The Tail of the Elephant

They arrived within a few days. What had I bought? 4 toy rubber
elephants. They are solid and heavy in comparison to plastic. They are
made of the same kind of rubber that I remember toy snakes being
made of as a child, a familiar smell, the same texture. They feel dense,
they heft in the hand. They are surprisingly well detailed with minimal
cast lines and far more realistic than I expected. One is noticeably larger
than the others, it is the worst of the four, poorly animated, not quite so
detailed. One is brown coloured, it has a nice animation, walking, looking
to the right. The other two are identical, they are the most realistic
looking and better animated although slighter in mass then the others
and I am immediately thinking about the possibilities of conversion. A
change in posture maybe. Can you model rubber?
Well yes and no. It’s easy enough to cut, but not to carve. The cast lines
are impossible to shave off. Retrospectively, long after they were
completed it occurred to me that heat might prove to be the way. A
heated spoon perhaps.
Having cut them, what glue would serve to fix the cut pieces? I have no
idea and never had to find out. The rubber drills well enough and so I
drilled and filled using copper wire and green stuff. I cut through the fore
leg of one and raised as if stamping it down and then cut its head off and
repositioned it to look towards its raised foot.

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I was pleased with the result although as you can see from the pictures it
gave one of the poor beasts a deformed neck. I was hoping that it would
be camouflaged by paint and made a mental note to position the mahout
over it.
Next job was the modelling of harness straps, manacles and tusk
decorations. I also pierced their ears.

I was completely unsure of how to paint them. Grey I guess, but really all
grey? What shade? I began googling elephants and soon realised that
elephants are actually lots of different colours. I imagined painting pinky
white splotches on faces and ears, speckled fleshy spotty patterns and
decided that I probably didn’t possess quite that level of skill and settled
for mostly grey. I concentrated on the fatter crappier one first.

I started with a flat coat of….grey! I washed this with GW Agrax and
Sepia, much as I don’t like GW aesthetic nor their very expensive figures
I would say that their paints and brushes are very good and that the
washes are best I have found.
I then dry brushed with slightly paler greys finishing off with Longbeard
grey and used some flesh wash in the ears and around the eyes. I tried
to reproduce musk tracks on the cheeks with flesh wash and gloss

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varnish. I used some dark flesh tone around the eyes and painted the
tusks and toes with bone appropriately washed and dry brushed.
Next, I had to think about a fighting platform for the men but howdah you
do that? I had several ambitious plans involving trellises, ships masts,
rigging, boarding platforms, anchors, grappling hooks

Leonardo Da Vinci eat your heart out

My original concept had been a tall tower castellated and brightly

coloured. I was thinking of using card to construct it. However, I had
recently come into possession of some nice walnut veneer and I wanted
to use it. That meant a squarish structure because it only cuts well in
straight lines, it has tendency to split. It also meant no bright paint
because the quality of the wood is so good it would be criminal to hide it.
Square and stained then.
But what size? I wanted it to to
carry four crew men. I decide they
would be mounted on pennies so as
to have the smallest possible base.
I made a paper template to get
some idea of how to proceed. I laid
out four pennies in a square and
drew round them to give me the
size of the floor

Howdah you do that?

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Th frame work is made of walnut strips although balsa would do very

well. I scored lines in the walnut with a sculpting tool to create a planked
look.
Mark two. Having hit up on a formula and
growing more confident with using the
walnut I began to get ambitious.

What are those side things hanging

down called? Curtains? Panels? My wife
decided they were tabards. These are
made from newspaper and coated with
PVA, the modellers best friends. They
are hanging from some 0.8 mm brass
rod which I’d fixed to the jumbo’s side
with small brass eyelets that I got from
the local model shop (boating division)…
…who also provided some lengths of
brass chain, in two sizes, very small and
fiddly size and impossible to see let
alone thread anything through it size. I
tried to “age “this chain with no luck at
all. The chains are actually holding the
howdah in place so must remain flexible

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That’s about it! I painted up the rest of the

elephants. I had already decided on only
having one multi tiered howdah. This one I
imagined filled with archers, the other three,
smaller howdahs would be packed with
fighters armed with sarissas and javelins.
This howdah and the original smaller one
fitted well and sat nicely on the backs of the
elephants and didn’t require fixing. All the
howdahs are actually held in place by the
chains. I wanted them to be removable for
when they get damaged and I plan to build
a ruined howdah as a future project all smashed wood and chains with
maybe a limp body hanging head first from them.
I wanted each tusker to appear individual. I
imagined them to be pampered by their crews
and honoured by the Haradrim, given godlike
status even. With no Harad culture to go by, I
decided to give them each desert themed
heraldry. Each symbol could represent a
deity. Snake is the only known symbol of the
Hardarim and scorpion came easily to mind
and after some consideration scarab and
salamander seemed appropriate. Highly
alliterative gods to be sure. I went off on a bit
of a tangent when doing the salamander and
ended up with an anaemic crescent bleeding into a Red Eye. I’ve no
idea why, I expect its symbolic. I expect to write up my own take on who
the Harad really are, I mean, for one thing they don’t call them selves
Harad right? That would be like WW2Germans calling themselves Jerry
or the Hun.
I could have moulded folds in to the tabards but I wanted to paint the
folds in. I painted long thin triangular shapes with the base colour then
added highlights to create a 3d effect. Washed with an ink and then
glazed. This required a lot of glazes! I think the snake came out best.

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I added a few details. Shields adorn

every available surface. Scabbards
full of arrows and leather-bound
boxes to hold spare spear and
javelins are fixed where the crew can
reach them. Swords and axes fixed to
the howdahs ready for the crew to
grab in time of need. I created some
corpses, including a horse, to
decorate the bases with. I strewed the
field with discarded shields and weapons.

The crew
I have had a pack of GW corsairs of
Umbar knocking about for some time.
They are ugly figures, poorly
proportioned and sculpted for the main
part, but they do have rather lovely
voluminous pantaloons. I also had a
pack of Gripping Beast Heavy Arab
Cavalry with lovely scaled and lameller
armour and a selection of exotic heads,
some left over Warriors of Rohan and
some GB Saxons. I put them all together
and got a crew. I mounted them on
pennies so they would have small bases
and fit in the howdah, but I also wanted to
use them for a Battle Company so I
based them as a for a desert.
I used Foundry dusky flesh, GW mephiston
red, Vallejo brass for the armour and gave
all of them a mustard/gold cummerbund to
give them a uniform appearance and a
sense of being an elite unit.

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The Mumakrim Battle Company

Not a CGI monstrosity in sight

I have thoroughly enjoyed working this project and I am looking forward

to completing my horde of Harad and creating a culture that is fitting for
the most neglected of Tolkiens creations