Flower Power

Dave Hudson generously donated this maharajah’s elephant for my Indian Mutiny collection. As a Foundry 25/28mm piece it was far too small to sit alongside Dave’s Redoubt Enterprises Wellington in India collection. Those figures are lovely, but a unique scale.

The piece’s history happens to be known to me. It was painted by my mate Roger Castle for fellow Yorkshire gamer Andy Townsend. When Andy died, his figures were sold. So Dave must have snapped it up on eBay not realising that it would be a dwarf nellie within the ranks of his Indian army.

So back it comes to Yorkshire. And very pleased I am to have it!

A couple of my mates have used nail art decals for wargaming purposes. John Daybell has used them to apply camo to diecast models for Gaslands. Roger Castle uses them to detail saddle clothes. I’d been wanting to try them and decided that this elephant would be my test subject!

Considering some of the many, many nail art decals.

I tried one of the gold designs first, but it just didn’t look right. 

I did like how these flowers looked. Are they authentic Indian designs? No. Do they look ok and break up the large areas of the elephant blankets? Yes. From a normal wargames viewing distance it’s just apparent that there are designs on the blankets. It only needs to be subtle.

I regularly use model kit and wargames decals. These nail art ones went on surprisingly well and completely conformed to the contours of the model without difficulty. I always use decal softener when applying decals. Probably didn’t need to with these.

The finished command elephant rebased to match my Indian Mutiny collection. (The original base was too good to chuck and I don’t like waste. It already has three African cattle on it.)

A great addition. And once again, thanks to Mr Hudson for this super gift :-)

Cheers

Chris