Dahomey War: Fon Female Warriors III (aka Amazons)

As the ink wash on yesterday's Thralls was drying I decided to progress the remaining final eight Dixon Amazons for the Dahomey project that had been sat on the workbench for nearly a month. A couple of hours later and they were pretty much finished, the bases being completed late last night...

These have been fun to paint and the block paint, Army Painter shade wash and then highlight approach has been quick and effective...

The complete unit about to ambush some French!

2014 Painting Target: 11/1000

Fon Female Warriors II (aka Amazons)

Despite the distraction of basing up and undercoating some miniatures yesterday for Victorian Month I did finish half the remaining female Fon warriors from Africa Month.

As previous the miniatures are from Dixon and i used my rough drybrush, wash and highlight technique on them. They won't win any competition prize but they good enough at normal viewing distances.

Hopefully the final eight won't take too long now...

(Africa Month) Fon Female Warriors I (aka Amazons)

I finished the first four Dahomey Amazons today. The miniatures are from Dixon and as previously discussed some have had head swaps to increase the variety (though I can't rightly remember if this group includes any conversions).

Pretty good figures sculpted by Mike Owen before he went to Foundry, I used the same painting technique of block, wash and highlight as the male warriors for the clothing and weapons, with the flesh just being a heavy drybrush over black undercoat.

(Africa Month) Dahomey Amazon Head Swaps

Well it was back to Cardiff this morning for the Uni Open Day, shame Saul was not overly impressed with the course after all that driving but at least we found out now... Good news however was that the Dixon Amazons arrived yesterday so I cleared a space on the workbench this afternoon to play with them! Unfortunately there are only nine different miniatures and some of those are obviously variants on the same dolly so I decided that in true Amazon style I would decapitate some of the models - and then do some head swaps to provide some variety in the unit.

Nine figures were converted and the swaps have worked pretty good. I also chopped the arm off one Amazon waving a decapitated head and repositioned the arm without the head...

(Africa Month) Fon Male Warriors VI

I managed to finish off the final four Fon male warriors before starting work this morning... Once again they are Foundry miniatures, mainly tribesmen with muskets so not particularly exciting but quick to paint and the whole unit does look pretty good en masse. Just waiting for the Dixon Amazons now so I can crack on with unit two...

(Africa Month) Fon Male Warriors V

Not quite sure where all the time went today but I managed to grab a few minutes mid-afternoon to finish off four more of the Fon. In my enthusiasm/rush to finish them off I somehow managed to throw one across the room into a radiator and now he has no nose (how does he smell? awful!). Anyway another four down, four left to go...

(Africa Month) Fon Male Warriors IV

The paints I needed to crack on with the Dahomey Fon arrived today, undortunately I was tied up most of the day with phone conferences, but did grab some time at lunchtime to finish these three Foundry types with the help of SWMBO's hair dryer to speed things up!

This takes the unit up to fifteen, with eight left to finish. I'm hoping my Dixon's order arrives soon so I can paint up some Amazons!

(Africa Month) Amazons of Black Sparta

Today saw another university recce, this time the University of Gloucestershire in very pleasant Cheltenham Spa, that is our investigations done, now Saul needs to get his personal statement written and his applications in.

Consequently that has meant little time for anything much else, though I have updated my Voyages Diabolique page with some new character types and tinkered with Saul's Bandcamp page (click if you fancy some rocking music).

I have however been reading an excellent book on the Fon and the Dahomey War in the form of Stanley B. Alpern's Amazons of Black Sparta. The title seemed a bit sensationalist but it is a very good academic work with lots of detail and information both on the Fon in the decades before the wars with the French and the wars themselves.

I'm about half way through but have learnt lots of interesting stuff and if you fancy dabbling in a more off beat colonial conflict that lasted considerably longer than the Zulu War then I recommend picking this book up (even if you don't fancy a dabble miniatures wise it still is a book well worth reading).

(Africa Month) Fon Male Warriors III

I received a nice phone call yesterday from Wendy at West Wind letting me know my Empire of the Dead Kickstarter pledge was on its way and thanking me for my support. I thought it was a really nice touch to ring customers and our chat has got my brain swirling with Victorian London scenery ideas (not helped by watching Ripper Street last night either...).

Anyway back to Africa Month and another four "just finished" Fon for the Dahomey army from Foundry Darkest Africa Ruga-Ruga and Tribesmen packs. Great figures...

The remaining eleven are coming along nicely, but I have run out of the Beasty Brown paint I use on the bases. Hopefully Antics will have some...

(Africa Month) Fon Male Warriors II

On a bit of a roll (shame it's not a bacon one!), with four more Fon using Foundry Darkest Africa Ruga-Ruga and Tribesmen for Africa Month!

Painting has been quite straightforward, a drybrush of Vallejo Dark Fleshtone over a black undercoat. The clothing and equipment is blocked in, washed with the Army Painter ink, then highlights drybrushed using the original colour. I'm painting the clothing in batches so whilst they look similar in groups of four, they will be enough variation in the whole unit.