The Danes of the 1st Schleswig-Holstein War were the first contingent I completed for my Chocolate Box Wars (and Continental Mid Century Wars) project.  I have since expanded upon the units in the above photo, but they remain the smaller of my forces. Still, they are the senior contingent, and  as such, they hold a special place in the CBW establishment here in Meanderer Barracks. 

I put them on the Irregular Miniatures Prussian Hussar horses/horse furniture, and then free handed the details to represent the Danish Kit. Not a bad result, I think. As new figures became available, however, I found myself „upgrading.“ 

For instance, my initial Prussian cavalry contingent were all Foundry figures. But as Northstar expanded their line, I then went with more contemporary figures…

…painting up new Dragoons, Cuirassiers, and Hussars (also uhlans, but those were new and not upgrades). 

Eventually, Northstar produced some Danish Dragoons (left most unit in the above), and I added them to the Danish horse. Three out of four of these units were contemporary figs (the red coated dragoons and the yellow coated horse guards are conversions of Northstar 1866 Dragoons). I thought it was time to cast about to see if I could upgrade the Danish Guard Hussars to better fit in with the others. And so I began to look about…

To bring out and make distinct the complex lines of the strapping, shako cords, flounders, and braiding, and to help the white stripe on the light blue trousers stand out, I used my work-intensive method of underpainting–doing each of these twice:. I first painted them black and then went over them in white or metallic, picking out the details and leaving a bit of the outline to delineate the features from one another. The pom poms are actually light gray as opposed to white: not something you notice explicitly, but something that helps with the look of the figure. There is also a thin wash of black and a drybrush of lighter red and lighter blue over the uniforms and saddle blankets (again, not heavily done, but enough that they don’t look block painted). The fur edging on the pelisse is black with a drybrush of „gunship gray.“

Getting a consistent look across the sabreteches and the edging on the shabraques took some doing. I spent as much time painting the horses/horse furniture as I did the riders. But the small figure count of the Chocolate Box Wars system allows for this kind of attention: I don’t think I could have maintained this level of control for 24 figures!

A set of non close up views: what the unit looks like when seen at gaming distance.