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.

Welcome

As this is the first post on here there's nobody actually reading this! This blog is hopefully going to add a bit of insight into getting armies on the table including scenery for not massive outlays of either time or money.

I'm not the most patient of people and the building and painting of figures and scenery is not for me the best part of the hobby, it's the games themselves. Sure, the satisfaction of finishing some figures is great but if it's between speed painting twenty figs in one sitting or getting one competition winner done, I'll take the former every time. My main goal when painting up armies is speed. At the end of the day, if they look good on the table, that's good enough for me. I'll be posting up lots of pictures over the coming weeks showing results I get. I'm not a great painter and never will be but I'm happy with the results and if others get something out of it, great.

For starters, here are a couple of shots I've quickly found...

First up, Celts. I bought these to try out Saga rules but haven't yet gotten round to playing it. In the background are some cowboys for Dead Man's Hand and in the rear some Perry plastic archers for Basic Impetus.

Next up, the Dead Man's Hand cowboys before washing and basing. These figures were from Dixon Miniatures.

Oliver Cromwell leading the troops into battle. Sadly this was just before he screwed up his order causing a blunder and taking his troops off the table!

Finally a shot from our recent Pike and Shotte battle. Troops in action. Most of the figs are from the Warlord Games Pike and Shotte series

That's it for now. Next time I'll do some better close ups of some figs and a run down of my process for painting. Cheers