Saturday, February 7, 2009

Berber Leaders


Finished the Berber leaders and with that, the native side is complete!

I often pull out the leader figures to paint separately as they may have different uniforms or other parts that are unique like drums. In this case it wasn't really necessary but it did help keep the batch size down to 9 and added one extra batch of seven. If the batches get too big, the paint starts to dry on the brush before you get done and that's a very bad thing for the life of the brush.

Same technique as used on the other Berbers. The main difference here is the color of the turban. It was recorded by European observers that Abd el Krim's leaders of units wore orange turbans and his personal bodyguard green ones. So I made the leaders with orange or green turbans. What orange? I couldn't stand the thought of a bright Halloween orange so I went with a more Texas A&M burnt orange--Raw Sienna & Alizarin Crimson pretty much. For the green, a mid-green the color of the prophet.

The figure at the top is (if you'll recall) that unreleased Berber/Riffi leader figure. I rather like him. OK, Ed, you've got the only painted one of him so far. The figure in the foreground below is holding a standard pole--I'll add the standard last. The Warflag site has a number of authentic-looking flags with Arabic characters on them but they're pulled from the movies, a dubious source at best. Abd el Krim, being trained by the Spanish, sought to create an independent Moroccan state and in so doing he created a flag for his Riffian republic. Could use that, too. I'll have to ask Ed what he wants.

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