We've seen the elephant!
01 February 2019
The headline is one that is familiar to wargamers and historians alike. It is generally used by soldiers when writing, "I've seen the elephant," or, "I'm off to see the elephant." They use it when first seeing or going into action.
It came to mind when we first got the team together and were beginning the process of painting our troops for the participation game we are putting on this year at various shows.
Each of them had never painted wargaming figures or modeled bases before - some had never even played a wargame let alone read a set of rules, but that’s another story.
Peter started by supplying all the paints, brushes and basing supplies that we needed to take the job through to the finish. The basing materials were mainly from Baccus6mm.
He started out showing the team examples of the trial base he had completed so they had a template to follow, like this one below.
From there they just needed the right paints and materials for each base to get them to a finished product. Peter then gave them a once over and tidied up any flaws, of which he claimed there were very few, and we moved on.
The team itself naturally divided into various units within the team. Some needed more confidence to paint the soldiers, so they took on the tipi’s, cattle and villagers while others went straight in for the troopers of the 7th Cavalry.
Simeon, Andreas and Peter started work on the 7th Cavalry. There was a template to work from and they could then copy the colours, styles and basing techniques, but adding their own individual style along the way.
You can see the template base in the picture above just in front of Simeon (left). Andreas has a style all his own.
As you can see here, the lads done good.
Meanwhile, David, Tam and Becky started working on the Indian Village. They asked lots of questions on the way, but were also interested in the answers - which is pretty unusual in our group.
If Custer gets through his fight on the bluffs, we can play out the final scenes of the Battle of the Little Bighorn as Custer sweeps into the Indian camp to meet Sitting Bull.
And we can see here below the fruits of their labours.
Under the all-seeing eye of Big Pete Riley, he reckons the team did very well on "seeing the elephant" and can be proud of their achievements,
All involved enjoyed the process of painting and sitting around a table being served tea and biscuits by Jane.
This means that we can carry on with confidence as we attempt to achieve our time frames and be ready for the first show on the 6th of April at Salute. No pressure then!