Finished my Jumbo

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.

Copyright © Dr. P.C. Hendry, 2010