28mm Battaglione di Faenza, Papal army 1848

28mm Battaglione di Faenza, Papal army 1848. Volunteers of the national guardsmen from the city of Faenza.  These are Perry figures from their American Civil War line: pack ACW61 - Early Confederate infantry in Sicilian Hats.  Unfortunately this pack only contains three figures with these hats. This requires a two-pack purchase for the six figures needed with six left over figures wearing head scarves. The latter I'll use as generic Garibaldists in my Garibaldi forces. I do wish that Perry would make a pack of six of these figures, possibly with additional poses. I have at least two other units that this particular figure would be a great fit for. When doing the Risorgimento, one has to be particularly resourceful to find appropriate figures for some of the lesser known units. Repurposing and converting is the name of the game here. Chocolate Box Wars small figure count makes both much more tolerable allowing exploration into periods with less figure support. 

This unit wore an a simple light blue uniform. With light blue being a challenging color to paint and shade I looked outside my normal process for this unit. I primed the figures in light blue and made a medium blue wash from contrast paints thinned highly. After coating the entire figures with the wash I was very disappointed with the tide marks from the wash.

 

I pressed on wit the rest of the blocking in, and after a light wash on the weapons and faces I repaired all of the light blue uniform irregularities with a thorough highlight pass. Now I'm much happier with the result. If I had to do it over again, I might de saturate the blue a bit, but for a first try, they're good enough for the girls I go out with. I suppose if it ever bothers me enough I could hit the entire unit with another wash of some sort. I'm likely to just leave them as-is.

These figures even look the part from the back with their simple haversack and canteen. Perfect for quickly raised and trained national guard!

Hopefully Osprey will forgive my use of their image here showing the simple all light blue uniform. I can highly recommend both of the Armies of the Italian Wars of Unification books from Gabriele Esposito published by Osprey. These with Espisito's more thorough book, Armies of the Italian Risorgimento published by MMP Books make for nearly everything you need in terms of Uniform research for the period.

These comprise another six 28mm figures for this year's painting totals. Next up my first unit for the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the elite Royal Guard naval infantry regiment 'Real Marina'