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updated 03/21/2020
Ptolemaic War
Elephant 28mm
Building
a Victrix Ptolemaic war elephant plastic kit in 28mm
This
plastic kit from Victrix is a multi part kit that has to be assembled
before painting.
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On the left is the kit in the packaging. As you can see every
thing must be assembled.
It is a well engineered kit and goes together nicely. There are
two models in each set.
There are different crews and equipment bits to make Successor,
Carthaginian, Roman,and Numidian variants.
One nice thing about plastic kits is you often end up with a lot
of useful extras such as shields, spears, javelins and other
bits that can be added to dioramas. Plus if you wish to 'hot
cut' parts they can be re-positioned easier than lead tin metal
alloy. The light weight of plastic makes them easier to
handle than metal, so that is a plus.
On the right, This frame is
being compared to a metal 28mm North African elephant by
Wargames Foundry in the same scale. One can see these will be
very compatible on the table side-by-side. This also shows the
extra bits and trunk variants one gets in this kit. |
The crew are well detailed. Here is the
javelin man being blocked in. The Ptolemaic elephants were smaller and
carried less crewmen in their towers.
I opted for a javelin man and a pike wielder. They are wearing thorax
armor made of ply-linen or leather.
The models had pins drilled into their feet
or up the bum. The pins can be held in vices, grips, or clothes pins.
Here the various parts are coming together.
The elephant itself is easy to paint. The
detail is large so it has a bot of flat appearance. My dry brush
technique adds some noise to it though.
I did not decide to put a fancy blanket design on this one. Maybe later?
Sometimes looking at a photo helps see those seam lines that you missed
on the primed kit.
The kit is coming together. I've added a
level of heavy brushing to make the elephant skin look more detailed. It
is a stark technique that I often dull down.
I've added the big shield for kicks. Then I made a homemade Ptolemaic
design on my home printer. This design is common from Ptolemaic coins
(see above).
The final stage is making a base. I usually
like 60mm x 80mm for this scale. This is a piece of Basswood cut to
shape with a magnet sheet bottom.
I add some Liquitex modeling paste with a spreading tool. Once it starts
to set I can add the elephant by pushing into the paste to make foot
holes. Once dried I can finish it up.
Usually I paint the whole a dark runny brown color. Then I painted the
sides and edges with a CeramCoat "Trail Tan" base. I dry brushed the
Trail Tan and lighter values onto the dirt. Then I added some grit and
static grass from my 'trail mix' bin. Once the glue has dried then I can
add some scrubs from the various manufacturer's small scrub patches
available now. Then some big rocks.
Adding color value washes on the rocks and some dry brushing of Trail
Tan on the static grass and low bushes to make them less green helps
finish things off. Voila! A complete elephant ready to rumble.
Back to the
finished photos:
