28mm - Napoleonic Spanish Guerrillas - Perry Miniatures

 

My mission to build up forces for 'Sharp Practice' continues.  Here we have Spanish Napoleonic Guerrillas by Perry Miniatures.

The figures are up to the usual very high standard of the Perry's and I really enjoyed painting them. There was lots of scope for colour and to just be imaginative with them.

The challenge was to get them looking like rough and ready guerrillas and yet have them dressing with elements of national/regional dress and also add some of the fashionable military brighter colours.

Brown wool seems to get a lot of mentions in texts, this being from the native brown sheep, so it was often left undyed.

The assortment of weaponry allowed me to use brass on the barrels of the blunderbusses.

It was also fun to experiment with unshaven faces with a few days stubble!

The only thing that caused me any real issue was trying to work out what they were wearing on their feet.  Googling 'Espadrilles' brought answers and pictures of how they would be worn what colours they were.

My painting method with these consists of white undercoat followed by basic shades of all of the main colours. When this is dry I use Army Painter washes.  This gives plenty of depth.

Once the washes are dry, I usually put the basic shades back on (avoiding creases etc).  More detail can then be applied, until highlights for each colour are added.

I then black line is as necessary before touching up.  I like to very lightly dry brush Vallejo Iraqi Sand as desired too.

This method seems very successful for combining speed with depth of colour and and accuracy.

Bases are from warbases and have a small magnet at centre for holding them down to the magnetic sheet in their boxes, or to movement trays.

The rocks are cat litter, glued on with UHU glue (though this seems to react and give glue bubbles - which I deal with with a sharp blade).  Grass tufts are by Mini Nature.  I dry brush Iraqi sand over the tufts too.

I'm very pleased with these.  This year is turning into the year of Sharp Practice.  The Peninsula War is one of my favourite periods yet I have never wargamed anything from it.  I am looking forward to changing this soon!