Having been away for a long weekend this Easter there is little evidence of progress on the painting table. Keen to get some colour on my new plastic Romans, I used a couple of hours yesterday evening to get started. Naturally I jumped in with the Centurion.
I went to town on his cloak, trying to apply my usual techniques to a model that was significantly smaller than I'm used to. I discovered that I have little use for my size 2 brush, so most of the work was done with my 00. My hat is off to any of you gamers who paint smaller scale models, I'm not sure my patience (or eyesight) would stretch much below this size.
Several layers of Dark Flesh, Blood Red, Blazing Orange and Sunburst Yellow later I was washing the cloak and tunic down with Baal Red, then some brown in the folds.
While that was drying I moved onto some of the leather elements with Burnt Umber, Snakebite Yellow and a touch of Bleached Bone. This too was washed in the brown, hence it's all looking very shiny at the moment. Elsewhere I added some Oily Steel and Vermin Brown to block out the armour and skin and give me an idea of where things were heading. Looking ok so far, but we'll see how things progress.
The rest of my Roman posse looked on patiently. I have filed, based and undercoated one Legionary, but the other two are looking quite raw with their polyfilla-ed bases and mould lines still on show.
I'm starting to feel that I should have based them on the slightly larger 30mm bases that I use for Warmachine and Malifaux. The models would look a little more lost but each one would be a mini diorama. I'll reserve full judgement until these guys are finished and I can build some others to compare.
And talking of compare, for those 40k gamers who need a point of reference, here's a Legionary next to a Space Marine. The Roman's looking a bit scrawny in this pic and the marine a little more true to scale.
For those of you wondering, the scenery in these photos is actually the ruined chaos temple kit that I bought at Salute last year – I knew it would come in handy… eventually!