WIP: The Texas Hussars

My Mississippi Project is going to require a fair amount of painting for both side.  Foot, horse and guns-maybe 200 figures between now and Enfilade.  (Really?  What am I thinking?) Of those, 50 figures are mounted.  I've purchased all of them and they're just awaiting paint.  The Americans have twenty mounted militia from OG, and ten light dragoons also from OG.  The Spanish have ten of the mounted cuera from Dayton Painting Consortium and ten of the Texas Hussars based on the Perry Brothers plastic French Napoleonic hussars.

The Perry figures have the virtue of providing several different head choices, so it was possible to pick the mirliton shako worn by early French hussars.  The pieces fit well and and aren't ambitiously fiddly.  I've finished all the horses and am working on the riders.

I started by assembling all the bits-horses and riders and shooting them with white primer.  I chose my horse colors carefully.  All the colors are Delta Ceramcoat or Vallejo.  All colors received a drybrush highlighting followed by a dark wash.  The sheepskins are ivory washed with a grey-brown. I chose Vallejo's vermillion for the colored points and the valises, and trimmed them in Prussian blue.  The bridles, strapping etc were all in Ceramcoat black with a quick highlight of charcoal.  I found the horses to be fairly simple to do.

Right now I'm wrapped up with the riders, which are a bit more challenging.  Face it, hussars are pretty busy and the challenge is to remain patient enough to finish them.

Thus far I've focused on finishing their shakos and pelisses.  I painted the base coat of the dolman Vallejo vermillion.  Then I painted the pelisse Vallejo blue gray, highlighting with Vallejo azure.  Then I did the fur edging in Ceramcoat spice brown.  I decided to give the pelisse white lining, but because I wanted good coverage I used Vallejo foundation white. I worked for a while on the pelisses, but finding them fairly tedious I took time to do the shakos.  I stayed with a basic black, avoiding the red wing in one of the examples.

That's where they stand today.  I hope to have the pelisses finished tomorrow, and move on to the dolman.