C
CDW
Guest
Just finished a little diorama depicting a scene from the aftermath and tidy up of the zulu wars.
I've read a few book and some online info about the "behind the scenes" of the wars and there's some nice little ennecdotes rarely published in the "standard" historicle facts normally found on such sites as wikipedia etc
The dio shows a final desperate attack from the remains (some deserted, some disoriented) Zulu warriors that were unaware that their "King" Cetshwayo had fled from his village hiding place after hearing of their defeat at Ulundi.
They wandered aimlessly and came across a party of british collaborates consisting mainly of French, Dutch and American "Mercenaries" (for the better want of a word. Some literature refers to them as Zuaves due to percentage of French and American present in these little groups)
A small skuffle ensued and lives were lost. Mid battle ... a pair of Runners from the remains of the mounted troops returning from delivering news to Lord Chelmsfords "wagon station" saw the commosion and joined the hostilities, tipping the scales against the Zulu.
it's at this point the dio is created.
View attachment 29122
The model figures are
"A call to arms" - Zulus at Isandlwana -
These are quite nicely moulded, with little flash or tidying up needed, and although there's only about 6 different positions they don't look too bad painted up. the shields are seperate and can be fixed at different angles to give a bit or variation to the limited pose factor. I also added some thread to add a little more to the battle dress, the original figure seemed too "flat"
"Hat industries" - Union Zuaves -
Again there's very few poses included and what makes it worse is the amount of tidying up needed, the moulding is attrocious - even to the point of two halves not matching up by a country mile. The features are bland to say the least and so these badly formed individuals were heated up and repostioned so as to be the injured and dead in the dio. I cut and chopped some figures with some other 1/32 to give a little variety.
The plasic used in construction repels Acrylic even when washed in detergent, and a decent priming was needed .. making the lack of detail even worse.
"A call to arms" - Waterloo Franch Dragoons -
Couldn't find the mounted figure i needed so i did a bit of retrimming of these figures to be (at least) similar to the mounted troops in the Zulu war. (after reading up i found uniforms were exchanged and redesigned "in the field" for practicality and comfort so that eased most of my little niggles about trying to get "historically correct"
Quality wise ... they are on the same scale as the Zulu, moulding is fine and a fair amount of detail with not much to clean up before painting.
View attachment 34574
I've read a few book and some online info about the "behind the scenes" of the wars and there's some nice little ennecdotes rarely published in the "standard" historicle facts normally found on such sites as wikipedia etc
The dio shows a final desperate attack from the remains (some deserted, some disoriented) Zulu warriors that were unaware that their "King" Cetshwayo had fled from his village hiding place after hearing of their defeat at Ulundi.
They wandered aimlessly and came across a party of british collaborates consisting mainly of French, Dutch and American "Mercenaries" (for the better want of a word. Some literature refers to them as Zuaves due to percentage of French and American present in these little groups)
A small skuffle ensued and lives were lost. Mid battle ... a pair of Runners from the remains of the mounted troops returning from delivering news to Lord Chelmsfords "wagon station" saw the commosion and joined the hostilities, tipping the scales against the Zulu.
it's at this point the dio is created.
View attachment 29122
The model figures are
"A call to arms" - Zulus at Isandlwana -
These are quite nicely moulded, with little flash or tidying up needed, and although there's only about 6 different positions they don't look too bad painted up. the shields are seperate and can be fixed at different angles to give a bit or variation to the limited pose factor. I also added some thread to add a little more to the battle dress, the original figure seemed too "flat"
"Hat industries" - Union Zuaves -
Again there's very few poses included and what makes it worse is the amount of tidying up needed, the moulding is attrocious - even to the point of two halves not matching up by a country mile. The features are bland to say the least and so these badly formed individuals were heated up and repostioned so as to be the injured and dead in the dio. I cut and chopped some figures with some other 1/32 to give a little variety.
The plasic used in construction repels Acrylic even when washed in detergent, and a decent priming was needed .. making the lack of detail even worse.
"A call to arms" - Waterloo Franch Dragoons -
Couldn't find the mounted figure i needed so i did a bit of retrimming of these figures to be (at least) similar to the mounted troops in the Zulu war. (after reading up i found uniforms were exchanged and redesigned "in the field" for practicality and comfort so that eased most of my little niggles about trying to get "historically correct"
Quality wise ... they are on the same scale as the Zulu, moulding is fine and a fair amount of detail with not much to clean up before painting.
View attachment 34574