Taking the bull by the horns: painting a Zulu warrior

In this video, I paint a Zulu (Matabele) warrior. I pay special attention to creating a convincing African skin tone, and also look at how you can make a figure interesting using only a palette of browns and tans. Clothing colors are not necessarily completely correct to what these units should be wearing based on status, etc. I made choices more for aesthetic reasons than because of historical correctness. Hopefully there is at least some overlap!
I made a mistake in my video. The miniature is actually by Northstar, not Wargames Foundry. You can find him here:
www.northstarfi...

[@vaughanza]

Excellent Cristy , love the work you done of the Zulu. This is where I am from Kwazulu Natal South Africa. Love your work

[@timrichter4966]

Another excellent tutorial. I was particularly happy to see this one, because I've not done any Zulu/African miniatures, but expect to in the near future. I thought maybe you had gone one shade too far on the highlighting of the flesh, but the final wash did indeed bring it together nicely. But I do think that if you were doing a large unit, it might be really effective to do some of the minis with fewer highlighting steps, and then you would get the variable look that you would have in reality. I personally have been doing a lot of Native Americans for the French and Indian War period, and found the first batch quite a challenge... so I am now going to watch the vid on the Aztec, and apply some of your lessons here as well. Excellent work again, and we all thank you.

[@stevepickering5978]

that is one of the best Zulu warrior paint jobs I have seen.

[@paulhowes1396]

_____And Happy Painting to You Christy, Nice painting. Your tutorial will be a great help for little old me. I`m no painter, but I try. So it`s good to view your good stuff, and pick up a few tips along the way. Greetings from Fiddle Wood, Norwich. United Kingdom. Beano Boy

[@manweller1]

Wow it looks good. Much better than my Space Marines 👍🏾. Loved what you said about black skin tones well spotted.

[@RobertChisholm]

Another great model. Even though the shield was probably the easiest part to paint it's my favorite part of this figure. The cow hide really stand out. I was surprised you had foundry paints in your US paint collection. Never seen foundry paints for sale in my part of the US.

[@christybeall2331]

Thanks! Yea, you can get Foundry in the US, but they must be special ordered, which is what we did. Think we used The War Store, but I don't think he has them in stock at the moment.

[@iamsuperroot]

Was rhinoceros brown the color? What is vallejo equivalent? Thank you. You're great.

[@simonmiller4042]

Very nice Christy! How long did he take to paint, please?

[@christybeall2331]

Not too long, at least compared to other things on the channel. I think he was one of the fastest. I spent the most time on the skin, which could probably be sped up with some practice. I'd say 2hrs, tops.

[@simonmiller4042]

***** All very different from the way I paint, in huge batches! Looks excellent.

[@paintermeister]

Mini from North Star Africa range of Matabele.

[@christybeall2331]

Yes, you are correct. What I said in my video was wrong, but if you notice, I had made a correction in the comments when I posted the video initially.

[@tomgodson666]

Firstly thank you for supplying our weekly fix of painting tutorials whilst on vacation, and secondly the figure is a very interesting one as so few people talk so clearly about differentiation in darker skin tones. I may have missed the comment before but is there a reason you over brush rather than drybrush the textured areas. I appreciate they are similar but also vastly different in finished effect. Any chance of you painting an armoured samurai when you return?

[@christybeall2331]

I prefer over brushing in most cases because it results is a stronger, richer tone. Dry brushing can make things look dusty or fuzzy, which is usually not something I like on my figures. I usually reserve it for terrain and buildings only. As for a samurai, yes will probably do one eventually, though I've got quite a few other things I want to check off the list first!