Spears While I was cleaning the warriors up, I was deciding what  and how many spears to give them. The Ila carry no shields  but are often seen carrying numerous of their very long thin  spears, at least two and sometime more! So it thought I would  give them as many as looked good, and that was three for  most of the models. Now that is more spears than comes in  the pack so you will need to buy a pack of extra spears  (NSS101 - 50mm long Wire Spears), but they will be useful  for other project in the future.   Fitting the spears proved less problematic that I expected, as  all the models have good sized, well formed, hands and the  spears are quite fine, so even carrying two in one hand  wouldn’t be a problem for the diminutive Ila. I drilled out the  hands with closed fists with a 0.5mm bit to receive a spear,  and for the open hands I trimmed away the inside palm of the  hand to give enough room for two spears. Once I was  satisfied I had enough room I placed two spears in the hand  and then carefully closed the fingers around the spears. This  takes some practice; I use a blunt bladed sculpting tool to  gently push the fingers into place. I then secured the spears in place with superglue. When you are gluing the two spears in  place make sure you don’t get to much glue running between  them and forming an unconvincing web of glue, remove  excess glue with some toilet tissue. Where I could manage it I  attached the spear to another point on the model, like the kilt,  again using superglue. The models were then put aside for the glue to harden; I don’t use accelerators as they can make the  superglue brittle.  I then glued the models to a piece of scrap card ready for  painting. UNDERCOATING Undercoating is essential as it provides a consistent surface  on which to apply the next coats of paint, and it shows up the  detail on a model much more clearly than shiny bare metal.  

BACKGROUND The first thing I did was take a good long look at the Ila. They  are a fairly obscure tribe but quite a lot of very useful  information does exist, mostly written by Chris Peers. In fact  we also have a companion article detailing their history and  background by Chris and even more information can be  foundry in his book CENTRAL AFRICA, Tribal and Colonial  Armies in the Congo, Gabon, Rwanda, Burundi, Northern  Rhodesia and Nyasaland, 1800 to 1900. The other good  thing about them is that they are very distinctive; your Ila   troops won’t be mistaken for anything else on the field of  battle! The second thing you notice about the Ila is that they carry  very long spears, but the first thing you notice is inevitably the hair! Both these things add up to unique looking troops and  make them a worthy addition to any African collection. The  other good thing from a painting point of view is that the  senior warriors would often wear colourful cloth instead of the  animal skins of the rank and file warriors.   PREPARATION The first task with any model is to have a good look at it, see  what you are going to have to do to it. For this article I am  painting the pack of models NSA3002 (Senior Ila warriors),  which has four noble models in good haughty poses. Cleaning These models required some “cleaning up” before painting.  Using a scalpel and needle files I removed all the visible  mould lines – these are the thin lines that run right around the  model. Scraping the knife blade carefully along the mould  line, as if you are peeling the skin from a potato, holding the  blade at roughly ninety degrees to the surface. Finishing off  the scraped surface with a small file to ensure that the area is  all nice and smooth. As a final word on preparing models,  please be careful when using any sharp modelling tools.