Tutorial: Painting a Roman Auxilia

Well, my mind is on the Romans these days, so I thought I'd post a step-by-step on painting an Auxilia warrior.

This is a Warlord plastic fig. Here it's assembled and primed and glued to it's metal base. Started off with the standard dark ink wash.

Skin starts with Foundry shade, and once dry, it's given a flesh wash.

The mid-tone skin color is added next.

Finally, the highlight for the skin is added last. A little care is taken around the face in order to pick up the cheekbones and chin, etc.

Metal bits are next. The chainmail, spearhead and shield boss get some shadowed steel from Reaper, while the bronze helm and belt get Vallejo bronze (I really, really like this color).

All the metal is given a dark armor wash from P3.

Then, the metal is highlighted. The chainmail, spearhead and shield with Reaper silver, and the helm, etc. with Vallejo Brass. The bonze bits get a final drybrush of silver for a highlight.

Cloth and leather bits next. I used Foundry terracotta for the pants, and wet-blended through the three shades. The tunic cloth is white, built up from the Foundry arctic grey series. The shoes and straps get Foundry leather. His scarf is two shades of GW red. Later, the spear shaft was done in two shades of Foundry...spearshaft. The shield got two shades of light blue, and the Warlord decal went on over that. At the end, I did the base using the normal process (tutorial on this blog).

This is a pic of the tunic and pant colors near the end of the project.

As I got to the end of painting the Auxilia, I had all the paint pots I'd used out on the table. I was actually a little surprised at the number of different paints I'd used for this single fig...so what the heck, I took a picture. Here's a shot of all the colors used in completing this model.

I had used some Foundry winestain for the lower lip, and some dusky flesh shade for the recesses of the eyes...you can see them in this shot. Also, the shield is finally attached.

Well, that's it!

'Til next time.