I am going to paint Zulu, Mexicans and Texians in 2014.
Any Zulu army worth its salt would have a lot of figures. I don't like painting loads of similar figures.
So in order to have just a reasonable chance of completing some Zulu I have chosen to use the method described below.
Here is the first test Zulu:

I simply painted the entire figure with a gloss brown spray, blocked in the details and washed it with a black wash (Army Painter).
I then painted up the colours again.
I think the result is good. In fact better than hoped for. And within the realm of realism with regards to completing 64 of the blighters.

After and before

Before