I don't know how you can keep everything straight in your mind Wolfgang when setting up this epic scene. It looks incredible!! A comic book about the battle of Rorke's Drift? Hmmm interesting.
Today I was able to put around 100 figures in the diorama again, 20 British and 80 Zulu warriors. The first Zulu in the orchard, as well as the British and Zulu at the barricades and in the kraal.
Prince Dabulamanzi kaMpande, commander in chief of the Zulu at Rorke`s Drift, personally leads reserves of the uThulwana and the uDloko regiment through the orchard. There are many more! Later he will direct the battle from behind the garden wall.
But there are still 410 figures to be used, 20 British and 390 Zulu warriors.
Did you pay attention to the number of casualties in this battle? The British lost 27 men (17 dead, 10 wounded) out of 139. It seems so me, that your diorama shows a number of british casualities already.
This is no criticism at all, I just wanted to know, if you had the real historical number of british casualites and survivors in mind as you created this masterpiece.
Yes, I paid a lot of attention to that. There were many who were slightly wounded among the British. 17 dead British and 15 wounded British are listed by name. Many also had severe bruises on their shoulders from the recoil of the Martini Henry rifles.
Hallo Wolfgang, great modeling as ever. I sit and watch in wonder. You are playing, sorry modelling, in another division as many of of us, in particular myself. It is a great joy to follow the creation of your Rorke's Drift model. My particular attention - ther are many other things besides - goes to the interaction of figures. It is never obvious to create believable connection with our figures which each, in fact, contitute always a stand alone model. You need to carefully combine, stage, turn and twist until you get satisfactory results. You are achieving this to a high degree which I find very rare. Just wonderful
Under the direction of Assistant Commissary W.A. Dunne (on top of the pyramid in blue uniform) will build the big jump from the two corn sack pyramids after 7:00 p.m.
The heavy sacks are thrown from above into the space between the two pyramids. At the bottom they are arranged and stacked by further forces until a platform is created. A barricade is then erected from the sacks on this platform. The Redoubt was later 2.70 meters high.
Yesterday I was able to use 60 Zulu and the first dead oxen again.
The crowd at the northern barricade is getting thicker, the fight is getting fiercer! But there are still a few hundred Zulu warriors. Fortunately, I chose the number of figures for the diorama appropriately. Much more figures would not have fit on the diorama without overloading it.