Unmarried Zulu Regiment UmHlanga

I had a few conundrums with this unit. The first one was that when I googled the name I found just about every image was of the Reed Ceremony. Not that I am complaining but its not really what I was looking for (lucky King). The next one was lack of any references as to the likely headdress worn. I thought that I had found some references awhile ago but cannot find now other than Black and White Ostrich Feathers. I had an indication that the shield was white with black spots. Now being an unmarried Regiment I went with black Shield with white spots instead.

Some of you may have heard that we had an Earthquake last week at 12.06 Sunday night.  I got out of bed and sheltered in a doorway and then thought my TV was about to fall off a cabinet if the shaking continued. So I stood leaning against the wall and holding the TV. I was only wearing a Tee shirt so didn't want broken glass on the floor. No damage at all locally but the City has had a few buildings fail but no loss of life. There are major issues down South that will require quite a bit of work to correct plus two deaths. Work has been busy when we are allowed to go into buildings to inspect equipment plus the normal work just carries on.

Fish Tank Building

Normally I gaze longingly on other peoples purchases of Fish Tank Terrain as we do not seem to have such a wide selection of items here. The local shops do seem to bring in a few different items from time to time so I keep checking the shelves. So far I have bought a small Japanese type bridge I use in my Vietnam setting and a small ruined gatehouse and wall I started prepping for Frostgrave. I have not touched that for awhile and may paint it instead for Back of Beyond.

Last week I found a nice little Fish shop which is perfectly sized to go into my Vietnam collection. Not sure about the base and sign and not sure if its worth repainting at this stage.

Drop Cloth

Some weeks ago I bought myself a large piece of Camel coloured Polar Fleece. I was quite happy with the colour in the shop, but when I got it home and looked at it on my paint desk in bright sunlight it looked too garish to me. I next took it out to the games room which is darker and thought that it looked ok. So what would happen when I took it to a convention? was my next concern.

The next sunny weekend I was able to find time to try and dye the cloth to make it a Darker brown. Luckily I had a packet of Dye in my supplies so thought this was going to be easy.

Looks a bit garish

Looks better in Games room

Looking good

Normally this container holds my Pirate ships

It took overnight to dry out properly but when I compared the cloth to an off cut it looked no different to my eye.

So next step was to go and find some paint cans of the right colours.

Waiting a couple of weekends for some dry weather I then I hung the cloth onto the washing line and gave a light spray. (I wonder what the neighbours thought of me doing this and the smell?)

Looks ok to me, but when I reread Ian Knights accounts of the Battle of Isandlawana and Rorkes Drift he mentions that the Movie was filmed in the winter because the weather was more settled, but the battles actually happened when the spring growth of new grass should be quite evident. I think that when we have another dry weekend I will lay the cloth down on the back lawn and spray some Green paint horizontally and let the spray drift down to lightly coat the surface.