From MartinC - 28mm ACW Rebs & Cavalry (213 Points)

Time for a points bomb I think. The Infantry are the 18 strong 6th Louisiana walking through a corn field. I had a new delivery of tufts etc. from Tajima today which were fab. I love this wheat field, although the scale looks a little small - bad harvest this year.

I've been playing around with eyes based on many helpful suggestions and pretty close now.  I undercoat the flesh in tan yellow then paint in medium flesh tone (both Vallejo). I then fill the eye socket, cheeks and lips with flesh shade (Foundry) and paint the eyeball in white (Vallejo). After going back and correcting the 10% massive eyeballs and spot the pupil with a 0.1mm micropen and draw on eyebrows with the same pen. I am loving the micropen and went back and redid all the rest of the figs.

There are still the odd quizzical look as the unit tries to work out who's farted, but the mad staring eyes have gone. Similarly there is the odd Groucho Marx but pretty good generally. Bought some 0.3mm pens today (£6.99 for 6 from Rymans) in multiple colours so will be trying them out.

I have also painted up 2 units of cavalry (6 figs in each), 17th Pennsylvania, and the 35th Virginia. Thought about submitting these for the bonus round but found something completely off the wall instead. I love the horses which I painted using the guide in Henry Hyde's Wargaming Compendium - a great read. The rocks are painted garden bark which when given a flesh wash (Citadel circa 1985) look very much like sandstone with bedding planes and fractures (that's the geologist in me speaking, if you don't know about bedding planes watch a cowboy movie - it's the horizontal layers in the sides of the canyon).

17th Pennsylvania

35th Virginia

And finally as suggested by Curt I have redone Lo Armistead too better match the portrait. The braiding was the best I could muster but I added the beard and gave him thinning hair as opposed to completely bald, I did leave the buttons as a single row but may go back and do them as a double if I get time. Now off to try and find more pictures of the other officers - what started as a quick conversion has snowballed.

From Curt:
A wonderful passel of Rebs to be sure! Great work Martin. I'm a big fan of Tajima's products and I like what you've done with the stunted (early growth?) field. Very nice.  I had to smile when I read your reference of Citadel Flesh Wash as I still have my original pot from the early 90s that I dole out sparingly now and then. All this said I'm completely blown away by your redux on Lo Armistead. He looks fabulous! He looks ready to lead his Virginia boys to 'The Angle' in the Yankee gunline...

Well done!