Southern Italian Hoplites WIP 1

These are the first batch of 12, from 48 I currently plan to paint.

My approach to these is to paint four groups of 12, each with the same basic tunic colour, but with varying levels of trim. These have a base of blue (bet you didn't spot that, did you?), the next batch in line will have red, with grey and off white to come.

Colour choices are based on various tomb paintings that have survived from Southern Italy. Try a Google Image search for "paestum tomb" and you'll get the idea.

I've done the flesh tones on these slightly differently to some previous figures, with less contrast. Not sure I'm happy and would be interested in other opinions.

Shields are mostly finished and just need adding to the figures. Will try and get some photos of them up tomorrow.

Tarentines Completed

Managed to finish these off in the week but had to wait until today to get enough natural light to photograph them. It's already past the time of year that it's too dull on a morning for photography before I leave for work and too dark by the time I get home, a fact that will become far more obvious as we descend into Winter.

I'm pleased with the shields. I used various LBMS hoplite variants for several different figure ranges; most didn't fit! The rimmed shields I decided to use for these figures have a relatively small central area, so I had a bit of careful choosing and trimming to do to make things work. I'm happy with the results.

I used a slightly different mix of tufts this time around and I quite like the effect. Haven't decided if I should add a couple of flowers or not.

As noted before, painting these has helped me formulate plan for the Southern Italian hoplites that are next on the agenda. I've decided to use four basic tunic colours, as here, with varying levels of trim. To achieve this, I've split the 48 figures into batches of 12 (didn't know I did maths, did you?). Body armour is mixed, with variations from none, plain T-Y, padded T-Y, reinforced T-Y and plate armour on some of the command figures, so lots of scope for mixtures of white, yellow, red, blue and anything else I can think of....

"Tarentine" WIP

Some pictures of my Aventine "Tarentines" in progress.

Painting is finished, just need to add shields, varnish and base. How I base them is the reason for the "".  I can't decide  whether to base them in 3's, so general Southern Italian medium cavalry, or in 2's as more open order light cavalry. I'm hedging towards 3's, as I think they'll be more useful that way, but if anyone's got any ideas, I'd love to hear other opinions.

 

Pictures are clickable.

Next project is some Southern Italian Hoplites. I'll use the same basic colour scheme as I've used on these to give them plenty of variety and colour.



More Pink Pike

Here's the rest of the Pink Pike.

Hopefully you can see the variations in armour. The first batch of 32 were all painted identically, with the exception of their tunics, but as mentioned in my last post, Adam's Blue Boys inspired me to add some variations within the theme of pink and white.

In case you thought I'm slightly mad in my colour choices, the pink armour was based on this Macedonian tomb painting:

And I took the tunic colours from the Agios Athanasios tomb painting below:

The other point to note from this painting is the colour of the cuirass. This shows that the whole cuirass can be one colour - purple in this case. Also note the painted helmets, one red and one purple. This image also clearly demonstrates that macedonian shields don't have rims.

More Pink Pike WIP

Just finished the next batch of 16 Pink Pike.

I decided that 8 figures across for a pike block doesn't really give me the impression I want, so decided to expand my Pink Pike unit to 64 figures in 4 ranks, effectively doubling the frontage. I also decided that I wanted to mix up the colours on the armour, having seen Adam's Blue Boys on the Aventine site http://www.aventineminiatures.co.uk/gallery/displayimage.php?album=34&pos=34

Adam has mixed up his two primary coulours of blue and white to give a varied but still very homogenous looking unit. Being the magpie that I am, I decided to pinch the idea!

My plan is to paint perhaps a quarter of this second batch the same as the original figures, so that when I mix up the bases they should all blend, without it being too obvious that half of the figures are more uniform than the rest. I'm also thinking of adding a bit of extra colour to one or two of the previously finished figures to help break up this impression.

Figures still need shields, varnish and basing, but this will wait for the other 16 figures, as these will have alternate tunic colours (probably red and off-white).





In case you were wondering, there is a fourth base, but the photo was a bit poor so I discarded it.

Roman Army

Thought I'd try and get some shots of my full Roman Army from Aventine, so set it up on the table on an old piece of grass matting I dug out of the garage.

I took the shot in the early evening, so it wasn't so bright to wash out the colours, but some of the reds still look a bit intense.

The army is made up of two Roman legions and two Allied legions. Each legion has two units each of Hastati and Princpes (16 figures in each), one unit of Triarii (8 figures) and four units of Velites (8 figures). Only half of the Velites are shown here. At the moment, I've done one unit of 12 Roman cavalry and one unit of 9 Allied cavalry. I've just bought another unit 12 Italian/Tarntine cavalry that will work to flesh out the army.

An eye level shot across the front of the army

A slightly higher view point

The left wing

A shot across the front from the right flank

A shot of the right

Across the front.  All pictures are clickable

I would have liked to have shown them in the classic quincunx formation, but the table wasn't big enough!

Aventine Roman Cavalry Finished

Now completed.

As always, a joy to paint. Shield designs hand painted.

These are the first shield designs I've done on this army, as I'm not convinced any were used this early. The shields looked like they needed something "extra", so I've gone with something fairly neutral and generic and I'm quite pleased with the results, particularly as they were relatively easy to do.

 All pictures are clickable.