Well, I did have an earlier Zulu thread, long long ago, in a galaxy far far away, but it was so long ago, I can't find it now
So here goes with another thread - the Zulus I painted for the last round of the Lead Painters league.
(Also a few comparison pics with Foundry Zulus and Copplestone Ngoni, which may be useful for some).
I bought a box of the Perry plastic Zulus as soon as they came out, and then they sat on my shelf for a year or two.
The LPL gave me the stimulus to assemble and paint a few
I think they're magnificent. Michael Perry has perfectly captured the skinny but muscular look of the Zulu warrior, and there's a cornucopia of different head and weapon options. The detailing of the weapons is of course, as you'd expect, completely accurate, with a great selection of spear types (rather than just the archetypal squat assegai). You could make up 1,000 brilliant Zulus from this box, and each one would be a character, and no two would be the same.
I did see some criticism of the ball-and-socket shoulder joint when this set first came out, but I didn't find it a problem in the least. If you look at the ones I've done here, with a bit of care in the positioning of the arms so that they sit right, and then a good slathering with liquid poly cement (with its inherent miracle quality of disappearing joins in plastic), the shoulders look absolutely fine.
For those who asked about the paint recipe for the skin, it's actually unbelievably simple - just two colours. The base is Citadel 'Rhinox Hide'. This is then mixed with gradually increasing amounts of Vallejo 'Dark Flesh' to build up the highlights, until the tips of fingers, toes, noses, ears etc, are almost pure 'Dark Flesh'. That's it!
(The thing to remember about black skin, is that it's not literally brown or black in tone - it's essentially pink, just the same as white skin. It's just a very much darker shade of pink. But the underlying pinkness of basic human skin tone is still there, and shows up as such on the extremities).
Now a couple of comparison pics with other Zulus in my collection...
Interestingly you'll notice that the skin tone is slightly different on these - I painted them years ago. Same two-colour technique, but two slightly different colours:
The old Citadel 'Scorched Brown' was replaced by 'Rhinox Hide' - I actually preferred the original - a slightly warmer shade of dark brown.
And I used VMC 'Sunny Flesh' at the time, a slightly yellower hue of caucasian skin tone than VMC 'Dark Flesh' which I shifted to a couple of years ago...
These are the 2nd generation Foundry Zulus, which were based on Copplestone dollies. I think they may now be available through Casting Room Miniatures, Foundry's budget brand...
L-R: Perry, Foundry, Perry, Foundry, Foundry, Perry.
And these are Copplestone Ngoni (provided to me by the estimable Plynkes, as I recall
)
L-R: Copplestone, Perry, Copplestone, Copplestone, Perry, Copplestone, Perry, Copplestone.
Hope useful
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April 20, 2024, 05:12:01 PM
