Melon, those continentals were a painting diversion. Should really sell them as they're just taking up room plus they are about 18mm too big to play well with my other awi... (10mm)

We have played Black Powder and British Grenadier with these.
They were all painted with Vallejo model color, hand mixed and shaded. If I recall correctly the base coat for the white was buff and lightened with both iraqi sand and just plain white.
For grass on those bases I used 2mm, 4mm and 6mm premade tufts from MiniNatur. You can now buy "knock offs" on ebay for a fraction of the cost. For smaller scales I use bog standard Games Workshop flock. It's a bit bright but a light dust dry brush works well at knocking it back a bit.
Lifetap, those 15mm are lovely. Essex Miniatures if I'm not mistaken?
Should also point out I have a blog with a variety of stuff from Ancients to Moderns via Napoleonic, AWI, ACW, Vietnam and WW2
http://britishforces.org.uk