The cavalry are painted! And some villagers, too.

Trying to come up for a reason for a mermaid in the Old West.  Well, maybe.  She just got painted.  From Rebel Minis pirate command pack.

Villagers for my Old West/Pony Wars - these will be added to a friends Little Bighorn Battle this coming Saturday, as near to the sesquicentennial as is club schedule allows.  Includes 8 dead, 6 slightly modified with some glue-tissue masking to create dresses instead of men's legs.  Two Peter Pig Vietnam civilian women dead just painted as plains Indians.

Photos taken just prior to seal coating.  This is the high command, 6 men.  Mounted, foot, dead per soldier and one dead and one standing horse for every three cavalrymen.

The two images show an additional 60 soldiers, 45 cavalry and 15 mounted infantry, same proportions as above for the command.

All of the above are game ready (well, the mermaid needs to be seal coated and then new gloss medium applied to the water and her scales).

While 'game ready', eventually I will dry brush a medium volume grass green and a very light yellow ochre so the texture will blend better in various settings.   For now as is for a game on the 17th.

The natives get a moment in the spotlight.

Box one of Lakota in preparation.

And more Lakota.  Though mixed into the two photos are Cheyenne and Arapahoe.

 Crow and Shoshone figures - the yellowish dots were a sampling of speed paints which I hope to use to accelerate getting these natives done, all of them.  We'll see how it goes.

Total 96 native warriors to paint - but mounted, dismounted, dead per warrior plus the one standing and one dead horse for every six warriors.

Progressing towards Rosebud Creek

Above photo shows three full cavalry companies that will be used for Rosebud and one company of mounted infantry for same - with the darker trousers.  A cavalry company consists of 15 figures: Captain, Lieutenant, Sergeant, Corporal, Guidon, Bugler, and nine troopers.  Mounted infantry similar.

Top of this photo shows the cavalry high command towards the top and a bunch of native villagers and dead below also in progress.  After a break, the blue coats are next.  Hopefully get that done today and then progress will slow due to getting more detail focused.  But must maintain serious focus on this project to get it done in time - and still some natives to go as well, allies and hostiles.

 

Skeletons

Useful for more than the Old West - a bunch of skeletons, humans, horses, wolves, and wild boar.

 

Photos of the cavalry - ready for paint

That first photo shows all 96 cavalry in mounted/foot/dead with one standing horse and one dead horse for every three.  Not shown are the already primed 12 mounted infantry in same format.  If I can do it, I will try and paint all of these for a 150th anniversary Rosebud battle.   Going to start painting tomorrow, just finished last prep of what you see below today.  The other photos show each group of 15.  For Rosebud, I will use five figures to represent a company and with 108 figures that will work - though one very ahistorical element will be one of those six groups of 15 will be painted as buffalo soldiers!  My toys, my way.  ; )

 

The US cavalry getting a bit of work

Did some reorganization of my prepped and primed cavalry into six groups of 15 figures - which will require prepping a dozen figures already set aside (bases ready), Peter Pig - see post below, and then pulling out a dozen more figures from my 'extras' plus a couple of foot figures for one missing and one swapping out of a misplaced standard bearer on foot.  An essential driver is having enough officers, buglers, and standard bearers, both mounted and foot, to create those six groups with integral command - and then some additional figures for the high command.  With the high command I will have 96 individually based cavalry in mounted/on foot/dead configuration.  Also need to pull out four more each standing horses and dead horses.  And then I will call it fully finalized.   

With another 48 multi-based figures mostly painted I will be able to field 144 cavalry.  That should be more than enough for virtually any table top engagement.  On the individually based figures I can break it down into groups of five to get up to 18 'units', plus high command, if desired with each group having either an officer, bugler, or guidon bearer.

Sometimes the 15 figures will be a troop, other times a squadron, and perhaps even a battalion/regiment.

Once all primed and ready for paint - what isn't already painted - I'll take a group shot to give a visual impression of it all.

Minor down side is that some of the figures are already labelled with names and will need some corrections but still at a place this is easily done before painting gets going.

Now I need to do something similar with the native warriors.  

And get very busy painting!

Last Bit of Figures 'set aside'

Been quite busy with non-hobby activities of late but one item was pestering my brain: did I set aside figures for my cavalry high command?  A little bit yes, a little bit no.  In the sense that I did set aside figures but didn't 'replace' them for the lower ranks.  After pondering for a bit and digging through stuff, I realized I just might have what I needed in my 'special reserve' figures - figures to be kept but in no way prepped at this time - and it turns out I did have just the right figures, some Peter Pig figures including an officer and sergeant.  So, now, I can say I have 100% of my Old West/Pony Wars "keepers" well organized and waiting further work when I get back to hobby time.