So, the next bunch of Belisarius' brave boys. These are Hunnic Foederati. I have to say that the early Byzantines weren't shy on loading up the different troop types in their army. This is the 7th posting on this project, and I reckon I've got another 5 different types to paint in addition to these. Admittedly that includes 3 different flavours of psiloi with bows (or SI - Bows in Armati speak), but it's stil quite a few.
They're quite nice looking figures. They don't have any of the "flatness" I noted in the Auxilia, and the poses are well done, with some good animation. The figures look quite nicely proportioned as well. They're not heavily carved, so the highlighting and shading is a bit forced in places but I don't think they suffer for all that.
For a painting guide I used the classic Barker "Armies & Enemies of Ancient Rome", and you can see the figures are pretty much taken straight from Ian Heath's immortal drawings. The colour guides are beautifully vague, - natural cloth and coloured caps, so that's what they've got, as you can see.
They're quite nice looking figures. They don't have any of the "flatness" I noted in the Auxilia, and the poses are well done, with some good animation. The figures look quite nicely proportioned as well. They're not heavily carved, so the highlighting and shading is a bit forced in places but I don't think they suffer for all that.
For a painting guide I used the classic Barker "Armies & Enemies of Ancient Rome", and you can see the figures are pretty much taken straight from Ian Heath's immortal drawings. The colour guides are beautifully vague, - natural cloth and coloured caps, so that's what they've got, as you can see.
The only thing I'm not completely sure about with these are the horses. I always struggle to get believable horse colours. I've cracked it for the chestnuts. They are painted Tamiya XF-9 (Hull Red), but the white horses are actually meant to be piebald. I think they're okay, but I don't think I'll do anymore like that for a while.
I base the look of my Hun horses on Asiatic wild horses so a generic dirty light to mid brown with black tail and main and the odd white sock or blaze. I think they look the part for tough but scrawny ponies.
ReplyDeleteI see you are working forwards through my back catalogue.
DeleteYou'll find in 3-4 years time that I solve my horse painting issues.