Hobby WIP: Roman Spear Phalanx (Part 2)

Real life has been busy lately. Suffice it to say, hobby time has suffered a bit… but I have made some real progress on my test unit of Spear Phalanx, and figured I'd share.

We're back!

If you are just tuning in, the above pic is where we are starting from today. I’m using the Roman Legionaries kit from Warlord Games, some Vallejo white pumice paste for a sandy basing effect, and a lot of leftover 20mm magnetized bases from my old Empire models. Feel free to check out the WIP post on these guys from a week or so prior for more info.

After a string of being out and busy on nice days and home and free on dreary ones, I lucked out and managed to have some free time on a nice day and managed to get these soldiers all primed up, and then get some painting in over the weekend. A few of my brushes are nearing the end of their usefulness, so the idea here was to slap down a layer of paint with those brushes and get used to the models, and then touchup/cleanup later on with a better brush, and then move on to shades/washes/etc. and finish the model. The approach seemed better than demanding a lot out of a few good brushes, or trying to do detail work with bad brushes.

Off to a good start!

Above is a pic very early in the process. Only three colors in so far: a diluted wash for the sand; some dark brown for the sandals; and a grey metal for all the armor. As you can see, the painting is less than precise here; some toes are sandy; some sand is dark brown; some noses are metallic. But we’re making progress.

Almost there....

Some indeterminate amount of time later, and the models are looking more colorful. I still need to add some kind of other metal to the scabbards and to the studs on the cingulum belt… but other than that, everything has gotten its first coat of paint!

When I set out to paint up this test unit, I did actually build in a few things to test. After painting up more than 70 Chaos Warriors in my brief time in the hobby, I knew the shields would be painted separately and glued on later, but I wanted to see if it was easier to:

·         Paint the arms before or after they are glued on

·         Paint a group of models on 40mm bases or individually

·         Paint the heads before or after they are glued on

In future units (and there will be more Romans appearing in this army!), I’ll absolutely paint the shields separately. I didn't fully appreciate the poses these models have, and the shield needs to be fully painted for most of these models as it is away from the body. So, good call there, self.

I will also paint up the models and the weapon arms separately. It’s wasn’t a big deal to attach and then paint, and it was nice to not have to work around the spears.

Painting a group of models on the 40mm was (surprisingly) easily doable, particularly without shields and weapons getting in the way. Since the unit is supposed to be more compact and defensible though (and I already have all those magnetized 20mm bases) I think I may just stick to individual 20mm bases on these units for now.

Lastly, while the models do have exposed necks, I think I’ll attach all the heads before gluing next time. Heads are a pain to prime separately, and getting at the necks isn’t a big deal, despite the awkward paint job above. The bad paint job came from me painting metal before most everything else. Next time... metal will be one of the last, if not the last color to be applied.

I have already learned a lot from this test unit! I will hopefully finish them off in the next week, and get a finished Hobby Update post for them posted soon!