15 mm Indian Elephant (Donnington 'Originals')

I succumbed to the "wargames butterfly" syndrome once again and placed a modest order with Ancient & Modern for a selection of Hellenistic figures from their "Originals" range.

The plan was threefold:

• Various samples of cavalry suitable for generic medium cavalry.
• More Seleucid cataphracts (I already have some painted).
• An Indian elephant in case I ever wanted to create a Phyrric army.

As you can see it was a coherent and well thought out purchase.  Well maybe not: I should be concentrating on finishing my Later Macedonians and I have more than enough medium cavalry already.

The elephant was the main reason I placed the order.  I've built their elephant models before and they turned out well.  So despite my reservations about the amount of preparation involved, I placed my order.

Read on for more photos and my notes on the build and painting.

Building the elephant & castle
I was right to be wary of the amount of preparation required.  I have ended up with a solid model but the build was involved to say the least.

The first thing I did was trim the base of the model to ensure it would fit on a 40 mm base.  The base is a serious piece of metal and required much sawing and filing.

The castle (howdah) comes in four pieces.  The sides are the main part of the castle and attach to the elephant's back.  However, when the ends are fitted there's a gap where the sides should meet and form a solid floor.  I used this to my advantage as I pinned the castle to the elephant and the gap made locating the castle that much easier.

Before I could glue the castle to the elephant I had to get my Dremel out and remove quite a bit of metal from the underside of the castle so it would fit snugly and be reasonably close to the retaining ropes on the elephant: at first it sat way too high.

Once the castle was glued to the back of the elephant (with superglue) I filled the various gaps with greenstuff.

Fitting the crew
This was a bit tricky because, at first, I couldn't find a way to align the three crewmen that looked even remotely realistic.  The archer was the biggest problem: it wasn't tall enough to shoot over the sides of the castle.  There's a similar, but less serious, problem with the pike man.

After much faffing about, I realised the castle needs a raised floor.  A small piece of 2 mm MDF solved all my problems and, once raised, the crew were much easier to fit and could get their weapons over the sides.

I even found it was possible to fix the crew to their MDF base (after painting) and slide the whole assembly into, and out of, the castle without issue.  I'll file this away in case I ever want to build models with interchangeable crews.

Tip: make a template from thin card for the raised floor.  Once the MDF floor is ready, and before you start painting, fit the crew and mark the crew positions on the template: I used small arrows.

Shields
These are cut down drawing pins from The Works (200 for £1.00).  They are ideal because they are made from white metal with a plain face.  They were primed and painted before adding home made water slide transfers.

The design is based on one shown on page 113 of "Armies of the Macedonian and Punic wars".  I adapted it slightly filling in the star and sized it to give the "double ring" effect.  Not exactly historically accurate but it looks good and is plausibly "in period".

Tips: before painting

• Drill any holes in the sides of the castle.
• Ensure the pins can be pushed in completely.
• Check that the stub of the pin doesn't protrude through the wall.

Tips: during painting

• To hold pins, and add decals, use a cork.

I toyed with the idea of putting two shields on each side, but couldn't find drawing pins small enough and I had nothing in my spares box.

Painting notes
I aim for a very simple style with all "Donnington Originals". I want them look like cartoons.  The figures won't really allow you to do anything else.  I suppose, in essence, it's an "old school" look.

I chose a red and blue scheme.  This has emerged as a overall theme for my Hellenistic armies.  Not planned, just emerged.  It goes well with the off-white of the linen armour etc: very patriotic if not exactly Hellenistic.

Painting the corner pillars of the castle in the highlight colour was inspired by the recent marketing material for Warlord's Epic Hannibal range.  I know they are Carthaginians and ever so slightly "out of period" but what the hell.

The elephant's skin was painted in shades of grey with a dilute wash of burnt umber craft paint to give it that dusky (dusty) look.

The cloth cover on the elephant caused me a few issues.  Eventually, I settled on a dark blue base layer and a highlight of a mix of red and with a touch of ivory.  If I ever do another elephant I'll use greenstuff to smooth out the creases to give a more flowing appearance.  As supplied there are too many creases and they are too sharp making painting a real chore.

I highlighted the crew's faces (nose, chin & cheeks) with a much lighter layer than I would normally to compensate for the basic sculpting of the features.  Otherwise the crew were as fiddly to paint as I anticipated (see my previous comments on the Donnington figures).

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