My First Sassanid elephant
This is probably my last blog entry for a few days - I am going away for a few days.
I have finished the first Sassanid elephant. Larger photos can be seen in my Sassanid Photo Album. The model is an amalgam of different parts. Most of my army is from A&A Miniatures, so I am using A&A elephant crew figures. I don't like A&A's elephants very much - there's something a little odd about the necks. Gripping Beast's aren't perfect either (the legs are too far apart in my opinion), but I like them better than the A&A ones, so I'm using Gripping Beast elephants. I don't like the howdah either company makes, so I scratch-built my own, mostly using plasticard. The ropes are made very simply from three strands of 0.7mm soft solder, twisted together.
Most of the painting is by my usual methods - white primer and bright basecoats, followed by painting on Army Painter Quick Shade 'Strong Tone'. Shield transfers are from Little Big Men Studios, as usual. Unusually for me, I painted the 'saddle cloth' with a conventional three-shade highlight technique before using the Quick Shade.
The biggest departure from my usual painting technique came with the elephant. Gripping Beast's elephant has a superb texture, and I wanted to emphasise it as much as I could, in order to achieve a realistic, and attractive, result. I base-coated the skin with Foundry 'Granite' 31B. Then I dry-brushed with Vallejo 113/880 'Khaki Grey', 111/987 'Medium Grey', 110/986 'Deck Tan' and then lightly stippled Foundry 'Palamino' 56A for the highlights on the trunk and ears. After that the tusks were painted with Foundry 'Boneyard' 9 (all three colours - fine lines of A and B near the socket, and most of the shafts with C). Lastly, I gave the whole beast a light coat of Quick Shade 'Strong Tone'.
The very last jobs were to spray the elephant and the crewmen with Testors' Dull Cote, and to glue the crew in place.