Darkest Africa Pygmies - painted .

I love these - in fact was always smitten with the Darkest Africa Range sculpted (if I'm right) by Mark Copplestone - who went on to extend the idea through Back of Beyond. His figures are a little stylised but a dream to paint.

Small wire spears and arrows added.

Oil wipe flesh...

The flesh on these figures was painted using the oil wipe technique most commonly used on horses. There's a good description over at Metal Mountain.  I used Humbrol matte oil tinlets as the base and the Winsor and Newton  Artisan water soluble oil artists paint - because it's easier to handle and I think dried a bit quicker than traditional artists oil paint.

Jumpers for goalposts...

Just as an aside I remember reading tutorials in Military Modelling of people painting wargames figures with tube oils.  Our local newsagent used to paint Hinchcliffe figures behind his counter, again using tubes of oil paint.  That was also when small shops (including his) might stock a few of those blue boxes from Hinchcliffe.

Anyway back to Africa and small people.

Now they are popular with the game Congo game from Studio Tomahawk  (available here)