Zulu Wars Mission Station

My main Easter project was finishing the first of two 28mm buildings for a colonial skirmish siege game based on the Rorke's Drift experience - in essence replacing my existing scenery with something that looks the part.  In this I was inspired by the building plans at Paul's site here. 

The Hospital building with officer Michael Caine of the 24th Foot...

Loosely based on the hospital building at Rorke's Drift, I've made this one smaller but still big enough to fit figures inside.  The base is a sheet of 80mm plasticard.  Walls are foamcard, with balsa for the veranda supports, cardstock doors and shutters and matchsticks for the window detailing.  The foamcard was sealed with a 50/50 mixture of ready-mixed filler and PVA glue before painting in emulsion and acrylics and gloss varnished.  The roof was also foamcard and cardstock, the thatch once again made from cheap brown towelling, soaked in diluted PVA glue, drybrushed and then gloss-varnished (not so much to make it glossy as to make it rigid).

I plan to make another small storeroom and then turn my hand to sections of barricade and dry stone wall.

Although I added multiple doors, I went for just 4 internal rooms

The floor is plasticard, sealed in PVA/filler, painted and varnished

The building before sealing with glue/filler

I laid robust cardboard formers across the foamcard as the base for the towelling thatch

Zulu huts

With a bit more time over Easter for hobby activities I've turned my hand again to scenery building.  My aim is to build both a Zulu Kraal (fortified village) and a couple of buildings more suitable for Rorke's Drift-type siege games.  Taking inspiration from various 'how to' articles on the web about building African thatched huts, I put these together using cheap brown towelling layered over polystyrene hemispheres (purchased from Hobbycraft) with an entrance modelled from air-drying clay.  Cost per hut was around £3.  These are the first two of six - should have the others finished this week.  The next challenge will be to make the thorn 'boma' (protective palisade).  My two year old daughter is delighted that I'm making hedgehogs.  <sighs>

I've opted for a design that would not be too out of place in other African settings (hence I've left off the distinctive ropework over the thatching).

Seen here for scale with a Copplestone Castings 28mm Ngoni Chieftain and a couple of Black Tree Design Zulu warriors 

Side elevation with more Zulus...

A Zulu Kraal near Umlazi painted by George Angas

The basic polystyrene hemisphere, glued to a cardstock base, textured with filler.  I build the entrance on next with air drying clay, then attach brown towelling soaked in PVA glue for the thatch.  The hut is then painted in acrylics and gloss varnished.