My Isandlwana 24th Regiment of Foot sergeant. A mix of customised and scratchbuilt items. Headsculpt repainted in Vallejo acrylics with hair and moustache rooting. Leather pouches, gaiters, straps and slings were hand-made. Resin Martini-Henry and water-bottle by the multi-talented Tony Barton, painted and weathered in Vallejo acrylic paints. Thanks to Weylan for helping to procure the DiD uniform and accoutrements. Some final shots before I pack him up for good!
24th Regiment of Foot Enlisted Man
The painting
'The Battle of Isandlwana' was painted by the British artist Charles Edwin Fripp. It depicts a disastrous British defeat at the hands of King Cetshwayo's Zulu army.
Fripp travelled to Zululand in March 1879 as the 'special artist' for The Graphic, a weekly illustrated newspaper. When he visited the battlefield four weeks after the defeat, bodies still lay unburied and rotting on the ground.
Despite Fripp's portrayal of the battle as more heroic than the shambles it must actually have been, his painting made little impact when it was first exhibited in 1885. For the British public, Isandlwana was an embarrassing defeat, already fading from memory.