Royal Regiment of Fusiliers 1/6th Figures

[PakefieldFusiliers]

I have already created a thread asking about the history of the Regiment (here if anyone can help me), since I really do want to make them as accurate as possible. Essentially I'm an Instructor with the Army Cadets, we're very shortly going to recapbadge as Royal Regiment of Fusiliers and I'm planning on making historically accurate 1/6th figures of the entire regiment throughout it's entire history.

Saying it like that is a real facepalm for me since I have never made a single 1/6th figure before. Doh.

I have done some research on making them and I'll definitely be using either Dragon figures or basic 1/6th bodies with Tony Barton's heads (they look amazing). I've got to email him later anyway regarding the 1/6th capbadges he makes and ask him nicely if he could make me a RRF one (mentally adds it to her vastly increasing "to do" list).

My plan at the moment is to start at the very recent uniforms and work my way back through the four previous regiments of Fusiliers. My very first one that I'm already working on is the "blues", with the navy blue jacket and infantry trousers, ammo boots, white belt and red sash (I'm making my first one a Colour Sargeant) as in the pic below. The second will be in the scarlets with Busby (and I might even add Bobby in his colours), and the third will be the Pioneer Sargeant. I'm also hoping to do the Piper, Drum Major and Bugler before I move on to the four other Fusilier regiments that amalgamated to make the RRF.

The one major problem I'm having is with making the hackles. I'm thinking the only way I might be able to do it accuratey is to get white and red feathers, cut the actually feathered parts off the central quill and make the hackle from scratch with glue on a central wire frame but it's going to be very labour intensive!

I'll post pics as I go, but any help, tips or advice you can all give me would be very much appreciated! :)