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Author Topic: Diablo Jon does Darkest Africa - Mirambo (Heaps of Corpses) painted.  (Read 66263 times)

Offline Diablo Jon

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Re: Diablo Jon does Darkest Africa - now with European Camp
« Reply #210 on: July 03, 2020, 07:36:11 PM »
So the final push to finish my British Lakes Company force has stalled as the miniatures I ordered from North Star, almost a month ago, haven’t arrived yet (in fairness North Star did warn me that they where struggling due to the pandemic). So I dug in to the lead pile and decided to paint up a unit of Baluchi I found there. I’ll say right now these haven’t turned out as well as I’d hoped. I’m not sure if starting them just as the UK had a mini heat wave had an effect. My wargames space isn’t exactly climate controlled and gets pretty warm when the weather gets hot. I’m not a hot weather person it tends to make me cranky coupled with the effect hot weather has on my paint its not a great combo for producing good  paint jobs.

Anyway on to the Baluchi. The Baluchi seem to have been men recruited from around the Indian ocean and gulf region into the service of the Sultan of Zanzibar. It would appear they started to be recruited around the turn of the 19th century, possibly as a counter to the retinues of the powerful Omani and Swahili families of the African east coast that the sultan frequently relied upon to provide soldiers.

Mostly they formed garrisons for the various coastal settlements and outposts inland nominally under the Sultan of Zanzibar’s control. The Sultan would also use them to provide escorts for important dignitaries and European explorers nominally  under his protection.

Appearance wise they seem to have been quite the dandies. They spent a lot of time on their hair and beards even colouring and shinning it with indigo. Saffron dyed cloth was popular but  any colour was possible for turbans, sashes and robes. Their officers, called Jedamars, where even more ostentatious by all accounts. Having said that the explorer Cameron described the Baluchi he saw as ” all redolent of dirt and grease”.

Weapons wise they still used Matchlocks supplemented with swords, shields, daggers and pistols. Apparently white shields where popular.

I tried to paint some of the robes saffron. A quick google images check shows saffron cloth being anything from a yellow cream to a bright orange I went pale yellow as it is closer to the picture of a Baluchi (being speared by a Maasai warrior) in the Osprey on East African warriors.

All the miniatures, bar two, are metal Foundry. The other two are plastic Wargames Atlantic Afghans, that I brought because I was being cheap, I didn’t want to buy a £12 pack of Foundry figures when I didn’t need most of the miniatures. I thought a £3 sprue of eBay was a good idea but frankly they are a bit crap so I will bite the bullet and buy some extra Foundry ones at some point. (The spares can find service in my Explorer Army that is basically being cobbled together from all my left over miniatures from my other army builds.)












Offline Shtim

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Re: Diablo Jon does Darkest Africa - now with Baluchi
« Reply #211 on: July 03, 2020, 08:18:28 PM »
Fantastic work! Great colours and clean paint job - excellent!

Offline bazookajoe

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Re: Diablo Jon does Darkest Africa - now with Baluchi
« Reply #212 on: July 04, 2020, 02:54:33 AM »
I agree.  These are great!

Offline JBaumal

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Re: Diablo Jon does Darkest Africa - now with Baluchi
« Reply #213 on: July 04, 2020, 02:02:06 PM »
Outstanding brush work Diablo Jon! I want to game with you sir.

Offline Diablo Jon

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Re: Diablo Jon does Darkest Africa - now with Baluchi
« Reply #214 on: July 05, 2020, 06:03:07 AM »
Thanks guys

Offline Plynkes

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Re: Diablo Jon does Darkest Africa - now with Baluchi
« Reply #215 on: July 05, 2020, 09:18:43 AM »
Great work, Jon. I do love the Baluchi figures from this range. I love the whole range, but these are some of my particular favourites.

We already know that the Baluchis were rarely actually from Baluchistan, but it turns out some of them weren't even Asian. Sidi Bombay, the famous guide who accompanied Burton, Speke and Stanley, was a Yao from what is now Tanzania, and yet he had served in the Sultan's Baluchi guard, the unit Jon mentioned as kicking off the whole Baluchi craze in East Africa. Maybe he qualified because he had been taken as a slave to India, and, returning as a free man, became a mercenary. So he sort of had the geographical credentials.

I have often daydreamed of doing a conversion to represent him at this stage of his career, i.e. headswap some African features on to a Baluchi figure. Might do it one day.  :)


With Cat-Like Tread
Upon our prey we steal...

Offline Diablo Jon

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Re: Diablo Jon does Darkest Africa - now with Baluchi
« Reply #216 on: July 05, 2020, 05:46:04 PM »
Great work, Jon. I do love the Baluchi figures from this range. I love the whole range, but these are some of my particular favourites.

We already know that the Baluchis were rarely actually from Baluchistan, but it turns out some of them weren't even Asian. Sidi Bombay, the famous guide who accompanied Burton, Speke and Stanley, was a Yao from what is now Tanzania, and yet he had served in the Sultan's Baluchi guard, the unit Jon mentioned as kicking off the whole Baluchi craze in East Africa. Maybe he qualified because he had been taken as a slave to India, and, returning as a free man, became a mercenary. So he sort of had the geographical credentials.

I have often daydreamed of doing a conversion to represent him at this stage of his career, i.e. headswap some African features on to a Baluchi figure. Might do it one day.  :)

Thanks Plynkes. I was aware of Sidi being a Yao, and serving in the Sultan's Baluchi guard, I wasn't aware he had been a slave in India though that's interesting.

It does throw up an interesting point about skin tones in Zanzibari armies though. The Swahilis are easy enough but plenty of "Arabs" I've seen photos of are clearly of African or mixed heritage seems like the Baluchi could be to. My biggest problem is while I have an African and European skin tone, paint recipes, that work for me I've yet to find a more middle eastern/tanned skin tone paint recipe that I'm happy with.

Offline Plynkes

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Re: Diablo Jon does Darkest Africa - now with Baluchi
« Reply #217 on: July 05, 2020, 06:11:25 PM »
Many of the "Arabs" from the photos of the time clearly have very little Arab in them, and seem to mostly have local blood running through their veins. Mr. Copplestone did at least sculpt quite a few of them with distinctively African features, though. For some I tend to use the same paints as for my African figures so they reflect what the photos of the time seem to show.

I have had similar problems to you in the past in coming up with colours for mixed race and Middle-Eastern/South Asian figures. But a couple of years ago I picked up a nice Foundry triad that I was happy with. I believe it has the rather embarrassing name "Dusky Flesh."  Looking at the state of my pots I have been using it a lot. I think I've probably been incorporating it in to the highlights of my African tribesmen too, as I don't paint all that many Middle-Eastern sorts.



Offline Plynkes

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Re: Diablo Jon does Darkest Africa - now with Baluchi
« Reply #218 on: July 05, 2020, 06:56:10 PM »
I think I used the "Dusky Flesh" triad on this guy (it was two years ago and the old memory is not what it was). Knowing me there was probably something else thrown in as well. I do tend to add things to taste rather than go straight from the bottle.



But I think it's a good starting point, if nothing else.



Offline Atheling

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Re: Diablo Jon does Darkest Africa - now with Baluchi
« Reply #219 on: July 05, 2020, 09:20:35 PM »
I think I used the "Dusky Flesh" triad on this guy (it was two years ago and the old memory is not what it was). Knowing me there was probably something else thrown in as well. I do tend to add things to taste rather than go straight from the bottle.



But I think it's a good starting point, if nothing else.

Although not Baluchi related I've used the the Dark African Flesh, North African Flesh, African Flesh and Musket Brown Foundry Flesh Triads in various combinations and achieved decent results:



I hope that this is of some use(?) :)

Offline Diablo Jon

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Re: Diablo Jon does Darkest Africa - now with Baluchi
« Reply #220 on: July 06, 2020, 09:14:56 AM »
Thanks guys. I might have to take a look at Foundry paints then. I've never used them before. I mainly use Army painter and Revell Aqua Colour with a few citadel and vallejo thrown in.

Offline Plynkes

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Re: Diablo Jon does Darkest Africa - now with Baluchi
« Reply #221 on: July 06, 2020, 10:33:32 AM »
Those Beja look great, Atheling. Since I got more deeply into painting I have only ever painted one Beja (I painted bucketloads back in the days when I just slapped any old paint on any old how  :)). Having looked at a lot of modern (and old) photos of them I came to the conclusion that the average Beja isn't particularly more light-skinned than the majority of Africans, so I simply used my regular African formula. I mean, they are not all as dark as that, but it was close enough for me for one figure in the LPL. I don't think I'd use my middle-eastern formula for them, though. They are a bit too dark for that, and kind of their own thing.

But anyway, as I said, I think yours look really good, I like the colour you went with.  :)



Offline Atheling

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Re: Diablo Jon does Darkest Africa - now with Baluchi
« Reply #222 on: July 06, 2020, 02:17:06 PM »
Those Beja look great, Atheling. Since I got more deeply into painting I have only ever painted one Beja (I painted bucketloads back in the days when I just slapped any old paint on any old how  :)). Having looked at a lot of modern (and old) photos of them I came to the conclusion that the average Beja isn't particularly more light-skinned than the majority of Africans, so I simply used my regular African formula.

Yeah, I agree. It was a bit unfortunate as I'd started on a Foundry's North African triad (applying a B and C from the Musket Brown triad first) then realised that the majority of the Beja were quite dark-skinned! I'm 'speed' painting some up at present with a darker tone though, which I'll post up when complete. Somehow removing the mould lines from the plastics is proving to take as long as cleaning the Perry's metals  o_o

Offline Plynkes

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Re: Diablo Jon does Darkest Africa - now with Baluchi
« Reply #223 on: July 06, 2020, 02:24:25 PM »
Honestly, I think those are great. I wasn't intending it as criticism, just musing on the idea that Beja perhaps aren't the best example for discussing typical "Middle Eastern" skin tones, as they are a bit darker than the average native of that region.  :)



Offline Atheling

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Re: Diablo Jon does Darkest Africa - now with Baluchi
« Reply #224 on: July 06, 2020, 03:02:08 PM »
Honestly, I think those are great. I wasn't intending it as criticism

No offence taken :)

Just musing on the idea that Beja perhaps aren't the best example for discussing typical "Middle Eastern" skin tones, as they are a bit darker than the average native of that region.  :)

I think the Foundry triads I mentioned above could be used in a few different ways, ignoring the normal sequence and mixing them up to get a skin tone to suit. There used to be an absolutely fabulous step by step for many global skin tones on The Steve Dean Forum but even though I've raked through old laptops etc I can't for the life of me find them. I'm 100% certain I saved them too :(

 

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