Sash and Sabre Union troops

 Yesterday I continued the Federal push forward by painting some more troops, this time from Sash and Sabre. These are lovely figures that seem to parcel up everything civil war. They have loads of character and each figure is a different pose in a unit of thirty, which is pretty unbeatable. I have always heard good things about them and a chance eBay purchase allowed me to take a look at some close up.

  Here they are compared to some other makes; Crusader, Steve Barber, Redoubt and Sash and Sabre. I think they all work together nicely.

 Although very detailed, these figures were quite easy to paint. First I sprayed them black then dry brushed all the leather with a dark brown. The other colours were then blocked in around the black leather areas. So the top half of the figure is basically all leather strapping with the back pack and equipment straps. So it proved a nice simple job just spotting in the small areas of blue. As usual I used Foundry paints for the Union blue. The trousers I just used one colour. It’s a balance trying to include detail but also trying to make the Paint job efficient yet effective.

 I tried out a new technique while painting these guys, just one bright flesh colour, this will be retouched after the dip is dry.

 My strong tone had become quite thick and viscus and wasn’t really doing a good job any more, However, after adding a little brush cleaner it appears a lot better. Saved me buying another can anyway.

The Irish brigade are now dry and should be matt varnished soon, the Federal war machine must keep rolling forward.

 I tried my technique of painting the top half with strong tone for the darker colours and soft tone for the trousers. In the end I dropped this idea and went with strong tone all over. This half and half technique would work very well for figures with white trousers, like AWI etc.