La República de Banano - A Project

[answer_is_42]

La República de Banano is a small island nation situated somewhere within Central America. Since its independence from Spain in 1927, it has been repeatedly invaded by South, North and Central American countries, and as a result has see-sawed from Communist to Capitalist dictatorships. It is in a constant state of turmoil, with various ruling families, not to mention Communist rebels, drug lords and the military, all vying for power. In 1971 the island was invaded by the USA, who installed the current ‘democratic’ regime as a puppet government.
The island's nearest neighbour is the equally tiny República de Naranjas, which was invaded and taken over by Cuba in 1969, resulting in a communist dictatorship. Due to a diplomatic incident in 1972 in which the two nations simultaneously invaded one another over a mixed box of Bananas/Oranges, relations with the República de Naranjas were recently described by one Bananian minister as “really, really, really bad”.

So there's the background, I'm ready to have some crazy adventures in 1970's South America!

Only one picture at the moment, the glorious troops of the República de Banano, armed with weapons and equipment from the USA;

Baker Company ARVN (they look rather Asian, but lets not allow that to distract us, eh?) and M113's.

I'm going to try to keep this project under 40 models strong, but please, don't quote me on that...
Hopfully more pictures tomorrow.
Comments etc welcome.

[Mr.Marx]

Damn good to see you starting anouther progect that will engulf your life!

[Col.Stone]

Great background

may i suggest mongrel's syrians as opponents..

come to think of it, i may have done that already 

[answer_is_42]

Great background

may i suggest mongrel's syrians as opponents..

Thanks!
Do you have any pictures of Mongrel's Syrians? The images on their site don't seem to be working...

[Col.Stone]

haven't got any pics myself
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Mongrelminis/photos/album/1145490259/pic/list
a few there, (pack 1 &2 i think) might have to join up..

[Pentaro]

There was a song by Les Luthiers about the República de Banania. "Do not think of me as a dictator - that's an order!"

[former user]

so, what's happening the with the "Macedonia de frutas" next?
I guess the Naraneros will have soviet equipment?

and there will be some notorious C-team envolved?

[answer_is_42]

I guess the Naraneros will have soviet equipment?
and there will be some notorious C-team envolved?

Yes, and hopefully yes. I'm thinking of Eureka's 'Musorian' infantry for the República de Naranjas. It all depends on money, time etc, though...

Painted the first 8-man squad today, and even managed to take some half decent photos (!):





The colours are a little dull, but they are just grunts, after all. I usually use vast amounts of ink on my figures, but I've tried to get by with only inking the skin and a few bits of equipment on these, the results of which I'm fairly pleased with.

I doubt I'll have anything more painted tommorow, but should have an M113 done by Tuesday/Wednesday.
Thanks for looking!

[former user]

nice

aren't they a little bit fair for the geography?

[answer_is_42]

nice
aren't they a little bit fair for the geography?

You mean the skin tones? I imagine the island as a sort of 'melting pot' of various cultures and peoples. I've painted two with white skin, three black (although perhaps I should've done more of these), and three are an attempt at Hispanic skin tones, but perhaps did them too light (although they don't show too well in the photo).
I used the following photo of Cuban military personal as a guide for the skin tones;

[former user]

doesn't matter

but too fair indeed - remeber that even "white" soldiers would acquire a tan
remeber that melting pot means interbreeding
in 100 years the "white"  skin tone will be extinct and you will recognise white racists as the only ones being white

interesting thing I stumbled upon in Sudan:
the "arab" ethnicities claim to be not "black" and look down on the southern sudanese as being "black" and inferior - although to us all would look african anyway
I guess it is the same with the latin americans who claim spanish ancestry, though they are much darker then spanish
so it sems "black" and "white" is more of an attitude for discrimination

[Col.Stone]

An extra go with fleshwash on the hispanics wouldn't be amiss, but i like what i'm seeing =)

[answer_is_42]

Los Militares de Banano was formed in 1936, three months after the tenth armed invasion of the island (the nation has been invaded 34 times since its independence). Despite the fact that the Republic spends on average 48% of its annual income on the military, only three invasion attempts on the island have ever been successfully repulsed, and two of those victories were due to vast amounts of ineptitude on the part of the invaders (Panama and Scotland respectively).
Up until the American invasion of 1971, the Bananian military had been armed with outdated World War 2 era weapons and equipment, supplemented by a few eighth-hand Soviet T-55s. However, during the disastrous defence operations practically everything of military value was lost, when the troops deployed in the Northern defence zone mistook the troops in the South for US airborne infantry, despite the fact that America had not yet declared war.
Following the US takeover, the military was reorganised and reequipped with American weapons, and can now boast (on paper at least) three full divisions of mechanised infantry, although this number drops to roughly half a division every Thursday afternoon, for what have been described as ‘tax reasons’.
 
Finished these today, two M113 APCs (sorry about the awful photos, I'll try to do some better ones at a later date);




I’m quite happy with them, considering I’ve never tried vehicles with camouflage before.

[Arlequín]

Nice concept, I'm sure you'll have many happy hours spent gaming it! Certainly makes a change from Vietnam.  

On the subject of southern American demographics it doesn't do to generalise. Cuba has a very large percentage of Whites (i.e. Spanish) in comparison with the rest of the region and perhaps the lowest percentage of Blacks. Mixed race is the second most predominate racial mix, almost double the number of Blacks, but less than half the number of Whites. The Dominican Republic is predominantly mixed race, with roughly equal numbers of Blacks and Whites, who form 27% of the population between them. Haiti on the other hand is 95% Black. It gets more complicated when you look at mainland countries, Venezuela for example has 60% of its population as Mestizo- mixed race drawn from Amerindian and European stock, the remainder being White.

Fair enough, these are relative terms as there is a great difference in skin tones between Northern Europeans and Southern Europeans, like the Spanish and Portuguese who colonised the area. Nevertheless there are still observable differences between individuals despite nearly 500 years of co-habitation in a 'melting pot'. As for Whites tanning... all races go darker when exposed to sunlight over a period of time.

[former user]

48% only ??
no wonder they are being overrun