Tamaai 1884

[Angus Tura]

Long ago, when Col. suggested this GB I said I was glad that there wasn't a time limit...so, I'd better do this build/paint.

 

The British occupied Egypt in 1882 and stayed until 1956. There were many objections to this state of affairs, one of the earliest being the Mahdist Rebellion which culminated in Gordon's death at Khartoum and the relief of Khartoum in1885. The battle of Tamaai in 1884 was a defeat for the Mahdists but only after they had broken into one of the British squares. They were repelled by the Black Watch and by the 1st Battalion of the York and Lancaster Regiment.

 

1st York and Lancaster and 1st Black Watch rallying for the counter-attack at the Battle of Tamaai on 13th March 1884 in the Sudanese War, by Douglas Giles.  

The Original of this is in the York and Lancs Regimental Museum in Rotherham, but unfortunately that is Coronavirus-closed. 

 

I have a stash of Yorkshire-related figures amongst which is this:

 

 

Here he is stuck together with Blu-tac:

 

 

The base is by Richard of Oakwood Studios in Leeds. When I first got the figure out of its box I was not at all sure about the pose/animation but it has grown on me over time, sitting on my desk in its blu-tacced state. The sculpture and the casting is very good.

 

See you shortly,

 

Alan

 

 

[Col.]

A wonderful subject choice Alan. We seldom see figures in the GBs so I'm delighted you've picked this one.

[Valkyrie]

Good bit of history too, looks interesting all in.

[CliffB]

I look forward to another masterclass in figure painting Alan

Roughly what size is the figure?

 

 

Cheers

[Angus Tura]

Cliff and all, thanks. I'm not sure about "masterclass", Cliff. It can surely only qualify as a "class" if it gets finished, unlike every other previous attempt.

He's "54mm" but actually a touch over 60mm. So, about 1/30.

 

That 

[JOCKNEY]

Looks terrific Alan

Forgive my shocking history knowledge, but would this be the same "Sudan" conflict that Corporal Jones used to talk about in Dad's Army ?

cheers Pat

 

[fatfingers]

Nice figure. My grandad was in the 'Cat & Cabbage' regiment in WW2 until he got 'nabbed' in North Africa. Quite fancy a visit to the Regimental Museum if it re-opens at some point in the future.

 

Look forward to seeing this progress 👍

 

Regards,

 

Steve

[Foxbat]

4 hours ago, JOCKNEY said:

Looks terrific Alan

Forgive my shocking history knowledge, but would this be the same "Sudan" conflict that Corporal Jones used to talk about in Dad's Army ?

cheers Pat

 

My first reply was rubbish. Should have just Googled in the first place. Of course he has his pwn Wiki entry with a full back story, so yes, that was the same 'Sudan'

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lance_Corporal_Jones

 

Andy

 

Edited February 18, 2021 by Foxbat

[Angus Tura]

Pat and Andy: I am here to tell you that they do not like it up 'em.

 

You could be forgiven for asking why I'm posting the exact same image of this build as last time:

 

 

Although there has been very little progress there has been a lot of time-spent.

 

I've filled a bit of a defect in the right arm and carved up the pegs on his feet to start base-making. Mostly however, I've been making a strap for his Martini-Henry out of empty tomato puree tube.

 

 

When I was a kid-modeller, I used to get very annoyed at older modellers writing in Military Modelling &c. that I should use metal foil from wine bottles for making 54mm belts and straps. I was 13 and my presbyterian Scottish parents considered wine to be: a. Foreign; and b. The Work of the Devil. Nowadays, of course, wine bottles have plastic foil on them.

 

There are very small resin loops on the Martini-Henry to fit the strap. So, I spent one evening under-cutting them with a razor saw and opening them up....before breaking the back-end one off while threading the strap through. Then another evening spent making a new loop out of 5 amp wire.

 

 

The resin rifle needed de-warping in boiling water and I hope that it doesn't re-warp after all the grief it's given me.

 

Alan

[Col.]

That's all time well spent Alan. Nice work.

[Angus Tura]

Thanks Col. It would have been time well spent....if I hadn't managed to break the second resin buckle off. Here is Mk.2:

 

 

Both buckles now fusewire. After a lot of time-consuming mucking about I found that bending the wire over the corner of a hold-and-fold actually makes making the buckles quite easy. I have also added a brass pin to the wrist to hold it for painting and to secure it. The lever of the Martini-Henry broke before I even got it off its resin block. The new one is more, heavier, fuse wire flattened and bent with some pliers.

 

Photographing things for Britmodeller is a bit unforgiving: I see that the trigger and trigger-guard need more clean-up. Thankfully, having cleaned up the body of the figure, head and right arm, the assembly is essentially done.

 

See you later,

 

Alan  

[Angus Tura]

So, I forwent last weeks blitzbuild to concentrate on this whereupon work went mental on Monday and for the rest of the week. So, as usual, I'm struggling to complete.

 

 

This was some progress on the base. It's magic-sculp. It's dearer than Das putty but it does handle better and it isn't porous. On-line it's very easy to find references on the Hadendoa weapons by Googling "Mahdist weapons". The shields were hippopotamus skin, whackily enough. This one is two layers of 10 thou. plasticard with a magic-sculp boss and stretched sprue edge. It just needs texture adding with Mr.Surfacer 1500. The cavalry spear is pretty fearsome. The blade is 2.5cm long which is to say nearly a metre in scale. It's 5 thou. brass with a plastic rod-carved shaft and ferrule. It needs a ridge down the middle with 5 amp wire and then lots of coats of tamiya undercoat.

 

Irises and upper lashes painted on with W&N raw umber. The sclerae are just the Tamiya undercoat colour.

 

 

Then the rifle needed to be painted to let me paint the left hand in the same session as the face and right hand.

 

 

The stock is Revell flesh enamel, Vallejo semi-gloss varnish and then raw umber oil paint with plenty of linseed oil to be smeary. This needed two coats. The metal is Vallejo natural steel followed by tamiya smoke and black oils washes. 

 

Here he is so far:

 

 

The flesh is an undercoat of Humbrol flesh (61) and tan (62). Then oil paints to shade in. The khaki-drill undercoat is about 50:50 humbrol light grey (64) with cream (103) and a splot of Revell 82.

 

So I'm now ready for doing the khaki drill oils. I fear that next Sunday is a bit optimistic.

 

Alan 

[Angus Tura]

Ah me. That was one wasted day! I very carefully mixed up some, I thought, khaki drill with oil colours and painted it on the helmet cover...and it looks woeful:

 

 

It's far too light and it's a struggle to cover the basecoat with it. The joy as well as the problem with oils, of course, is the drying time. So, I've taken it off and try again tomorrow:

 

 

The right eye, incidentally, is in mid repair. The iris was a bit too big and it looked pretty weird in some views. There is an underlying problem of lack of symmetry in the sculpt of the eye. I've painted in some more eyelid medially and once that's dry, I can neaten up its bottom edge with more burnt umber.

 

Mañana,

 

Alan

[Angus Tura]

Hi. So a day (and a week) late, here is the first coat of khaki drill in oils.

 

 

The paint is still glossy but I think this'll look OK when that's dried a bit. The deepest of shadows and outlining is still to do: I find that too difficult till this first go is dry. So, another delay is waiting for this layer to dry. The pale patch on his satchel is some of the highlight colour to test when its dry.

 

Alan 

[Col.]

Very nice work again Alan.

[Angus Tura]

Another DNF. I'm sorry for it. Too much work.

 

 

Here he is so far. Unusually nothing much has gone wrong...its just not finished. I have made a bit of an error with the sheath for the bayonet. I thought it a bit odd that the top of it is thicker than the bottom but supposed that it was right. Only after undercoating the satchel on his left hip did I notice the hole there into which the thicker part goes. That is, only the thin bit should be sticking out from under the satchel. Annoying! I had added a brass pin to the bayonet sheath to locate it on the skirt of his tunic, and drilled a hole for it. So, that'll need filling and re-painting. The resin is ever so slightly translucent and it does make it a bit difficult to see mold lines and so on. I had no idea there was a hole under the satchel till I had undercoated.

The wood of the water bottle is painted in the same way as the rifle stock. The cartridge pouch has been undercoated dark grey matt but that has dried glossy. The base is nearly finished but needs some dressing up, obviously.

 

Sorry I didn't make it,

 

Alan

[Col.]

We now have a further fortnight of GB if that helps your cause Alan  

[Angus Tura]

We do? That had passed me by. I'll check it out.

 

Thanks,

 

Alan

[Angus Tura]

Hi. I fear this is becoming a double DNF now. But I have made some progress.

 

 

His rolled overcoat and webbing have had a first coat of oils over enamels and he's now ready to finish painting other than his puttees and boots.

 

Here's his little bit of Tamaai:

 

 

It needs a good coat of sprayed primer to fix down the dirt which is currently precariously held down with PVA, and then it needs to be painted.

 

I have spent an inordinate amount of time on his right eye. As mentioned above there is a little problem with the sculp whereby the right lower eyelid is much more prominent than the left and there is no right upper lid at all, but there is a left upper lid. So, getting it symmetricalish has been a bit of a trial. Many many years ago I read a thing on painting in the Historex catalogue by Shep Paine. His recommendation, to let you see what you've painted with a fresh eye, was to look at it in a mirror. I've always found that really useful. I didn't try doing it on my mobile before but that works really well too. It does let you magnify it a lot also, however, and that's a bit of a double edged sword: it is very unforgiving.

 

Anyway, here are straight and flipped Hedandoan views of this chap so far:

 

 

It's still not perfect, but I don't think I'll get it any better. I have thought about, and am still thinking about, rubbing his eyes out with lacquer thinners and starting again. I'd still have the problem of the asymmetry of the sculpting, however, and I'm trying to resist the temptation.

 

More later but unlikely Sunday finish.

 

Alan

 

 

[Col.]

From what I can see in your photos the eyes are good Alan. You've done some fine work in that area and I can't see a problem there  The base is looking good too so even if this one isn't finished on Sunday please keep posting progress updates for us to enjoy.

[Angus Tura]

Hello.

 

I didn't manage any in-progress pics, Col, but here he is done finally.

 

 

More pics at: 

 

 

Thanks Col for the GB. See you at ground attack &c. GB shortly.

 

Alan 

Edited November 18, 2021 by Angus Tura
link improvement

[Dave Swindell]

11 minutes ago, Angus Tura said:

(why don't my links look like links?)

 

 

If you get that when pasting the link, try holding Control/Shift/V instead:-

 

Nice result Alan, I'll have to have a look at tomato puree tubes for seatbelts.

 

 

[Angus Tura]

Thanks Dave. It still doesn't quite look as I thought, but a big improvement,

 

Alan

[Dave Swindell]

Other ways of skinning the cat

 

Paste using Ctrl/Shift/V and the link will automatically embed in Britmodeller as per above, a black bar appears immediately below this saying it has automatically embedded and giving a link to click on to show what you have pasted as just a link:- 

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235101844-york-and-lancasters-at-taamai-1884/

 

You can also write some text and highlight it, click on the link icon 🔗 in the edit bar and paste your link in the box, and your link is now the highlighted text:- link as highlighted text

 

 

[Col.]

That's a cracking result Alan. Nice work