This week finds me in the middle of painting another batch of Confederate Infantry. This batch consists of 8 packs (240 figs) of Pendraken’s RM8 (Union foot, marching). Since, Pendraken’s Confederate Infantry only come wearing slouch hats I thought I would mix in some union infantry wearing forage caps to get a more historically correct mix of headwear.
I’m hoping to have this batch of 240 figures completed in a couple of weeks. After that I will mix these with my first batch of Confederates and base them.
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My technique for painting ragged Confederate Infantry
When I first started this project; I knew that painting my entire Confederate Army one shade of grey would not do it for me, even though this would be the easiest way to do it. However, I want my Rebs to look ragged. For inspiration I browsed through my collection of ACW reenactment photos and came up with these:
I took these photos at the 2007 Down In The Valley reenactment at Cedar Creek Battlefield. Even better this was a campaigner only event. Campaigners pride themselves on accurately reconstructing the soldier’s life during the Civil War. In short these photos should make very good references. After examining my photos and doing some research online I concluded that the more shades of grey and butternut I use the better. For those who don’t know what the color butternut looks like it is described as the color of the Confederate uniform after the gray has become faded and dirty. The easiest way to represent butternut is by mixing a drop of brown with your grey paint.
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After cleaning, mounting on nails, and priming my figures, I evenly arrange them into rows on Styrofoam boards. For this batch I arrange them in 15 rows of 16 figures each. I then take my first shade of grey and paint all the coats in the first row (working down). After painting all the figures in the first row I then take my second shade of grey and paint all the figures in the second row. I continue the same process until all the coats have been painted. The image below shows this batch of figures after I have completed painting all the coats. Also on the bottom of the page I have placed a chart that lists all the colors that I used.
The next step is to paint the britches. I follow the same process as described above but this time instead of painting down the rows I will paint across. After completing all the britches I split the batch into three parts and paint all the details. Once complete I will have 240 unique Confederate infantry men. Nice and easy.
