Monday 17 January 2011

Romans are Red

A quick in-progress shot of the figures that I bought on eBay, and which I amcurrently retouching.  It takes a fair bit of time to tart up two dozen even quite respectably painted figures!  It'll take a lot longer to paint up the other 2 dozen figures from scratch.  Happlily, the original painter, like 90% of all others that paint Romans, went for red tunics. 

In the backgroung are the 3 figures for the command stand of the Praetorian Equites.  Steve Marshall from the WAB forum has kindly sent me some nice Wargames Factory standards (perhaps of dubious archaeological provenance, but very pretty).  If I can find a suitable imago I may stick this on top of the same pole.  Allen Curtis is sending me one, but I want to use that with the next cavalry unit I'm planning...

4 comments:

Paul´s Bods said...

I know that romans with red tunics is considered historically incorrect but for me they look way more menacing and threatening. Nice one :-)
Cheers
Paul

BigRedBat said...

Jury is still out on Roman tunic colours; I think red is more likely, than most.... mixed colours is a possibility.

Simon

Andrew said...

There's something extra satisfying about improving someone else's crumby paint job, don't you agree?

Yeah, I believe the consensus is not that red tunics are wrong, but rather red is not the only color possibly in use. Graham Sumner details the evidence in his Roman Military Clothing 1.

BigRedBat said...

In the latest Ancient Warfare, they looked at the clothing colors the Successors may have worn (based on analysing sources). IIRC red was in the lead, then white but yellows blues and greens were in there. Maybe the Romans were in the same place...