Back painting Sudan again..

I have been painting all sorts of other stuff lately, especially a lot of Darkest Africa stuff, but my recent visit to Egypt has got me preparing some more Sudan figures again.

I currently have about 10 more Beja undercoated and ready to go and hope to get them done in the next two weeks. I have actually put the first paint on my initial four Highlanders and I have based another three Beja on camels.

I put in another order to the Perry brothers today (and resisted buying any plastic ACW!). I've ordered some more Beja on camels, which I want to convert to standard bearers. The ones with rifles look to be in the right sort of pose. I've also ordered another three packs of ordinary Beja to enable me to finish my next two units.

For the British, I have ordered the high command pack, as I think it is about time my army had a commander, and the screw gun set, to be the Scottish Royal Artillery contingent.

I'm quite enthused about getting on with them again!

Another order off to Perry Miniatures

I have just sent off another order off to the Perries. They usually come back pretty quickly but it doesn't matter as I still have 12 days worth of Greeks painting left! It will be nice to have the next units based up and ready to go for after that, however.

I have ordered enough figures to complete a unit of 20 of each of KRRC and Naval Brigade. So another 12 figures for each plus command packs. I also ordered one each of the Gardner and Gatling guns to complete the naval contingent. The Perries don't do the naval guns and crews used by the brigade but I am sure I can get suitable guns elsewhere and just adapt the crews.

Redoubt have a few items that might prove useful which the Perries don't make, such as their camel train carrying a screw gun, but no doubt the figures are huge. It may be easier to buy an extra gun and disassemble it to mount on some camels, as the Redoubt figures and animals are a bit crude.

Some more progress

Although I am spending quite a lot of time on my new Crusader Punic Romans I am still working on the large group of Beja on the workbench. I have now put sand on all the bases and painted the black parts on most of the figures. I am going to the USA tomorrow for 10 days so won't get anything done.

Having set up a couple of blogs based on armies I meant to work on but then got distracted from I thought it might be a better idea to actually do one where I am making some progress!

I chose the Sudan campaign 1883-1885 largely because of the wonderful new range of figures sculpted by Michael Perry of Perry Miniatures http://www.perry-miniatures.com/index2.html but also because I have wanted to build an army of Colonial British in pith helmets for some time. I bought my first metal figures six or seven years ago largely because they had British in pith helmets (Foundry's darkest Africa). I didn't want to do the Zulu wars because I couldn't face painting hundreds of nearly identical Zulus. Britain's opponents in the Sudan were much more varied in appearance and the British forces themselves, including Royal Marines, Royal Navy, Highlanders and Camel mounted troops were also more interesting.

Experience is also showing that I actually get these figures painted, rather than just looking at them for months!
Another key element for me is having a really good book or two and, preferably, a film for inspiration.

I picked up Wilbur Smith's recent novel about the siege of Khartoum, Triumph of the Sun, http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0330412655/202-4106162-1167063?v=glance&n=266239&s=gateway&v=glance at Gatwick airport. I have only read a couple of Wilbur Smith novels before and this one started well but then seemed very rushed at the end but it inspired me to buy the DVD of the 1966 film, Khartoum, starring Charlton Heston http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000089AUD/202-4106162-1167063?v=glance&n=283926&s=dvd&v=glance which, while also not perfect, is certainly well worth seeing, despite a rather eccentric portrayal of the Mahdi by Laurence Olivier. Interestingly the Perry figure looks more like Olivier playing the Mahdi than the historical figure!

I had already picked up some Perry figures at Salute 2005 but reading the book and watching the film inspired me to get some painted. I took a group of 18 Beja with me on holiday last month and, much to my surprise painted them all. With the ones I had done earlier in the year they were starting to look like the beginning of a proper army. I have just bought a more few packs from Perry to complete some more units and hope to get these painted in the next few weeks.