Painting Ancient Hawaiians

The Hawaiian Project

Having just returned from a couple of weeks in the sunny Hawaiian Isles, I thought it would be a great time to discuss my ancient Hawaiian and other Pacific island armies.

A few years ago, I ran a Hawaiian themed event at Enfilade that I called Trouble in Paradise using DBA in 15mm. The inspiration came from Paul Hannah’s very cool Hawaiian DBA army. I found some excellent sources on the web as well as some great photos depicting the colorful Hawaiian feathered capes and helmets. Early photos of tribes in New Guinea were also great helps. Some resources I used are:

The Battle of Nu’Uanu 1795 by Dukas (2010) – not entirely ‘ancient’ as firearms were used

Ancient Hawai’i by Kane (1997)

Dress and Weapons of the Melanesians at

http://inquirewithin.biz/history/melanesian-dress-index.htm

Hawaiian Military at http://ancientmilitary.com/hawaiian-military.htm – small help

Dress, Weapons and Implements Of The Polynesians And Micronesians by Ratzel at http://inquirewithin.biz/history/american_pacific_index.htm

Warrior Arts and Weapons of Ancient Hawaii by Campbell (2006)

Melanesian Warfare by Haddon (1891) – available on the web

Easter Island by Thompson (1891) – available on the web

HEN Material Culture - War Implements – (1911) - http://www.hawaiialive.org/resources/manuscript/709.pdf

HEN Material Culture – Warfare (1930)

Ancient Hawaii - http://dictionary.sensagent.com/Ancient_Hawaii/en-en/

Ancient Hawaii (World Heritage Encyclopedia) http://self.gutenberg.org/articles/eng/Ancient_Hawaii

I settled on a hypothetical and not entirely historical Easter Island scenario.

“It is 1422AD and trouble is brewing on Easter Island. Competition is fierce over natural resources for the construction of the great moai and strangers have appeared on the shores to complicate matters.

The following lists are eligible for the tournament:

IV/12a Polynesian

IV/12b Melanesian

IV/12c Hawaiian

IV/12d Maori

IV/11 Chinook

IV/37b Molouccan

IV/70 Chanka

IV/71 Chimu

IV/81 Incan

IV/73 Ming Chinese (except no Cv or LH allowed - they had to eat the horses to get that far - and no Art allowed – the cannons were tossed overboard in a typhoon - replace Cv with 4Bd and LH with 3Bd or 2Ps, and replace Art with 3Ax or 7Hd).

Trophies for the top finishers. NICT qualifiers with 8 players. Some loaner armies available.”

So now I had to paint up the ‘loaner armies.’ I also wanted to be able to field a Hawaiian army for Warrior and/or FOG i.e. about 220 total figures.

After searching on the web for suppliers, I found four sources:

1.   Bloodaxe (Historifigs in Wisconsin), http://www.bloodaxeminiatures.com
2.   Eureka (in Australia), http://eurekamin.com.au
3.   Mick Yarrow (in the UK) - http://www.spanglefish.com/mickyarrowminiatures
4.   Battleline (in New Zealand) - http://www.battleline-miniatures.co.nz

I decided to start with the Pacific islands crowd and do the others later (much later – still working on them!). Here is a rundown of the figures I needed:

DBA 2.2 LISTS – FIGURE NEEDS

IV-12a Polynesian 30 3Bd 1 general

IV-12a Polynesian 4 2Ps

IV-12b Melanesian 30 3Sp 1 general

IV-12b Melanesian 4 2Ps

IV-12c Hawaiian 30 3Bd 1 general

IV-12c Hawaiian 8 4P

IV-12c Hawaiian 6 2Ps

IV-12d Maori 36 3Bd 1 general

IV-37b Moluccan 27 3Wb 1 general

IV-37b Moluccan 6 3Bw

IV-37b Moluccan 2 2Ps

DBA TOTAL 183

 I decided to build 2 armies of each (although I ended up not building a Maori army which is another ongoing project) and I also wanted to have that Warrior army (220 figures). For the Polynesians, Melanesians and Hawaiians I used 

Bloodaxe Hawaiians – their ‘Mega-mix’ is great with 67 figures for $14 plus

shipping. For the Molouccans I used Bloodaxe Moros (from their Moro rebellion line). I built one Hawaiian DBA army using Eureka figures. I did not get around to building armies for the others, although I am still working on the Maoris. I ended up ordering 590 Bloodaxe figures at a cost of $140 and 47 Eureka figures costing $62 (!! - the shipping cost more than the figures!!). I was very happy with Bloodaxe and have ordered several other of their lines.

Note also that my list was for DBA 2.2 – the DBA 3 lists are substantially different and will require rebasing many figures mostly from 3Bd to 4Bd (which also makes them incompatible with the Warrior list of all LMI = light medium infantry = 3 figures per base – I hate Phil Barker).

Next came researching painting schemes. Here is where the web came in quite handy – tons of pictures on Pinterest. The nobles wore feather capes, some quite colorful (Hawaiians in particular) and carried feather standards. Priests (kahunas) accompanied warriors into battle carrying idols covered in colorful feathers. The warriors themselves wore a bark cloth (kapa) kilt or loincloth.

 

Most of the troops classed as ‘blade’ used clubs although some nobles used a wooden paddle-shaped club embedded with sharks teeth or obsidian. Javelins and slings were used, but not bows (except for the Moluccans). Shields did not seem to be used. The kahuna priest holding the idol aloft is an interesting camp follower and the Bloodaxe mix included a couple.

So once I had the figures, I began by cleaning off the flash (which is not much on Bloodaxe, a bit more on Eureka), washing them with water and plain dish soap to remove any mold residue and then gluing them 3 or 4 to a Popsicle stick with plain white school glue. I’ll put all of the same pose figure on a stick to facilitate rapid painting. 

 Since most of the dudes are mostly naked, I spray painted them a medium dark tan which would be both a base coat and the final skin tone. I use plain old Rustoleum spray paint for metal figures.

Then I went through the entire lot with single colors – I use el cheapo acrylics from the craft store. Black for the hair, yellow-red-black for the capes and helmets, off white for the kahuna and for loin cloths, a darker brown for spears/pikes. Once the painting is complete I brush on a wash of Minwax dark walnut wood stain that is thinned down with standard thinner. Once that is dry, I base the figures using old beer coasters cut to size – I use wood glue mixed with brown paint and once I have the figures on the base I carefully slide the lot into a tray of sand. Once dry, I hit them with Dullcote. I’ve tried different matte spray finishes, but always come back to Dullcote. Here in the great Northwest, if you try to use a clear spray finish in the winter when the humidity is 100% you will end up with a bit of shine no matter what you do – it picks up moisture from the air and that gets absorbed by the spray resulting in the shine. I’ve even tried spraying then immediately putting the figures in the freezer (where the humidity is supposed to be by definition zero) and that hasn’t worked for me. So I usually wait until August during the dry season and spray all the figures I’ve painted in the past year...

Here are a load of Melanesians – mostly spear.

Here are the Hawaiians – note the different patterns on the feather capes (that some figures are using slung across their arms for use as a shield).

And here is a Hawaiian command stand.

The Bloodaxe ‘megamix’ comes with a pig, perfect for a camp follower stand. I added the little conch shell to the dude – a bit out of scale, but hey it’s a whimsy… if the javelinman is good we will have BBQ pork for dinner...

And here is the Bloodaxe outrigger canoe – the caterers arrive! The shininess is from the wash I use – Minwax wood stain with a bit of thinner. It will largely go away when I spray it with Dullcote. I saw one guy put this into a really cool camp diorama surfing down a wave.

The Bloodaxe Moros took a bit more work – some came with rifles which I cut off, drilled holes in their hands and inserted brass wire bent to form bows.

The Moluccans are also much more colorful.

And the commander of the pirates…

I also needed some camps and/or Barker-markers so I found a silicone ice cube tray at the Dollar store that I used to make plaster Easter Island moai. When dry, I spray painted them gray and hit them with the Minwax wash and based them on 40×40mm card stock. I put two of the moai on a 40 x 80mm base for a camp.

I found some tiki key chains online for a pittance and turned them into camps for my Hawaiians using black pebbles from my back yard and a black sponge. Bloodaxe has two different types of kahunas – the guy with the big head is particularly scary...

I also went looking for some hula girls and found these at JoAnn Fabric & Crafts – they are little angel charms for a buck or so apiece…

I cut their little rings and wings off, washed them with dish soap and a toothbrush, primed them with Rustoleum Bare Metal primer, then painted them up and based them...

I used tin foil for their little grass skirts and model putty for their hair. Turned out okay I guess but the one on the right only a mother could love...

For tournament at Enfilade and put together a little trophy from a larger moai found at Walmart in the pet department…

After the event, I put many of the armies up for sale in the bring and buy and later on eBay.

I ended up making enough money to fund my next science project… a refight of Alexander’s invasion of India at the Battle of Hydaspes using 2500 point Warrior armies – about 1000 total 15mm figures.