Roman Gladiator Vignette Part 5

Work continues on my gladiator vignette. Although I have been focusing on this half of the grouping I will soon begin anew on the Retiarius figure as well. I have been focusing on the metal bits and am about half way through. The cloth and belting is almost complete with only the belts on the padded shin armor to paint. Once the right arm is complete I will be able to paint all the ruffles of cloth padding seen around the separate scales. I am also working on the shield design as well. Stay tuned for future posts.

Soldiers Sr-17 Groundwork

Groundwork from the kit all blended in with the plastic framework. Next comes dirt grasses and then sealed and primed with the figure. Short but sweet.

Soldiers SR-17 Roman Legionary in Scale Armor

While looking for something to keep me occupied during last night's hockey games on TV I decided to begin prep work on this Soldiers kit of a Trajanic Legionary in scale armor sculpted as usual by the able hands of Adriano Laruccia. This subject dates A.D. 90-110 during the Dacian Wars and has a very interesting mixture of armor designed to protect against the weapons this unit faced on the field of battle. These pictures give an idea of how I create my groundwork to fit nicely on my preferred square bases.

I begin by either gluing the kit groundwork to the base and surrounding with A+B epoxy putty, or using A+B completely. This groundwork is then surrounded by sheet plastic glued to align with the edges of the wood base and trimmed down once the putty is applied.

I am always very enthusiastic by Soldiers kits especially the quality of sculpting the Laruccia presents. This kit is no exception although I must say that the casting of the lower leg section suffered from terrible mold wear that required a large amount of work to remove the excess metal from previous mold tear-out. In the end everything turned out alright but I spent hours more on prep work than I had expected. Thank god for that second game on CBC's "Hockey Night In Canada and the Sabre's road trip out west.

Pegaso Greek Warrior - Part 4

Ok I know I said I was moving on but although I have worked on other things all week I keep coming back to this figure because I am on a roll and near completion. As you can see the sword was taken to the point where I need it in place and surrounded by all the other colors before I apply final highlights. The shield has a ways to go as I continue to paint the metallic bits and the design has yet to be started. There are details all over this piece that need to be done. The next post will be it's finished appearance.

Pegaso Greek Warrior - Part 3

As a change of pace and to give the Navarca an opportunity to dry a bit I spent the other night working on this Pegaso Greek Warrior a bit more. I decided to focus on refining the non-metallic painted bronze armor, padded armor and a few other details. Various mixes of Yellow Ochre, and Titanium White were used to add reflected highlights to the greaves, helmet and chest armor. The crest was completed as seen in the photos and the sword has been primed to begin painting. Once the sword is complete I will glue it and the shield to the figure so I can begin to paint the face of the shield. I will also re-attach the spear points to the shaft. I have broken them off twice and have them safely hidden away so as not to damage or lose them.

Now on to the gladiator vignette for a little work tomorrow and hopefully back to the Mayan bust sometime during the week. Full circle and soon a few things will get completed.

Soldiers Roman Navarca Update #4

Sunday was a very productive painting day for me and reminded me of the old days when I used to be able to get in a marathon painting session with great regularity. Between the cold, snow, NFL Playoffs and needing some peace and quiet I was able to get a lot done on this figure. As you can see in the photos I have completed the torso enough that I was able to glue it to the base and glue the head/mantle assembly to the torso. I will now paint around the feet, finish the boots and start detailing everything from the bottom up. I plan on tweaking a few of the color tones as well with washed and glazes. I usually reserve judgement on where I need to play with the tones until I see the figure all together. Colors effect one another and subtle work with tones can be necessary to get the overall effect just right. I have now begun painting the shield and lance as well. You will note a strong sheen to the blue of the mantle. This is due to the fact that the photos were taken minutes after I finished the initial blocking of colors on the back of the mantle. Indigo dries slightly more matte but I may still have to apply a dullcoat layer in the end.

Inspiration - Recommended Site

http://massivevoodoo.blogspot.com/
I have a very large listing to the right of this blog of those miniaturists out there that post work which I find inspirational on a regular basis. Hopefully many of you have taken the opportunity to visit some of these people's sites. Regardless of Historical or Fantasy miniature subjects we can and should all be able to learn a thing or two from one another. Normally I wouldn't single out one site or another unless there was something really special going on there. In my opinion "Massive Voodoo" is just such a place. This Fantasy Miniature blog is run by three individuals all of which have a lot of talent and seem to spend a lot of time giving back to the hobby in the form of this blog and workshops in Europe. There are usually multiple postings daily, something for everyone. I have learned a lot about groundwork techniques, staging, specialty painting and most importantly just how much fun you can and should have with your hobby. So click on the link above, take some time, explore, learn a few things and most importantly Have Fun!

Soldiers Roman Navarca Update #3

As of Friday progress on the Roman Navarca was moving along nicely with the leather work started and the base painted. For the leather I began with a coating of Burnt Umber and a touch of Burnt Sienna. Once dry I gave the entire surface a wash of Mars Black. Finally I worked midtones with Burnt Sienna. The next post will show highlighting on the leather.

I completed the greaves by using Burnt Umber and Mars Black for shadows and blending reflected highlights with straight Deep Gold printers ink in Grumbacher Painters Medium #1. This medium has always been my choice as a carrier for printer's inks, necessary to evenly spread and somewhat seal the tenuous nature of the metallic pigments. Indigo and White were used to paint the cloth wraps. These inks were used as the base color for the torso armor as well.

Normally I don't use kit groundwork but the assembly that comes with this kit is quite nice. I didn't have a base that fit perfectly front to back but this base is the exact width and will work very nicely. The trick is to darken the brown tones gradually as they meet the base, matching the color of the wood. Painting was straightforward, simply matching the colors shown in the box-art photos.

I spent the day today working on this figure and my progress will be shown in a posting tomorrow or Tuesday.