19th Jaegers - Work in Progress

Quick mid month update, something I'm trying to do more this year rather than leaving it weeks between each post.

Started work on a new section of Jaegers with specifically a few goals in mind:

• Find a really suitable Brown/Grey "drab" colour that I'm happy with for Russian Greatcoats.
• Actually get the piping/leather colors correct. I'll elaborate on this later.
• Add some more variety into my units with different sculpts

Initially I'd tried Vallejo GC Khaki for my Skirmishers mixed with Grey Greatcoats, but this colour was too bright to my eyes over time. It lacks the realism I'm looking for in a drab tone. I've stripped the skirmishers and repainted them with Grey coats to tie the first block together. Easily done and only took a few evenings. These are the screening units for my 32nd Jaegers, which is a block of three groups. 

Secondly I'd realized I had made a slight mistake with the piping on my Jaegers, as I had done red piping on top, but the bottom was also piped Red. Again easily sorted, and after a few hours I had tidied these up on my existing Jaegers. I specifically picked the 32nd Jaegers for my main unit because unbeknownst to me Jaeger weapon slings were actually Black or Brown. This includes the backpack roping that holds the canteens to the packs. Not really sure how I missed this detail, but all really minor stuff. After some research it looks like the 32nd was a converted Musketeer unit to Jaegers starting in 1812, one of the many. With that said, some of these units definitely still had left over white crossbelts/slings. I'm using that as my logic anyway, it seems a bit pedantic to repaint all the slings and helps separate the units in small details visually, to me at least. The red shoulder straps are also technically wrong, the 32nd had yellow. Musketeers had Red, so again lets just say lack of proper supply trains means they maintained their old ones. Confusingly I have seen hundreds of pictures of Jaegers in Reenactment clearly with Red shoulder straps! 

I try not to nitpick over small stuff like this, but this project has really become one of vested interest to me.

Next up, 19th Jaegers. Mixture of Foundry sculpts and I went for a more "campaign" look rather than the 32nd who are rather well uniformed. Some shots of the painting desk with them post shading.

Current state of the unit. I've added gloves to some of them to achieve that campaign look along with the covered Shako sculpts. 

I'll likely be adding some firing poses to add some more dynamics to the unit. Usually I start with a block of 2 groups and end up doing a third. I'm very happy either way with how these are turning out.

I'll post these fully when they are done, likely this week!

Next on the radar, I am thinking of adding some Hussars to the force. Foundry lack Cossack sculpts as I wanted to do another unit but it seems Hussars were an incredibly potent part of the partisan war waged by Russia in 1812. I will get to the French at some point...