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.

New additions to the stash

I've never been one to look a gift-horse in the mouth, so when my mate Iván said he was having a clear-out and that he had some modern stuff in 1/72 for me, well,.... I just couldn't say no.

A partially built Esci T-62 - very nice indeed. This MBT can be used by a variety of nations in a multitude of game scenarios.

 

A new unbuilt Trumpeter Zil 157 Fuel Truck -  will be a nice addition on the table for modern game scenarios we've got in preparation.

Two BTR-70 in resin. The box looks home-made and the parts look like resin copies of resin copies. God only knows where Iván got this, where it was actually made, or how it will go together. Resin kits are way down on my favourites list, but I'm game to give it a try and see how it goes.

And finally, (DRUMROLL) the icing on the cake - "UK Falklands" it says on the outside of the box !

I'll unbox these in another post, and they´re well worth waiting for - all very nicely painted up by Iván.



Cheers till the next time,

John

Pirates to the rescue ?

A motley crew of 1/72 Caesar, Orion and Esci/Italeri modern figures I recently finished for a game we'd been planning for a fictional modern-day scenario

The pirates were trying to rescue their leader who had been captured by UN forces and who was being held in a compound in a medium-sized old colonial town somewhere along the coast of East Africa, bordering the Indian Ocean. 

The pirates had some help from the local populace who were armed and hostile to the UN soldiers in the town, and even more help from a group of combat-tested renegade troops from the country's regular forces.

In spite of the help, the pirates got soundly thrashed (good show too).

We used a free set of one-page skirmish rules called FUBAR. 

Quite good for the job, but we included some tweaks to the activation process that put the pirates at a great disadvantage so they spent the majority of their time undecided and floundering around getting shot to pieces.

On the workbench - WW2 Russian Infantry Conversions

Last week I got a two new sets of the new "made in UK" Plastic Soldier Russian and German Infantry. The plastic is nice to work with, hard styrene which is glueable, and cuts easily and can easily be trimmed and sanded.

You can see some of the Russian infantry here with new heads, mixed with Esci and Revell figures for some Russian squads I'm putting together. With the smaller heads the poses mix well with the other Esci and Revell figures.

The heads etc., are just dry-tested / stuck on with a bit of blu-tac, I'll get around to pinning them sometime over the weekend.

Some of the brave figures who donated their heads to the Great Patriotic Cause....

Modern(ish)

Esci (now Italeri) NATO Pilots and Ground Crew.

Also a Revell Deutsches Kommando Spezialkräfte - better known as the KSK - hidden in amongst the figures there.




Hasegawa NATO Pilots 

Matchbox 1980s British Paras

MiniatureZone Gallery Archives (2000 - 2006) - Christopher Holland - "German field hospital "

This article is one of many articles and gallery contributions from fellow amateur smallscale enthusiasts all over the world that appeared on the old MiniatureZone website during the first six years its existence when there were only a handful of websites dedicated to smallscale models and wargaming. 

If you've been around on the internet since back then, we hope you like the nostalgia, and if you´re a newcomer, hope you enjoy looking too.

---

MiniatureZone Gallery Archives (2000 - 2006) - Christopher Holland - "German field hospital "

Esci Opel Blitz Ambulance
Esci Sd.Kfz 251 Ambulance
Academy Kettenkrad
Academy Kübelwagen

Figures
Airfix Luftwaffe
Airix German paratroopers
Milicast German medics
Revell German engineers

Copyright 2002 Christopher Holland

Waiting for Ivan - Diorama

Waiting for Ivan - Diorama by Stephen Brezinski

By Stephen Brezinski (original article formerly on the miniaturezone.co.uk website)

Set in Summer of 1944, Belarus.

A StuH III ausf. G with supporting infantry and a Schwimwagen reconnaissance vehicle wait behind the safety of a stone wall for Soviet forces.

The StuH is a support version of the Sturgeschutz armed with a 105 mm howitzer. The kit is ESCI's, in 1/72 scale with a few modifications such as bolted on supplemental armor on the front. Three hatches are open and there is a full interior but unfortunately little of it can be seen though the small hatches. A very nice kit and the best small scale plastic Stug kit I know available, though rare at this time.









The Schwimwagen is Hasegawa's 1/72 kit which I believe is the best Schwimwagen kit produced in plastic. Both kits were painted in acrylic paints and with artist oil camoflage colors. The stone wall is a resin casting, the manufacturer is unknown to me.

The figures are a mixture of ESCI soft plastic and hard plastic.



Stephen Brezinski, Maine USA