Painting Early Imperial Roman Auxila

Good morning,

Well it is here. A lovely mild spring day. The sun is shining and...I'm on holiday! After a very busy term I've finally had a week to sit down and actually apply some paint to some figures before heading back to school again next week to organise for the last push for the year.

So sit down I did. And low and behold I've actually finished painting 4 elements of HaT's Early Imperial Roman Auxilia. 16 figures no less.





(Note my oh-so-sophisticated painting set up...)

Its only taken me, stink, ages. I started these figures, I think it was in the Christmas holidays, and here's why. Each figure has...

• Undercoat - Chaos Black - 1



• Flesh - base coat of Dark Flesh/Elf Flesh mix with a highlight of Bronzed Flesh - 2, 3



• Tunic and trousers - either a base coat of green mixed with blue, then a highlight of Goblin Green (which sounds daft, but actually looks great - nice and bright), or a light grey base coat with an off white highlight - 4, 5



• Shield - base coat of green mixed with blue, then a highlight of Goblin Green (done at the same time as the tunic)



• Chainmail - heavy dry brush of Bolt Gun Metal with a highlight of Mithral Silver - 6, 7



• Swords - likewise



• Leather - dark brown base, red brown highlight (which turned out to be a bit fiddly -a couple of straps have paint applied, well, just underneath!) - 8, 9



• Spears - Beasty Brown with a Beasty Brown and white mix highlight - 10, 11



• Scarves - either as the white tunics/trousers, or dark blue with a dark blue/white mix highlight - 12, 13

Note - I did all of the basecoats first, then went back to do the highlights. I use Citadel and Vallejo paints.

I think that's everything. Apart from the standard, (same as the spears, with a Bolt Gun Metal/Brazen Brass/Shining Gold painted emblem on the top), and the [Airfix] Centurian who I just painted as if he were dressed in leather. Not a terribly accurate figure I know, but hey, most of it's hiden behind his shield, and if my opponent can see his back during a game he's facing the wrong way!

So, for each figure, that's x # of applications of paint where x is...hang on, I have to count them...13 separate steps. Per figure. What is 13 * 16...? Well, 10*16 = 160 + 3*16 = [3*15 + 3*1] 48 = 208. (That is NZ Curriculum Numeracy Stage 5...or is it Stage 6? I forget. Its what I taught in my Year 5 class two or so years back. Right now I'm trying to get Room 3 to Stage 4 before they ship off to Year 2 at the end of the year.)

Now, given that each application takes a couple of minutes, give or take (sometimes more, sometimes less, hacking away in a production line fashion and all that...), these figures have taken aproximately, what, 20, 25 hours to complete? So that's why it seemed so long.

Still, I think they look good.


Of course now I've just realized that all of their helmets should have been bronze, not iron, so I'll have to go back and fix them...bother it.

Once Stan has discovered where he's stored his bases after shifting house, I can get some off him to completely finish these elements and put them away. In the meantime...

Nick