Painting over the last few days has seen me finish off Craig's 'blob' of pikemen for his successor army, and move onto some Gauls.
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| The red phalanx completed |
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| A closer shot. LBMS shield transfers, looking very nice. |
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| The red and blues phalanxes. Only the purples to go. |
Gauls are a tricky proposition. They can be overworked and look to busy, or underworked and not look like Celts at all. Either way, they can be quite consuming, so I was looking for some speed painting techniques with these guys.
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| The shields are the Warlord Games decals. Quite a nice selection. |
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| Zooming out to see some of the other figures |
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| I'm not a great fan of the guys that are bent right over. It may be a dynamic pose, but there's too many of them on the sprue. |
I went back and looked at some Peter Dennis battle scenes with Gauls in them, and saw that his technique was to take a lighter colour as the base and do a check pattern in a darker shade over the top to give the impression of plaid. So that is what I did with these figures. The flesh is Gulliman contrast, which I cannot rate highly enough, and all shading is done with washes. In the end these 15 figures took 2 painting evenings, but the first evening also saw me finishing the successors, so I'm really pleased with the speed painting experiment.
When I based up the Gauls I also rebased some Romans for the Rule Britannia rules.
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| 12 figures to the maniple |
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| Ready to conquer |
So the first two units for Rule Britannia are ready to go, although these aren't my priority at the moment. Currently the painting tray has 18 Achaemenid Persians on it for Mortal Gods. I'm listening to Dan Carlin's King of Kings Hardcore History podcast at the moment when I go walking, and I'm loving the way he tackles Herodotus. Expect some games from Ancient Greece soon.
Nate
These ancients look superb, Nathan! I am listening to Carlin's King of King's for the second time while spinning indoors on the bike. Dan is a GREAT storyteller.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jonathan. Yeah, I agree. I started rereading Herodotus last night and realised that I might have to leave it a while - Dan has spoiled all the best bits!
DeleteGreat output Nate , I really love the Greeks an Romans in particular . I agree with you about that bending pose - in fact you are being generous calling it dynamic- to me, it looks more like they are bowing down to their chieftain or something....quite reminiscent of some of the "useless" poses you used to get with Airfix and similar manufacturers ...I think I once had Esci Desert Rats where there were half a dozen guys shaving!
ReplyDeleteThanks Keith. I agree with you about the stupid poses. I was originally going to base them on 20x20mm squares, but they just don't rank up without some pretty finicky placement. So that is why everything is moving to 25mm rounds. Movement trays are on the way, but if I had a choice I'd definitely go Victrix for my Gauls in the future.
DeleteGreat looking figures, I particularly like the Gauls for their animation and intent...
ReplyDeleteThanks. The sculpting on the Gauls is really nice. I just wish some of them weren't bent over double. They look like they had too many beers the night before.
DeleteWonderful job, love your pike units, impressive and gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteThanks Phil. Pikemen en masse is always a great sight.
DeleteSplendid toys Nate...
ReplyDeleteI particularly like the Successor Phalanx’s...
All the best. Aly
Thanks Aly. Their limited tabletop time so far has shown them to be very nasty to face.
DeleteExcellent looking units. All the figures in the phalanx gives them a good solid look.
ReplyDeleteYes. Certainly fearsome to those smaller Roman units. Agility doesn't always triumph over size!
DeleteMind-blowingly good output. Love the re-based Romans, and the Gauls. But those pikemen are a thing of beauty, if not deadly-looking to the hapless gamer with all those spikes. Great posting.
ReplyDeleteThanks Simon. The pikes are plastic, and they are not strong enough to have resisted the kitten of doom. A bit of superglue has had to go their way I'm afraid.
DeleteOh corks. Sorry to hear that. Hopefully, everything has been recovered and put back in its place.
DeleteIt's OK - these are post-kitten photos, so they came out alright.
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