Mbube and uVe Unmarried Regiments

I have just finished two units of Skirmishers and have painted them as the Mbube and uVe Regiments. These are the last of my plastic figures that I had in stock. Well there is actually one left over who may come in handy for something later on. I have based them three to a base to space them out. These two units were a bit smaller than the others that I have seen listed so I thought I'd made them skirmishers. I may make up a duplicate set of these up later to strengthen them but will try and play test first to see if they work as is.
Next on the painting desk are some Black Tree unmarried skirmishers with firearms.

I'm still having issues with my camera so these are not the greatest of photos.

I had also run out of Agrax Earthshade and used Devlan Mud instead, you can see the difference in the definition on the figures backs. Lesson learnt.

Edit, while looking at my hand written notes I see that the uVe regiment had somewhere between 2000 to 3500 members. So before I get a flood of complaints (if anyones reading this). I thought I'd better point out my own mistake. I may have to change some shields to get a better representation of some of the regiments or build a complete uVe regiment just like the others. I have not found out if the skirmishers and riflemen mentioned in some reports were taken from regiments when needed, or if they were specially raised units for this purpose. The reason I looked at my notes closely is that I am trying to decide what shield design I should use on my riflemen which are just about painted.

Weathered trucks and finished crews.

I have weathered the trucks but have not put any markings on them yet. I have just bought a new printer and am trying to make some slogans to go on the trucks but have not found any decal sheet stock locally.

My camera decided to go on the blink and from reading on the net seems to suggest that a ribbon cable has become faulty. A $2 Dollar part requiring major surgery to repair. As I am an electronics tech I will try and repair it myself at some stage. The problem is that I cannot use all the zoom function and some of the photos were a bit out of focus. The other issue I am having is all the photos below have been edited, and are showing as being edited in iPhoto but my iMac is loading some unedited photos to my Blog.

I also finished the dismounted crew. The MP's have heads supplied by Warlord and the figures with M14's are going to be used as dismounted Drivers. The two seated figures were meant to be riding shotgun in the Gun Trucks but I decided that is was pointless fitting them as you can hardly see the drivers.

I also weathered the Mutt but then forgot to seal it. I am in the process of doing this in between writing this.

Vietnam Gun Trucks and Low Loaders.

Christmas is a time I usually expect to get loads of extra painting done but find that with the extra social events I actually achieve less. Work has also been quite a lot busier as we have been hit with redundancies, but still keep landing big contracts bringing in extra work. Some evenings I just fall asleep on the couch after dinner and don't feel much like painting.

I'm posting the following photos as I've gotten to a point where I am undecided as to how to finish them off. All the painting has been done and I have put a clear coat on them. When I finished off my M113's I did all the weathering before I clear coated them, but had some of the Tamiya spray paint lift. Hopefully the clear coat should stop this happening this time around.

The Trucks were based on 5 ton Solido Kaiser trucks. They turned out to be 2 1/2 ton trucks made to look like 5 tonner's. I had a Desert and Olive Drab Truck which had different wheels and slight differences in the Cargo body. To make them look the same I converted the wheels from a six wheel configuration to ten wheels using some cheap toy trucks as a basis. I also converted them to Gun-trucks of the earlier patterns based on 2 1/2 tonner's. One is a Convoy lead vehicle and the other a rear vehicle. The weapons and crew came from various sources.

The Low loading trucks are Corgi Mack trucks. I've found some references to them only being used by one US unit in Vietnam which I have bookmarked somewhere. The trailers seem to be a 1950/60's trailer that Corgi made for some earlier truck sets. I intend to paint up a more suitable cargo body for one of the trucks as my Bull Dozer will go on the other. Like the other trucks I found some differences in the two sets I bought. One has hollow backed plastic wheels, while the other has hard plastic solid versions. The rear bogey units (dismountable) have some differences in the metal casting.

One of the truck units had a missing wheel hub which I copied out of plastic card and melted sprue. One also had a missing air stack and both had broken off exhaust pipes. All were replaced with brass rod and plastic card.

The Mutt is by Hobby Master to which I added an M60 and crew. I also repainted the seats.

I have painted more MP's and dismounted Truck crew which just need the bases finishing off.

9th Zulu Regiment finished

I have named these as the Umkhulushane. I hope that is the correct spelling as this seems to change depending on what resource you refer to. I may end up throwing out all the names at some stage if I find a complete record of the Zulu History. I recently downloaded Ian Knights Zulu rising but have not had a chance to read it yet. Which may have all the answers I need. I also tried to join his Facebook Historical group but seem to be being ignored for the moment.

I could go on about all the issues I had making this regiment but, dropping a box of them on the floor and dropping a lightbulb which I was changing above my desk on the finished figures should suffice. (I also ran out of filler on a long weekend). However they are finished now and fit in with the rest of the Army. The light was a bit dull today but have adjusted the photos as much as possible.

I had a rethink about my storage solution for my models. I decided that I don't really need display shelves in my room as I don't get that many visitors these days, and that would also be a waste of space. I found some plastic trays which were cheap enough and fit three regiment a tray, and are three trays tall. They fit perfectly into my shelving and will probably buy more. So far I have put all my Zulu and excess Vietnam figures and vehicles into these. I am looking into buying some magnetic sheets as most of my single figures are mounted on steel washers. The Zulu Regiments just need an anti-slip sheet under them.