Onward and upwards

It has to be said I've mixed feelings when it comes to eBay. PayPal is annoying me due to their policy of placing holds on payments received through sales there until either a positive rating is given, or 21 days has passed, whichever comes first. 

I think anyone who has ever sold stuff on eBarf knows there are buyers who never give ratings, however pleased they might be with their purchase. As a result, I've had money languishing in my account for nearly a month - no joke in this economy - whilst PiePulp merrily uses it to make money for themselves through loans interest, etc. What can be done about this? Sweet FA!

Grrr!

Equally, there's always a chance of picking up a bargain on eBilge. Last night I successfully bid for a batch of ten Wargames Foundry askaris for twelve bucks and change. These will form the nucleus of the Ukraziland Rifles, an auxiliary unit in British pay composed of local volunteers and rehabilitated wangwana from the previous regime. I'm currently cogitating on suitable uniform colors, but will probably settle for some shade of khaki.

Once they're painted and based, I plan to include them in the Raid on the Tembe mini-campaign to Sharp Practice rules mentioned in a previous post. Quite when I'll get around to playing it out - or even where I'll play it out - remains to be seen. We have a potential house-move in the near future, so circumstances are subject to change. 

In the meantime, I'm still working out the details of A Very British Civil War collection. Pendraken Miniatures has a forum dedicated to the 10mm scene, and there are photos of some superbly-painted figures and models there. Given my current constraints in terms of space, disposable income, and the aforementioned move, 10mm seems very much the way to go. I'll post my thoughts on the background to my VBCW in the next few days, probably by this weekend.
         

Tembe - finished

On to the final stages of tembe construction. After applying the thatch I laid a heavy book on the roof and left it overnight as it showed signs of warping. The weight solved this problem. Next up came the spackling of the walls. I applied regular all-purpose spackling in a thin layer over the sand sprinkled on earlier, working around those areas I'd already done as brickwork, and allowed it to dry. In the meantime I painted the main roof color using a mix of tan, white and yellow acrylics. Once this was dry I went over it with drybrushed vanilla white acrylic.

Once the walls were dry I painted them a slightly darker shade of tan than the roof, with dark brown going on those areas of exposed brickwork. To bring out the texture of the spackle so it resembles stucco I gave the whole wall areas two increasingly lighter drybrushed colors, a mix of the basic tan and vanilla white, followed by pure vanilla white. Once everything had dried I gave the whole building a wash of sepia ink diluted with rubbing alcohol, a trick I picked up from railroad modelling. The alcohol spreads the ink evenly and evaporates quickly, leaving a nice weathered effect without mess. The photo shows the final result, although the tembe looks somewhat darker in real life due to the lighting conditions when the photo was taken.

I think it looks the part, ready to take its place on the table for use by anybody who has need of a fortified building in my fictional African world. And you can be sure there'll be many!

A British patrol approaches the tembe with caution, unsure who - or what - lurks within.

Tembe 3

The next and final major construction for this model is the roof. As mentioned earlier I decided to make it a pitched roof, and to do this I glued vertical 1/2 inch strips of foamcore waste onto the platform I made earlier, running each strip down the center of the platform. Once these were set I cut thin card to rough shapes that fit the pitch and corners and glued these onto the platform, as shown below.

I covered the whole with paper, gluing this into place with diluted PVA then added a layer of spackle and PVA mixed with chopped up paper to give a rough thatch effect. Once this dried I painted it with Craft Smart acrylics to give a base coat, to which I'll add highlights and shading.

The next step will be to spackle the walls. As seen by the white patches in the first photo I've already spread a thin layer of spackle on parts of the walls and scoured them with a brick effect to resemble areas where the stucco has fallen - or been shot away - over the years. More soon.

Tembe 1

A while ago I wrote about the tembe, a type of building found in some parts of southern and eastern Africa during the Colonial period. It served as a fortified place of safety to which people could retreat with their livestock when under attack from hostiles. They were used by both tribal peoples and the Arab slavers who preyed upon them. Henry Morton Stanley also made use of them during his adventures, and in his memoirs recounted how effective they could be if stoutly defended.

In function the tembe had the same role as the pele towers of the English-Scottish Border country. The walls were certainly thick enough to withstand rifle and musket fire. How they would've borne up under artillery fire is open to conjecture.

The basic plan was square, with thick outer walls constructed of mud brick or clay and pierced for weapons. The interior had several rooms set around the perimeter, all connecting to each other in sequence. Should the main gate be breached each room could be barricaded to serve as a mini-fort, requiring the attacker to clear each in turn. Although the rooms were roofed with thatch the central courtyard was open to the sky and served as the animal pen. The plan below gives the general idea. I decided to use foamcore for constructing my model since it's versatile and easy to work with. The ground area is eight inches square and the wall height a little under two inches. I cut four interior walls from 3/16th inch foamcore and three long and two shorter exterior walls from 1/2 inch. A cutting mat and metal ruler is practically vital for this work. The brass laboratory ruler shown below was a real find in a local charity shop, a bargain for just 25 cents!

The markings on the large square show where the walls will go. I marked doors and cross-bracing slots on the interior walls then cut them out, as shown below. The two lower walls will slide down on the upper walls forming a tic-tac-toe style cross.

The next picture shows the interior walls glued using ordinary white craft adhesive...

...and glued into place on the floor.

Next stage will be to pierce the outer walls for the firing slits and attach them to the base.