2nd Wisconsin Completed!

Finally, we can show you a truly finished regiment (note the basing and flags are in place, unlike some of those scruffy Rebs). This is the first regiment of the Iron Brigade, the 2nd Wisconsin Volunteers.

I'm very happy with how the conversions and painting has turned out. Fairly simple yet very effective stuff. Thanks go to Don Effinger for his notes on the Iron Brigade's blue piping on their collars and cuffs, as well as the blue hat cords. You'll note I haven't painted the piping or hat cords on all the models, as no doubt some wore replacement coats and had damaged hats.

Another thing to note is their haversacks/bread bags. I've painted mine in a dirty canvas color, which is not at all historically correct. History shows that these bags would have been black (although a few regiments did apparently carry white bags). I chose this warmer canvas look to add some color and warmth to the dark and cool colors already dominating the models. Purely a painters choice.

The lovely flags are from GMB Designs who do a great range of beautifully rendered banners. The only slight disappointment is that the side of the Stars & Stripes that has the regiment's battle honors stitched on to it is "covered" by the regimental flag and can only really be seen from the back. Not GMB's fault at all.

Anyway, before my colleagues start asking about the colors for the basing, here they are:

Basecoat: Vallejo Charred Brown
First drybrush: Vallejo Beige Brown
Second drybrush: Vallejo Dark Sand

Paint the edges with Vallejo Beige Brown

The grasses on top of the bases are a mix of Late Summer Buffalo grass from Silflor, Jungle and Highland Tufts from Army Painter, Meadow with flowers Assortment (also from Silflor), and then patches of static grass (I used a 50:50 mix of GW's Scorched Grass and GF9's Static Grass: Green).

I hope you like them, only another four regiments of the Iron Brigade to go ; )

Oh, and don't forget to donate to our Guns Of April Movember team as we try to raise money for raising awareness (and solving) men's health issues. You can donate at my Movember page here.

Cheers
Dave

Movember is Coming!

It has been a little quiet on the Guns Of April front, as some members switch jobs and move to other states, and some members forget they're supposed to be painting up 120+ models for next year's big game! Well, things are about to change. You'll see a lot more posts on the blog here, and some of them may even have toy soldiers in them. The rest will be about our fun-filled foray into the world of masculine facial hair.

That's right. A number of the Guns of April team have decided to sign up, grow a mustache, and raise funds to fight prostate cancer (and other assorted men's health issues). Here's a link to our team page on the Movember website, where you can find out all about this great (and mildly venerable) annual institution.

We currently have six of the GOA team participating and you can find links to their individual pages here:

Brien Dulaney - Confederate
Dave Taylor - Union
Jamie Welling - Confederate
Dave Pauwels - Union
Rob Chandler - Confederate
Alex Akers - Confederate

The basic idea is this: 

We all start clean shaven on Movember 1st, and then grow our mustaches over the following month. There are to be no beards, goatees, chinstraps, or mustaches linked up to sideburns allowed. We'll take photos of our progress, upload them to the pages above (and this blog, I guess) and you all help out by donating money and telling your friends to do the same : )  We will even have a poll at the end of the month to see which one of us you think has the best 'tache!

You can donate via our team page, or via our individual pages (all the donations go to the same place). Take note, however, that the side (Union or Confederate) that amasses the greatest combined total of it's participants will get to go first in the big game at Adepticon next April.

And to get you in the mustache mood, I leave you with two beauties from the film Gettysburg.

Buford, played by the excellent Sam Elliot, sporting a fairly reserved yet very full top lip caterpillar.

And Chamberlain, played by Jeff Daniels in his best role before Newsroom, sporting the mightiest walrus I have ever seen!

So, what are you waiting for? Get your wallets out and donate!

Cheers

Dave

7th Tennessee done!

Hello all! My name is Robert Chandler. I just want to start by saying I am very thankful and excited to be a part of the Guns Of April  project and hope I can contribute to this project with the energy and skill as the rest of the team. For my contribution, I have decided to go with Archers brigade from Heth's division which belonged to A.P Hill's Third Corp A.N.V

These are photos of the 7th Tennessee Vol. Inf. there were 5 regiments in Archers Brigade which were the 5th and 13th Alabama along with the 1st, 7th and 14th Tennessee volunteer infantry regiments.

I've decided to use miniatures from Sash and Saber castings. I was rather impressed that they offer 40 man units in white metal with each miniature in a different pose. I know most of us have gotten used to the fact that if we want to use white metal for historical projects we get 4-7 poses and have to deal with the repetition of sculpt in each unit. Having the option to chose from 40 miniatures to create the 30 man units was a welcoming option.

This is the first of five regiments. I must say that so far this project has renewed my passion for the hobby and I cannot wait to dive into next installment. Next up I'm going to start on both Alabama regiments and have decided to do both of these in firing/battle lines verses marching units. The regiments will be from Sash and Saber as well. Okay, until next time, keep the paint flying! - Rob

Onward, 2nd Wisconsin!

After seeing Alex's very nice North Carolina regiment in the last post, I knew I had to pull my finger out and get started on my Iron Brigade. Here you can see the first 12 models from the 2nd Wisconsin Regiment.

These models are the very nice, simple Perry Miniatures plastics, with a little bit of additional greenstuff from me, as you can see below.

One of the most prominent features of the appearance of the Iron Brigade was their adherence to their formal uniforms. According to quite a few sources I've looked at, and discussions with other ACW wargamers, it seems the five regiments of the Iron Brigade regularly went into battle wearing their standard issue frock coat and Hardee hats, as opposed to the more common/popular (at least amongst the Union troops) sack coats and forage caps.

I really like the Perry plastics, but only the officer model has a frock coat, so out came the greenstuff and sculpting tool. It was surprising how quickly the lower half of the coats came together. Even so, I've decided that not every model in the army will have a frock coat, as I'm sure that no matter how hard they tried, the occasional soldier would have lost his frock coat, either removed and lost on a long summer march, or torn from his wounded body by a field surgeon.

You'll also notice that I built a few Hardee hats from greenstuff on top of the standard plastic slouch hats that come with the set. Again, a little bit of quick manipulation with the sculpting tool, a slice across the top with a knife (once the putty was dry) and you have a very serviceable Hardee (check the top picture for reference).

Well, I've just completed building the next 18 models to round out the regiment. More on those guys once the paint is dry.

I hope you like them.

Cheers
Dave

26th N.C Complete!

Greetings All,

I am very happy, and rather proud, to display my first Infantry Regiment for my Brigade under the command of Gen. Johnston Pettigrew. I chose his brigade for a number of reasons, most important of which is my deep respect for Pettigrew's leadership - it also helps that my cousins share a last name (though most likely no relation). The last time I painted ACW troops they were 15mm and that was some 17 *cough*cough* I mean several years ago! When we decided that we were going to "refight" Day 1 of the bloodiest battle on American soil, I knew that I had to lay claim to Gen. Pettigrew's Brigade as not only were they really a Divison in size but they were also involved in two days of heavy fighting: the first, of course, being the first day but they also found themselves as a lead brigade in Pickett's Charge.

As I plan to increase my ACW collection exponentially after this I figured this brigade of North Carolinians was a great was to start. I only hope I do them justice.

To kick off, here is an overview shot of the regiment, 30 models strong. Now, you will notice that I haven't based these yet nor do I plan to until all the brigade is complete. That way there's less chance of any variation between them.

For the most part I loved how most of the models came out. All told there are probably 40-50 hours in the regiment in order to have lots of color variation etc. By 1863 the Confederacy had gone to Cadet Grey as it's uniform color, but most of the soliders wore whatever they could, and if they were lucky had shoes. Granted the Perrys didn't sculpt any barefoot so I didn't touch the feet... but still.

This guy in the middel is perhaps my favorite of the regiment, for some reason I just love the brown and tan colors on him - they fit well with many photos I've seen of serious re-enactors. I added a few red shirts as, so the story goes, at the beginning of the war no soldier left home without something red.

Well there it is blog readers, the first of Gen. Pettigrew's Brigade and, if I am not mistaken, the first of the Confederacys regiments complete :). Now, in fairness I ordered these as soon as I got home from Adepticon but I started them sometime last month. 

Next up is a little cavalry and then I plan to tackle a unit for my WAB tourney army of Teutonic Knights so it will most likely be another month or two until I hit up the next Southern infantry regiment, but I hope you all enjoyed the pictures and please feel free to leave some C&C. If you have any questions I am more then happy to answer them.

Until then keep painting. -Alex Akers

When are we gonna get the blue suits?

The next stage of my plastics are complete and I am not surprised on the amount of time the airbrush saved me during this step. I brought all my plastics into work and spent my hour lunch break on Tuesday airbrushing my troops in a navy blue. I have provided pictures but you may not be able to see a huge difference. I gave them 2 coats of paint and until they were fully dry they still looked black. I am hoping with my highlight it will begin to bring out the color and adding the powder blue pants, skin, etc. will bring them to life.

I also assembled a few stands of my extra troops and put a basecoat of green on them for Berdan's Sharpshooters. I think it looks good but for all you ACW experts please let me know if I picked the right color.

On a final note I provided a picture of the paint I use for my navy blue and this is my official cry for help. HELP! HELP! I am looking for anyone who might have this really old GW paint laying around and would be either willing to donate or sell me the paint. I haven't been able to find its equivalent in any paint range so again if anyone has any recommendations I am all ears.

Enjoy......

28th Mass.

88th NY 

63rd NY 

69th NY

6th NY

Berdan's Sharpshooters

2nd Brigade Plastics Ready for Warpaint!!!

Since most if not all of us are starting this project from scratch, I think it is a great opportunity to show you progress photos of how our armies are coming together and maybe even the philosophy behind each of our methods. I for one will be posting updates in batches and attempting a new procedure for painting my army. I have decided to work on my miniatures in big blocks based on the types. For my first batch I decided to fully clean and assemble all of the plastic miniatures in my 'required' brigade. I have two things to note at this time. Firstly, I went through all of my plastics and only selected the soldiers that were wearing sack coats. For me this is a big identifier with the Union army. Yes, Confederate soldiers had sack coats and yes, Union soldiers had other types of coats but I wanted a more uniform look to my brigade and something that symbolized a more organized army. On a side note, I look forward to painting my own Confederate army some time in the future because it will be so hap-hazard but for now I want organization and order. Secondly, I ended up with 18 'loading' and 'firing' soldiers that have sack coats and do not belong in my brigade so whatever will I do with them? Well, I decided if I have time I will paint them up as an under strength unit of Berdan's Sharpshooters. We may use them in the game and we may not but it will be cool to have them.

What you will see below are the pictures of my five infantry regiments and my cavalry squadron. We are fielding regiments of 30 miniatures and you will notice that I only have 24 with the exception of my Zouaves. This is because I bought metal commands for all my regiments and they will be painted at a later stage. Yes, I know these pictures are not very exciting but hopefully watching them build up to fully painted and based will be a little like those action cartoons on each page in a book and when you flip them really fast the cartoon moves. I only wish I could paint that fast. :)

28th Massachusetts

88th New York

114th Pennsylvania

63rd New York

69th New York

6th New York Cavalry (horses)

6th New York Cavalry (riders)