Miniatures Photography

One of the hardest battles of showing miniatures work online is the ability to get a photograph that does your painting justice.

East African Tribesmen Part II

Continuing on in the sheer joy of painting my Perry Brothers' plastic Mahdist Ansar, I've completed my first small band of 5 of them. I decided to do all five in red clothes, for some uniformity in the squad.
I intend to complete the rest of the box in several different ways, from actual Madhists to some various East African Tribes. Turkana is high on the list, if I can sculpt their distinct shields to my liking. For now I am creating kind of generic warriors, and running them shieldless.

I wanted this figure to be a sort of a leader to the warband, so I picked a body that was more fully robed (so that he would have more of the band's color on him) and chose a bearded head, which I painted slightly greying.

The skin still follows the Perry Brothers' tutorial on their webpage, and I cintinue to appreciate the results.

Fezzes are cool! And so are Martini Henry rifles. The guns in this set are superbly sculpted, and even include details like sling mounts. I'm mostly pleased with this figure, but don't know how the red fez does alongside red clothes. Might need to repaint in a contrasting color.

Another Martini Henry toting tribesman rushes to the scene. Not entirely visible with the grass basing, this one wears trousers, in this case done as unbleached cotton.

This charging spearman shows the nice detail of the beaded necklace, present on all of these models. It makes for a characterful detail, while also giving some camouflage to an otherwise obvious seam of head and body, which could be an issue on a bare-chested miniature.

One final shot of the whole group, to show off the basing, which follows my african basing convention in the Paint Journal. By spreading out the bristle grass basing, it does not overwhelm any individual figure, and bulks up as you put more miniatures into the group, to build up the impression of location overall.

What other ways should I use these fine sculpts? There are quite a few remaining in the box as pure plastic potential.

East African Tribesman

Thanks to a reenacting friend's donation, I have had the privilege of trying out the Perry Brothers' plastic Madhist Ansar set. I don't think I have ever seen so versatile a plastic set before. Though intended to portray the Madhist rebels of the Sudan war, with the multiple head and arm/weapon options, you can create a wide variety of peoples of North Eastern Africa. I will take advange of this versatility to create several smaller groups of figures, modifying some to Turkana

The first test figure is painted up a bit generically, with red cloth and a spear. I may add a plaid pattern to the clothing, since those are popular, and tend to end up in a lot of reference pictures. I do not, however, know at what point in history they became popular, but in my time in Kenya, I saw red plaid in wide use in rural areas, with several people groups. I did the skin using a modification from the Perry Brother's tutorial. 

The spear is painted very faintly silver, since many of the raw iron tips appear mostly black in person.

The basing is a refinement on my Gordon Highlander base, with a more subtle use of the bristle of the deep grass, so that it does not take over the figure. The hope is that en masse, the grass on the base will add up to a deep plain.

Gordon Highlanders in Africa

In a miniatures swap with a friend, I have ended up with a small supply of pith-helmeted highlander models., I at first thought it may have been either a Zulu or Sudan war figure, but on closer inspection is from Old Glory's Boer Wars range. After scrutinizing the figures and their equipment I decided to paint them up as Gordon Highlanders, with their own proprietary tartan. Hopefully it will be distinct enough at this scale, since it does bear some resemblance to the more common Black Watch plaid. The coat is khaki, since it has breast pockets, and I cannot find any illustrations showing red tunics with breast pockets. Khaki was also a decision based on the rifle he carries. At a distance it looks like a Martini Henry, but on closer inspection it has a box cartridge in front of the trigger and a bolt mechanism on the top, making it likely an early Lee-Enfield.

Pith helmet and belts done in white mostly for the sake of cool contrast on the miniature, though this may not be the most historic choice.

The base is intended to give an African feel, with red earth, and a mixture of greener low-growing turf and deep, straw colored savannah grass. The tufts of tall grass are bristles cut from a cheap paintbrush of the sort that shows up at every hardware store in America. I think I may have overdone the grass effect on this test model, and will likely tone it down a bit on the rest of his squad.

Pulp Adventure, Part I

This figure is the first in a series of pulp adventurers I am painting up for my friend Kyle. The model comes from Wargames Foundry, and has a lot of character. This was one of my favorite models from the pack. His simple dress and determined look makes for a great miniature.

Like with simple paint patterns on tanks, the simpler colors of the uniform allowed for some wear and weathering to be shown without disrupting the model too much. Though not perfectly shown in the photos, I've added sweat stains around the collar, under the arms, and down the back from the neck, as well as about the helmet where it would contact the head. The stains on the pith helmet are based on the ones that developed after I wore mine for a few years. I painted the leather gaiters and cartridge belt to have some wear around the edges, where the dye has rubbed off.

For now he stands on a simple desert base, though I am toying with adding deep savannah grass to make it more scenic.

 Also in the works is a sailor, who looks like he's straight off a tramp steamer. Fairly simple paint job here, with off-white pants, a blue peacoat, and white Greek cap. The most fun part was doing the striped shirt. He is based on an extra deck-base I'd made for AWI and Pirate crews. Now I just need a ship that will suit him...