Just a quickie....

Its been a while. But here are a few more Zulu's. November and December are always busy months, four family birthdays (including mine (yippee!), the run upto Christmas, blah blah blah! So consequently it took a little longer than anticipated to finish these models.  These are empressminiatures married Zulu's and with these dozen completed it now means that the twenty Zulu figures I originally purchased are complete. 

Once the snow has abated I will be able to use the workshop and take some better photos.

Zulu's Sir, 'ate of um!

In between making terrain, I've not been idle. These Zulu are coming along very nicely. Few more to do yet, quite a few more actually.

These are all empressminiatures figures. Have about another dozen or so of these to finish, then start on the Foundry Zulu's recently purchased at Derby. I'm interested to see how the two will mix together or not! The Empress Zulu's look quite slight next to the Foundry sculpts, but best to judge once I have painted versions of both.

Scrub

A few more terrain pieces. I got the idea whilst watching 'Zulu' ( again!) a few weeks ago, and noticed in some scenes that there were odd trees scattered about surrounded by tall grass and bush. I then remembered having some 'Woodland Scenic' tree armatures lying about and voila!

They took a little longer than I had planned. The colder weather recently, meant the glue was taking longer to dry and I didn't really take that in to account and half the first layer of sand fell off, when I came to paint them. Patience is the key at the moment. Again I've used CD's for the bases.

This little project was a learning curve 'Hob-e-tac' (Woodland Scenics own glue), is good stuff but it does just what it says-its tacky. Worse than super glue if you get it on fingers. I used a mix of Woodland Scenic, Javis and GW materials for the foliage and scatters.

Here's a shot with a red coat lurking in the bush.

I have a few other ideas forming for future terrain projects. Time to crack on.

Zulu- Just One!

By the magic of technology, this looks like it could be one of the Zulu's from the last post? Well I'd lying if I said it was. I finished this little fella about a week ago and have done a few more since.

My main concern with painting the Zulu was getting the black/African skin colour right. Or at least do it justice. So this was the test figure. I must admit most of my previous painting has been of white Europeans. Mainly because thats have been my area of interest, not because of anything more sinister.

I had an idea of what colours to use, and after some research on the 'net' to see how other people do it, I stayed with my initial scheme. Which to be honest wasn't to far off what other painters have used. Some of the best skin tones I found, involved eight or nine layers/glazes/highlights etc. of paint which I decided was just too much, even for me! Though the result was very good.

I am once again finding I'm using a limited palette, for clothing (what there is of it!) etc.. I seemed to have turned other a new leaf, I no longer have to agonise over what variation of brown or white or whatever colour to paint a loin cloth, they will all be the same colour-Oh the joy!

I seem to have caught the colonial bug at the moment. (Sounds nasty, what!).

P.S. Colonial bug is not a reference to Starship Troopers-you know who you are.

P.P.S. Yes this is an Empress Miniatures, Zulu. Follow the link on the right hand side if you would like to know more!

On the Workbench

Currently working on a 'ruck' of Zulu's and some more Apache. The Zulu's are from Empress, and nice they are too. These are the Married warriors packs. In each pack you get, four figures, a choice of shields generally one large and three small and a weapons sprue, with spears and clubs. I've decided to use wire spears for the assegai, but since some of the models with rifles have a cast open left hand, used the cast weapons to give the appearance that these warriors are carrying a secondary weapon. I would assume thats what the sculptor had in mind?

Ashlee

Ashlee, Zombie Killer. Another Hasslefree figure.

Dionne

First of my Zombie Hunters/Near future adventurers. Had these for a while and like so many other models, just did not get round to painting any of them. This little beauty took about two hours last night. Dionne is a Hasslefree figure.

Make a nice change, so will probably paint them as 'inbetweeners'. Inbetween other projects.