a lot better than I was expecting as they look pretty poo out of the bag. Here are a couple of pictures that show the raw figs, primed and fully painted.

They're made of a soft kind of plastic but they painted up fine and will look good when based up.

US Bolt Action army complete.....for now

After a short break due to work I got my Bolt Action army finished last night. All ready to go now. It's roughly the same size as the 500 point army you can buy so I presume it's roughly around there. The make up is as follows:

2 x  10 man squads of NCO, BAR and 8 riflemen
2 x Bazooka teams
1 x Sniper teams
1 x HQ - Lieutenant and rifleman
1 x 30. cal team
1 x Sherman
1 x M3A1 Halftrack

I'm pretty pleased, it's a good enough base army to get going. I've already got my eye on additions though also I may start a Waffen SS army but it'll do for now. I also still have about another 15 guys I can make with the left over sprues but they can wait.

Apologies for the crappy pictures but I took the them on my phone.

I converted the driver of the halftrack into a gunner as I didn't see the point putting a figure in there you wouldn't see!

I tried out some new weathering techniques on the Sherman. It looks ok I think, I need to learn how to do some good looking mud but all in all not bad.

I just realised I didn't lay out the 30 cal team!! I'll do separate picture for them.

Here are the 2 medics I made out of the left overs

 Onto the next project.