Showing posts with label Galatians. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Galatians. Show all posts

Wednesday, 11 March 2009

Completed Galatian Mercenaries!


Galatian mercenaries, hired from the Celtic tribes on the central plateau of Asia Minor, were not uncommon in Successor armies. These depict mercenaries serving the Ptolemies, and are loosely based on the reconstruction in the Ptolemaic Montvert; I'm very pleased with them. The images are clickeable, and previous posts show the various stages of painting.


Is it my imagination, or is the woman in the background, below, smiling as they approach her? ;-)

Saturday, 7 March 2009

Galatians pre-basing

Took me 2 long evenings just to paint on all the ironwork and torques! Shields tonight... then I can think about basing.

Thursday, 5 March 2009

Latest Galatian WIP


So here the are boys (easy to tell they are boys!) in their pre-varnish state; they are fully painted, aside from shields and metallics. Last night I washed them using a very much diluted coat of Ronseal walnut woodstain, which has brought out the musclature nicely (but unfortunately you can't really make it out from the photo, which is again too light; try clicking on it for a slightly better view). When I take the next photo I'll take more care.

I was very pleased with the woodstain wash, and will be using it on pretty well all of my future painting.

There will be another post soon on an unrelated but very exciting Ancients topic later today; stay tuned...

Monday, 2 March 2009

Galatian Update


A couple of days hard painting; yet it doesn't look a lot different to the last photo! I've painted hair (head and elsewhere...) and black-primed areas that will later be metallic. Next I need to paint straps, boots and plumes, and think about using a wash.

As part of my time saving objective I've decided that I'll paint metallics on after varnishing. This will enable me to spray gloss and then matt the figures, rather than needing to use a brush.

I must say I'm enjoying painting a unit in one go. I usually paint in groups of 5-8 minis; it's a nice change to see an entire unit shaping up together. I hope I'll have this unit finished in around a week.

Monday, 23 February 2009

Desperate Times...

...call for desperate measures; and to a Roman, few measures are more desperate than arming a bunch of slaves! Still, with a horde of Germans ravaging the Po valley it is time to offer these chaps the chance to earn their freedom in exchange for dangerous military service.


These desperate heroes were painted for me by the highly talented and extremely prolific Greg Privat; I then did some highlighting and basing. They actually depict later, EIR gladiators from the 69AD Civil War. The figures are a mix of Foundry and Crusader.


This is a progress shot of my Galatian unit. There is not a great deal of progress, because I have been struggling with The Mother of All Essays; now happily vanquished, but around half have a basecoat, and all have a thin coat of Ronseal.

Thursday, 19 February 2009

Ruddy Galatians

I need units to round out half a dozen different armies, so I've chosen to paint a unit for an army I've not even started yet!


These will be a unit of Galatian mercenaries, serving in a Ptolemaic army. Apart from the fact I've always fancied a unit of these, I have accumulated a lot of nekkid figures I couldn't think of any other way of using. These are a mix of Celts and Greeks from A&A, BTD and Foundry, with Crusader, A&A and Essex shields, a lot of headswaps and some dodgy greenstuff cloaks. Apart from the bare heads, there are half a dozen each celtic and attic greek helmets; I'm assuming that some of the troops have re-equipped themselves in the markets of Alexandria.

I've decided to try to paint these quickly, and as a unit. My version of "speed painting" will probably take around a month... :-( so not that speedy. Here they are again primed rust red (part of my cunning plan):-


I'll try to snap a few pics of them during the process...

On other fronts, I finished basing Greg's gladiators and some large desert hills I've made, and hope to have time to take some nice photos in the next few days. Unfortunately I'm writing a big essay against a tight deadline, which is most tiresome and is cutting into my painting and modelling time...