I am painting Romans again. Romans are fun to paint. These are some of the A&A Miniatures Middle Imperial Romans. I’ve dragged together a rather rag-tag bunch, taken from about four different packs, plus command - I think that, during the Third Century, things in the Empire were pretty grotty, and supply was probably a problem. More than half the figures have lorica hamata (mail), but the rest are a mix of lorica segmentata (segmented armour) and lorica squamata (scale). There’s a good mix of helmets, etc, in the packs anyway. I’m looking forward to getting these done - I think they’re going to look really good. By the time they’re done I hope the first of my Sassanian Persian infantry and cavalry will have arrived, so I can paint a unit of them too. And then, just like the Britannia project, I intend to (more or less, most of the time) alternate, so I always have forces with which I can play games.
I have received a small package from Gripping Beast - an elephant, and a couple of cavalry musicians. The elephant is a beautiful resin model, with metal trunk and tusks. The crew are typical Beasty models - well detailed and very cleanly cast. The cavalry musicians are better than expected - one is an armoured cavalryman, and has an armoured horse. I guess it’s one of the original, not-very-nice, horses, but you can’t tell that under the armour. The other is a light cavalryman, and the horse is one I haven’t seen before - it looks very nice and, well, horse-like! I might well get a few more Beasty Sassanians to add to the variety offered by A&A.
Anyway, the main reason for this entry is to answer Wolfgang’s question following my last entry - how do I paint my desert bases? So, without further ado...
The figures are assembled, glued to their bases (usually pennies, or ‘repair washers’) painted, and then shaded with Army Painter ‘Quick Shade’. And then I take my usual mixture of fine grit and sand (it’s about 10% grit and 90% sand), and glue it on with white PVA woodworking glue. Let it dry, then make sure it’s stuck properly by flooding that base with a very dilute mixture of PVA and water (say 10% glue?).
Let that dry, then paint the whole base, including the edge, with Vallejo 912/122 ‘Tan Yellow’. Allow to dry, then dry-brush with Vallejo 837/007 ‘Pale Sand’. Finish off the painting by neatening up the edge with a careful application of Tan Yellow to hide any stray dry-brushing.
Finally, I put a few random blobs of PVA on the base, and then dip in a tub of Woodland Scenics ‘ground foam’ - specifically a mixture of ‘Burnt Grass’ fine and coarse turf. And once that’s dry, a quick squirt of Testors’ ‘Dull Cote’ and the job’s done.
Wednesday, 29 July 2009
