Tuesday, September 21, 2010

First ACW in over a year

Well August last year I pained a few 6mm ACW, nothing since then, and it's been a year and a half since ACW 15mm.

I got this need to paint ACW on Sunday, but because of my sucky neighbours I can't prime my figures at home, they complane about the smell, so I have to go to my parents to do it, but at 6 o'klock on sunday I didn't feel like going out, so I had to wait, so I primed a few on Monday, I got a pack of BH artillery, and a few small packs of Scale creepinfantry.

I like scalecreep, very realistic poses, realistic anatomy, they are actualy kinda hard to paint, becasue the details are kinda subitle, I also wasn't sure about the faces, they seemed very bland, little detail, but as I'll see on the pics, they look realy good even up close.
The one thing that is obvious is the bayonets that fall off, I realy don't get the need to have bayonets on ACW infantry that is marching or fireing, only on charging and advancing.
I think the bayonets might have been fixed by now, I'm not sure, Now most of my forces will be scalecreep with some AB added to the mix, but scalecreep is about half the price of AB yet very good figures.

Now on to the pics.

I have gotten a good deal better at 15mm since last time, so here are two pics of before:



Not that good are they!

Now here is a regiment of rebs, I'm not saying it's art, but you should be able to see a clear improvment

Now the faces are very natural, not the AHHHH! look that many 15mm have,

I particalar like the officer.







I think 500 of these rebs would look quite strikeing.
But I still find the uniforms boring to paint, people say, "yes they are boring, but atleast they are quick to paint" I don't agree with that, what takes a long time to paint is the big areas, the trousers and jackets, then the straps, those are the 3 big time consuming things when painting 15mm, and guess what, ACW infantry got trousers and jackets and straps.
Yes you do shave of a few minutes by not having to do the facings and small details, When Painting 20 figures I might spend 30 minutes less on 20 ACW then 20 Napoleoincs, out of what 3+ hours, thats not that big a diffrence.
Now there is one big advantage when painting ACW, well actualy there are 4,
1. Civil War Battles, this is a little know low budget ACW documentary, I love it, it's baicly a narater, 4 historians talking, and lots and lots of big/HUGE reenatment fotage, fantastic documantary, if you can find it get it, more hard cold facts then Ken Burns documentary, but still quite moving and sad, like when Hood destroys his own Army by sending it against Thomas' army, the soldiers knew they were going it their armies doom, yet went on.
It was quite sad.
2. Gettysburg, love this move, some people say they can spot fat reenctors, but I can't, Richard Jordan should have gotten a Posthumous Oscar for his role, I love it, one of my favorite roles ever.
3. Glory, fantastic sound, moveing movie, one Broderick's few serious role and he does it very well. (it's out now on Blu Ray)
4. The Civil war by Ken Burns, I prefer the documentary above, but this is still a good documentary, does play a little to much on the emotions, no need to play on them, the war was emotional enough by it self, it gets a little to much of a good thing. There is also some big factual errors.
But I love to watch these programs when painting, Napoleoincs realy only got one movie Waterloo to do it, but some times desperation means you also watch Sharpe while painting,
But When I watch those huge great reenactor battles in Civil war battles, it realy get you in the mood.

9 comments:

James said...

You should order the soldier in the middle, 2nd rank to stop leaning in the freakin' ranks.

Gunfreak said...

Don't make fun of him, he got a balance problem, he's not very bright but the other guys in the regiment take care of him, so he'll do fine, he's also a good fighter.

James said...
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James said...
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James said...

Then the entire regiment should be ordered to cut the grass and trim the hedges.

James said...

... and those are some of the best looking rifles you've painted. They really look great. An outstanding paint job, one of your best. In some ways, I like painted ACW figs more. Less busy, and more business-like, but still plenty of room for artistic interpretation. AND the flags are fantastic. I mean with most Napoleonics you don't have much choice,i.e. generic is generic. But generic ain't generic in the ACW.

PS I see you've got what looks to be something of a 2 fig incremental stand thrown in there.

Gunfreak said...

Yeah, some times I only have 2 or 3 figs on the base if the regiment, is smaller then a full 4 or 5 bases.

James said...

When you pick your stands up, where do you pick them up from? The base or a fig ?

Gunfreak said...

With 28mm I try to pic up the base, but the 15mm are so small it's hard to do when you need to move units hither or dither fast.