I spent a night putting to rights an old wrong I committed many years ago. Taking a brush to many of my old collection of Union Infantry who I had painted up with shell jackets instead of sack coats. Luckily, by adding a bit of paint my Union troops were once more adorned in the proper kit.
By adding paint to the top of the trousers and shading with highlights, sack coats were once again back in fashion.
No one would really of cared about this, but If you're going to spend hundreds of hours doing something, you might as well get it right. From now on, my Union troops will only be in Sack and Frock coats, leaving the Shell jackets to the Confederate forces.
Of course I know a lot of NY regiments wore shell jackets but I'm painting my army up to be generic and the sack coat is the way to go. I also took the time to paint over the blue trouser stripes on the Infantry privates, a little thing but I felt better for doing it.
New sack coated Infantry, luckily the equipment hides a lot of the detail at the front, but the contrast between the light and dark blue works just as well there too.
While I had my Union forces out on the table I thought It would be a good chance to give them some extra details. A pack of spare muskets from Redoubt added some fallen guns to the wounded figures.
I think you aren't the only one who would do such a correction. This is an inherent part of the hobby methinks. ;)!
ReplyDeleteI know that there is a cut difference between a Shell Jacket and a Sack Coat, how can you tell the difference between a Shell Coat and a Sack Coat by color alone on your painted miniatures?
ReplyDeleteThere's no colour difference, It's just sack coats are a longer cut. Basically I painted the bums of the figures so It looked like the sack coat was coming down to the top of their trousers. Easy and quick and effective.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very nice blog that I will definitively come back
ReplyDeleteadult work