German and American "volunteers" in British colonial service

Feeling nostalgic and working on some British colonial era troops I was inspired by an article by "C. Jones" on modeling the Zulu War with 20mm Airfix figures that I found in an old July 1967 edition of the Airfix magazine.

As per the magazine article I used Airfix WW1 Germans.

I added heads with the pith hemets from the Esci/Italeri British colonial sets, and also used some more recent figures that weren't available when the author wrote his article, a couple of Imex ACW figures and a Revell WW1 German

The cavalry and horse-drawn artillery look like they might be nice future conversions.

Work in Progress - Rorke's Drift Hospital and Supply Depot

My wargaming buddy Carlos recently bought the Italeri Battle of Rorke's Drift set which comes with a very nice MDF version of the hospital and supply depot.

Image from www.italeri.com



Carlos had put the buildings together but said he wasn't in the mood to paint it, so I was more than happy to give it a go.

The walls were first given a thin coat of Vallejo "Sandy Paste" to give them more of a gritty look.



Then once the sandy paste was dry, the buildings were given an undercoat from a cheapo spray can of matt black paint bought in a local Chinese shop (here in Spain there are thousands of these shops that basically sell low-grade dollar-store items and cheap / tacky stuff. They're affectionately known as "chinos" as they are generally owned and run by people from China).

After the undercoat was dry, the walls were "whitewashed" with a few thin successive coats of acrylic paint.



The buildings were then detailed, and finished off with some dry brushing, washes and given a good dousing of pigment powders.

Enjoyed painting these, it was a nice change from tanks and figures, and I'm pleased at how well these laser-cut MDF building look once they're painted. They're also very sturdy but lightweight at the same time.

Anyhow, Carlos now has the buildings back and hopefully he'll finish the roofs soon - he's going to use some fake-fur to give them thatched roofs - we'll post some pictures when they're finished. 

Zulus, "thousands of 'em" finished at last

Finallly finished, all in all, just over 150 figures.



As mentioned in the previous post, most of the shields were homemade due to the fact that nearly all the original Esci shields had been lost over the years.



The spears were also missing and were replaced with spears made from stiff plastic broom bristles.



To make up the numbers, a handful of Esci Barbarians managed to slip in as Zulu"impostors".



Even Tarzan from the old Airfix set was press-ganged into to group as an old robust grey-haired warrior with his Airfix drum playing entourage, guards and lovely female companion.



Now it's a case of getting them on the table....., which means painting up someone to fight against, and who else but old Esci British Rorke's Drift infantry.



The partially completed figures above are waiting patiently in the painting queue, but since finishing the Zulus I've moved onto other things so it might be a little while yet, but the plan to do them is still there and the story will definitely continue.

Speedpainting Esci Zulus - some progress on the horde of figures

This is definitely a quantity over quality job, and speed is of the essence, so I'm hoping to finish them all off and be ready for basing sometime at the end of the week.

I'll also give a runthrough here on the technique I'm using to speedpaint the figures. It works (well, at least for me) on painting very dark / black skin tones.

First step is to give a heavy basecoat of tough black-gloss enamel paint.



This is followed by a very heavy drybrush to bring out detail and highlight the raised surfaces.



I then prepare a wash using water based artists acrylics. The acrylics will bring out the shadows and highlights on the black skins.



I use Van Gogh which are excellent consistent quality and work really well. I used a mixture of Raw Umber and Burnt Sienna.



Mix the two until you get a thick but creamy consistency ... and yes, it does look like something disgusting that the the dog just dropped.



Finally add a little black to dip into for some slight shading when you paint the wash onto the figures, and the next day when they are dry you should have figures that look something like this.



You can then just paint up the details.



So I'm now about halfway there, most of the figures in progress are in the picture below.



Once I've got them based I'll add a final update on the Zulus and in the near future some pictures of them in action in the upcoming game.

Zulus, thousands of 'em - New Spears and Shields

Not thousands, but well over a hundred and fifty of 'em.

Old Esci Zulus, from four separate sets that are at least 15 years old, maybe even older.

They were all given to me many years ago by my mate Carlos, and they've been lounging in different boxes full of mixed figures since then

Well with a game coming up organised by Carlos, I remembered I had these Zulus he gave me and promised to paint them up. When I dug them out of their box I aslo discovered that the majorty of the shields and spears have nearly all been lost over the years - victims of multiple transfers to and from different boxes, maybe lost in the bottom of another box, or perhaps even a landfil somewhere, victims of a past clearout of trash.

So with 150+ Zulus and only 20 odd shields and spears, what do you do when you've promised to have them ready for the game ? No choice but to improvise and make your own.



The shields were made from rugged card that were cut into oblong shapes. I made a shield shape similar in size to the original shield printed multiple copies onto the back of the rugged card.

A broom with some nice thick stiff plastic bristles was the spear donor.



Some flat-nosed pliers were used to squash the end of the plastic and a sharp knife to make the spear point.

And I'm quite pleased with the way the spears turned out.



So the next step, paint them all up.

Come back soon, more pics to follow.

Strelets Colonial British Infantry

Strelets 1-72 20mm Colonial British Infantry

The figures  had practically no flash and are quite easy to paint up and are made from a sturdy semi-hard plastic.

I can’t say I’m 100% keen on this type of sculpting, but after painting them they do have a kind of charm and they fit in well as opponents to  the Strelets Boers.

Strelets Boers

They have chunky and exaggerated poses, but on the plus side every single figure has a different pose.

You can see a full review of the figures on the excellent Plastic Soldier Review website

http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/review.aspx?id=951
http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Review.aspx?id=957