Malakand Field Force Prep, p.5: More Colors, sticks, painting

As I have slooooowly made progress with this project, part has been working on colors. Painting anything this large requires a bit of thought, as the colors can be a bit darker as the figures are so big they'll appear a bit more true to life. Also, I have to remember to not take these little toy soldier types too seriously, as even neatly painted they'll still have that old-school feel and "realism" will be taking something of a back seat, anyway.

Below, the base coat for the British Khaki: Vallejo Dark Sand.


Roan for a horse? What do they say about red-headed girls...?

First camel - don't let his nose under your tent...

French officer, attached to Brits as a professional courtesy - but whose side is he on?

Serious preparations - first, I had to re-glue all the figures on the sticks. One may argue I don't need the sticks at all, but the individual plastic figs are very light and tend to fall over, which could lead to some flaking and such. So more for weight than difficulty handling.

Super Tacky Glue is dirt cheap and dries with a lot of flexibility. Elmers dries brittle and is very useful for temporary gluing that will be followed by removal - figs will pop right off a stick or base. However, it really doesn't want to stick to the bottom of these guys! So I removed them all very easily and reattached them with the Super Tacky.


So this is where the painting project is currently standing - must continue learning techniques for cleaning off or otherwise mitigating mold lines. Overall, I think these limey's are ready for a lot more paint!