Soldiers SR-17 Continued - Body Armor

At this stage my focus is on the clothing and armor. When painting clothing I start from areas closest to the skin or bottom layers and build up from there. In this case my thoughts are on the pants followed by tunic and then the leather, lastly the body armor. Having said that, some work can and should be done out of order to allow a bit of sloppiness in the application of shadow colors or in the case of the armor, simply to allow for the number of layers required to build depth of color, highlight and shadow. What I mean by sloppiness is that my shadow for the edges of the leather will also help me with the shadow tones of the tunic where it rests under the various leather pteruges. This should become evident in my next post. A mix of Burnt Sienna, Mars Black, Burnt Umber and Titanium White was used to paint the pants. First highlights were added using a wet-on-wet blending technique.

My next focus is the armor. First a wash of Mars Black was applied to the helmet and greaves as well as the "manica" armor on this Roman's right arm. after drying, the armor was lightly wiped with a bit of lint free cloth to expose the brighter highlights. The scale armor was begun with a mixture of Burnt Umber and Bright Gold printers ink. Once dry a wash of Burnt Umber was applied overall and a bit of Van Dyke Brown to deeper shadowed areas. I did experiment in a few spots with Mars Brown and Van Dyke Brown on the leather edging to test coloration.

The next steps will be working on the off white tunic, leather work as well as final highlighting and shadows on the pants. This will be followed by further work on the armor and helmet.

Soldiers Roman Navarca Completed

Just back from vacation so I thought I would post some pictures of Soldier's Roman Navarca that was completed just prior to my leaving. This is a really nice little figure and a lot of fun to paint.

I have posted pictures taken with three separate color backdrops to show how backgrounds effect the colors seen by your camera when you take pictures of your final work. I have always preferred a blue background to give me balance and consistency from one figure to the next, but a nice selection of paper backdrops in various colors will always give you the opportunity to select the color that will give you the most visually correct outcome.

Soldiers SR-17 Continued - Flesh Painted

Along the lines of the last post we are at the same point with this figure. Both have been being worked on at the same time up to this point. I will now be able to work on the armor and block out the colors of the clothing.

EMI Roman Marine Flesh Painted

Here we have our little Roman Marine from EMI with the flesh semi completed. As always there will be further refinements as we go on but it is 98% at this point. As I went to paint this and the Soldier's Roman I realized that I hadn't masked off the greaves on either figure so prior to painting I used some lacquer thinner on a brush and a bit of cloth to remove the primer. After painting the face I peeled off the mask with a fresh Exacto blade and tweezers so we are ready to work on the armor once the flesh dries fully. The feathers have been removed from the helmet until the figure is completed. I've already knocked them off once and I learn from my mistakes. That's what separates us from other mammals.

Roman Gladiator Vignette Part 6

Further progress on our gladiator vignette as I am now starting again on the second figure in the grouping. The first figure is darn near complete with more work being necessary on all the metallic bits. My greater focus will be on the flesh, leather and cloth of the Retarius. Stay tuned for more.

Pegaso Greek Hoplite - Completed

So here it is, nearly complete. I say that although my policy has always been that a figure should sit on the shelf for two weeks and then be revisited for mistakes or details that need that one last touch. I just didn't want to wait that time to post photos. The shield looks a bit lifeless in the pics but there are highlights and shadows on both the shield face and the cloth hanger that just don't show up in photos. I will be putting a few highlights on the shield design once dry. I will most likely have to touch a few spots with dullcoat and I will definitely need to give the metal areas some sparkle with a bit of gloss. This last bit adds just that final sparkle to non metallic technique on figures. Anyway, I hope you like it.

EMI Roman Marine - Prep

As if I don't have enough going right now I prepped this little beauty as well. This is a 54mm Roman Marine from EMI sculpted by Laruccia. These subjects are his specialty and he has done figures not only for Soldiers and most recently Art Girona but back in the day he shared his time with EMI. The owner of that company was an archaeology buff and so he kept Adriano busy doing Roman subjects for his old line. This was one of the last figures that was done for that line before they sorta diasappeared. I have placed the figure on a dark blue base with the groundwork being a sandy beach with small waves running onto the sand. It is hard to see it in these pics but I will focus on the painting of the groundwork while posting about this figure. No real point in discussing technique here as it is all the same as the other Roman subject.

Soldiers SR17 Prepped and Primed

OK so first let me say that these pics are posted in the wrong order. If you are following along you will need to work backwards to see my progress. Over these four pictures you can see the progress on this figure from the raw groundwork seen in my last post to the primed figure ready to be painted in the last picture.

After gluing the figure to the base with 5 minute epoxy I used white glue to affix very fine dirt with tiny rocks mixed in, where desired. Once dry I then used thinned white glue (50/50 mix with water) to attach a mixture of various manufacturer's "static grass" as well as some cut hemp rope.

I like to use washes to achieve a realistic effect on natural metal surfaces whenever painting a white metal kit. Standard household acrylic latex house paint was applied thickly to the areas that I wanted to mask off prior to priming and once dry the figure was primed with white automotive primer straight from a spray can. After the paint was dry the mask was removed from everything but the helmet. This area will be removed once the face has been completely painted. The final picture shows the figure all ready to begin painting. You will note that the groundwork is primed just like the figure so that the piece can be painted as a whole unit. I believe that the groundwork should receive the same degree of attention that the figure itself gets during the process.