Sunday 27 June 2010

Experimental Phalangites

Whilst I'm painting what seems like an endless number of phalangites for my first Macedonian phalanx (33 from scratch, and retouching 11 others), I thought I'd also paint a few test figures for later units.

The first mini on the left is a Crusader phalangite, with a Polemarch shield.  This was an annoying mini to prep (I hate the tiny sharp bits of metal that you often find on Crusader minis, left over from vents), and I find it a little dumpy, with rather fat legs.  Details like fingers and toes are less well defined than on Foundry minis.  I think I'll paint all my Foundry's first...

The middle figure is an Aventine elephant crewman, with a Foundry shield.  I love the helmet on this figure and want to fit some into a mixed unit along with some Foundrys and Polemarchs.  I presume Aventine will sculpt some, later, with greaves (which one obviously doesn't need in a howdah!).  I did this one in expensive purple clothing and a silver shield, as an Agyraspid.  It looks OK, but I think it would look better still with iron or silvered armour to go with the silver shield, and perhaps paler clothing colours.

Figure on the right is a Foundry peltast who has been consripted into the rear ranks of the phalanx.

9 comments:

DeanM said...

I thought I recognized the bearded fellow in the middle. Aventine's Hellenistic and Successor crew are really nice. The archers look great too. Nice match-up of the three makes - no problems mixing them together. Dean

Christopher(aka Axebreaker) said...

They look nice and I don't see a problem with them mixing.

Cheers
Christopher

BigRedBat said...

I do like the Aventine crewmen. The archers remind me of the ones depicted in the siege on the Nereid monument. All bodes well for the coming Tarentines...

Grégory Privat said...

Nice. About the middle one, I'm not fond of the silver shield : looks a bit too pale. And yes : it s me who say that !

EinarOlafson said...

I like them, specially the Aventine converted miniature. If they make Pyrrhic I´m sure I´ll buy them.

Andrés.

BigRedBat said...

Hi all; Greg I do agree, the silver shield just isn't working. I'll need to read up on painting silver.

Grégory Privat said...

I would go with a black undercoat, then painting chainmail (showing black around details), then badab black wash, then painting details in chainmail again, then painting highlights with mithryl silver. Few of that last one. That would looks more like steel, but it would looks better... does it have to be silver ? was it "fully" silver ? if no, I would make it dark blue (or another color) with only details in silver...

just my 2 coppers.

ZeroTwentythree said...

An even simpler recipe would be to paint a base of bright silver, a wash of badab black, then a little bit of highlighting with silver again.

Badab black is one of the best things to come out of GW in a while. I wish I could buy it by the quart.

BigRedBat said...

Hi Z23; will try that, and report back.

Now just 24 part painted phalangites from finishing my first 96-man phalanx...