Sunday 15 February 2009

Just a Minute!


The Culpeper Minutemen are one of my favourite AWI units, i'm not sure why - perhaps it's the green hunting shirts, their name, or their uncompromising slogan, but regardless they have featured in all of my AWI collections over the years.

The current incarnation features 18 standard Hinchliffe castings. I was tired of painting riflemen at the time, and luckily could find no record of them putting more than 200 men in the field, so i felt i could stop at 18 figures (my main interest is replaying historic actions so i rarely paint more figures for a unit than i need to replay the particular battle that i am interested in). Ideally i like to animate or convert a few figures in a unit to add a little interest to each one - i find firing poses hard to alter so i copped out this time and only tweaked one of the officers.

Incidentally, a cunning substitution of the command stand turns them into the 1st Continental Rifles c.1776.

3 comments:

Steve-the-Wargamer said...

..a nice effect with the hunting shirts! Lovely...

Anonymous said...

How do you get that grass effect-surely not by Polyfilla alone? Do you mix it with something?

Matt

DC said...

Matt,

The bases are covered in a builders sand and PVA mix - add just enough glue to bind the sand together (your mix should look like lumpy wet sand) and apply with a pallet knife. If the end result looks too wet or smooth i sprinkle on some dry sand before it dries.

The end result is rock hard and nicely textured, and has the advantage that if you need to rebase you just sit the bases in a saucer of water overnight and the sand will then just peel off.

The original inspiration came from a (surprise, surprise) article in an old Hinchliffe handbook. I'll be adding scans of Gilder painting, etc. guides to the blog soon.

cheers,
dc.