Let's Paint Zulus

 Getting there now and they are starting to look finished. I painted all of the weapons a darker shade of Burnt Umber. This looked good and I didn't need to paint any more than this on them, apart of course from the metal of the blades.

 One trick that really helped with these figures is to keep them stuck on their cereal packet strips. By bending the card I could reach all of the details without cutting the figures into separate pieces. This saved a lot of time picking up figures and speeded the whole process up loads. Also each strip got its own colour loin cloth which also speeded things up when painting colours.

 Always make notes of your colours and techniques as you go in a note book, can't stress this enough. It is a life saver if you ever need to return to a project a year later.

 Young unmarried Zulus of the horns of the Buffalo.

 These Perry plastic Zulus are great and I think they are some of the best on the market, I'm glad I waited. Lovely and simple to paint!

I did struggle to work out how to base these guys, but in the end went for separate bases. This is good for men who would be kings and could lead to some great looking formations. Multiple figure bases would be easier but I don't mind the idea of moving hundreds of figures around by hand...quite looking forward to it.

Painting 28mm Zulus

 I was lucky enough to find some Burnt Umber spray paint in WH smiths the other day and I grabbed it thinking it would save a lot of painting time. Turns out it was the best buy I ever made!

 I was a little worried at first because it looked very wet and flooded the details of the Perry plastic Zulus, however as it dried the detail came through and the colour was perfect. I had started to hand paint the plastics with Burnt Umber from P3 paints, but this spray can cut all of that lengthy process out.

 Above you can see the two different paints next to each other, hardy any difference between the paint pot and the spray can.

 To keep things really quick I used a big brush and brushed on FOUNDRY's African flesh 'B' and then 'C'. After this I washed the figure with black ink and finally highlighted again with Vajello Mahogany. As these figures are all flesh and very easy to dry brush I thought I would treat them to quite a few paint tones in their skin.

 A wash of black ink ties all the skin tones together. Again a big brush saves a lot of time.

These two paints were perfect for the Zulu clothing. The red leather colour is great for the leather around the bum area and the earth brown is excellent for the monkey tails around the loins. Once dry 'splodge' the brown with a lighter colour to add a little detail.

The Last Round