Hindu Command Elephant

As well as working on my 15mm AB napoleonics for DBN, I've been working away at re-basing, and adding to, my Hindu Indians for DBA/DBMM and possibly (although i'll have to check the lists) Tony Aguilar's brilliant DBA-RRR. It's also likely that elements of this army will see some HoTT action (the club I've started playing with tend to do 15mm HoTT).
Anyway, I recently finished an additional command elephant and thought I'd share a couple of photographs. The miniature is from Essex. The elephant's pose is a bit static, but I quite like that - it conveys a sense of a slow, purposeful advance. There are 3 head variants available within this code so there's a bit of variety there, but I would prefer it if Essex added even 1 other pose for the mahout and the command figure in the Howdah.
I painted the elephant with GW's Charadon Granite, a nice brownish grey colour. I didn't bother highlighting this, and just gave it a wash with my Klear floor polish & Peat Brown ink mix. For the Howdah and saddle cloth I've kept with the red, white & green colour scheme I've used with the rest of the army. GW's Dark Angels Green with Snot Green highlights, and Vallejo's Black Red & Carmine Red. To break up the expanse of grey I've been going backs and adding flesh coloured mottles and markings to all of my Elephants trunks and ears. For this I used the Foundry 3 colour flesh (5A,B & C).
The design on the Howdah canopy was drawn on freehand with a soft pencil before being painted. I've just started experimenting with freehand stuff and, although I'm happy with the results, I expect to see improvement over time..
The terrain in the background are some marsh & jungle sections I'm working on specifically for this army.
Anyway, that's it for now. Enjoy!

Bob Mcleish

Napoleonics - Peninsular basing

Hi,

After a few solo games of DBN I'm convinced they're the Napoleonic rule set of choice for me; smallish armies mean I won't get bogged down, and ultimately lose interest in, large painting projects, and it means I can, in a relatively short space of time, put together armies for the 2 campaigns that interest me most; the Peninsula and Napoleon's ill-fated invasion of Russia.

Having finally settled on a ruleset I've started re-basing my 15mm Napoleonics for use with DBN rules; all of the elements are on a 40mm frontage, with the majority of the infantry on 20mm deep bases.

My usual basing colour scheme of black/graveyard earth/bone wouldn't really work for the more arid Spanish peninsula, so I needed to find some colours that worked. A recent Wargames Illustrated (#263) focused on Desert warfare and contained a feature on desert basing colour schemes. They suggested 4 colour palettes none of which was specifically designed with Spain in mind, so I just went with the one that I found most aesthetically appealing. I ordered the relevant colours from Maelstrom Games here in the UK (decent prices and free P&P) and started gluing figures to bases..

The paints arrived and, as usual, I decided to finish one base completely to make sure it was the effect I wanted.

I covered the base with PVA glue, dipped it into a box of sand and set it aside to dry. I started off by painting it black, followed by a heavy drybrush of Vallejo's English uniform (921), when this wa sdry a lighter drybrush of Vallejo Green Ochre was applied (914), with a final drybrush of Vallejo Dark Sand (847) to finish off. Once this was dry I glued on some small patches of GF9 parched Straw static grass, and a couple of clumps of GF9 Spring Undergrowth flock. Finally I glued on a small piece of olive coloured shrubbery (from a big bag of Woodland scenics foliage I think)

I'm quite pleased with the effect and will use this colour scheme to produce some matching terrain..

Best regards

Bob Mcleish

Napoleonics

Hi,

Today I painted up 4 Peninsular British infantry for my DBN army. The figures are by AB and, along with some of the Fantassin ranges, are probably the best looking 15mm Napoleonics around (although they're closer to 18mm).

The bulk of my 15mm Napoleonics were bought painted - the prospect of all that lace and fiddly crossbelts, just didn't appeal. I was also underwhelmed at my previous attempt; painting some Battle Honours Brits a couple of years ago. Anyway, I'm quite pleased with todays result and have some Highlanders undercoated and waiting on my painting table for tomorrow.

Regards

Bob Mcleish

Jungle Shrine

Hi,

I thought you might like to see the overgrown "Jungle Shrine" terrain piece I've recently finished. The Psiloi element on the steps uses 15mm Indian Javelinmen from Essex Miniatures.

I got the statue figurine for £3.00 from the homeware section of a discount department store a while back, but it had just sat on my gaming shelf gathering dust waiting to be used.

I was getting close to finishing off my Hindu Indian BBDBA/DBMM army and the desire to make some army specific terrain and baggage was just the inspiration I needed..

The jungle plants are sections of artificial aquarium plants from a local Tropical Fish store, and the base is 2.5mm MDF, with the edges & paving stones shaped with a craft knife. Once I'd glued the statue to the base I undercoated the whole thing black (the statue was originally a garish gold colour), and simply drybrushed it with gradually lighter greys. I then washed some areas of the statue and steps with GW's Thraka Green wash to give an impression of lichen and mould on the stone. As I wanted to convey a sense that this shrine had been neglected, or forgotten, and was gradually succumbing to the ravages of the jungle I glued sand onto the steps, and added plants and static grass in areas where I thought windborne seeds would gain a foothold.

At 160mm x 120mm it is makes a good sized Built Up Area (BUA) for DBA & DBM.

bye for now..

Bob Mcleish