Sculpting Saddle Blankets

While basing Glenn's Spanish, I'm also prepping the Gallic cavalry for painting. I ran into a snag with a couple units. Neither the horses nor the riders were sculpted with saddles. I broke out an old batch of Milliput and tried my hand at some basic sculpting.

The blankets are fairly square, but a little chunky. I doubt I have the talent to sculpt saddles as well, so this will have to do.

I have a new respect for the talent that sculptors have.

Balearic Slingers

Here's the latest work I have finished on Glenn's massive commission. These are four units of Balearic slingers. Most of the figures are Renegade, but there are a few Crusader figures in one of the units.

For these elite troops, I gave every man's tunic the complete crimson edge treatment. I stuck with lighter tones for the tunics.

With this group, I am finished with the large Spanish contingent of Carthage's army. This coming week I will probably start basing them to clear some work space for the Celts, which I will start after Thanksgiving.

Carthaginian Archers

Glenn's Carthaginian army gets two units of archers, each of seven figures. The men in drab tunics are Spanish or Numidian archers. The Cretan archers get their distinctive red tunics and shields. All figures are from Relic Miniatures.

The Cretan shields got a mix of three designs: the labyrinth (which I took from an ancient coin; it looks like a swastika), a chamois, and a snake.

Spanish Cavalry

Another week has passed, and another chunk of the commission is complete. This week I finished the Spanish cavalry, 16 horse in four units.

All figures are Renegade. The riders have a wide variety of poses, but all the horses are the same casting, so I varied the horse colors so that no two horses in any unit are the same.

Last week I wrote that the Caetari most likely came from the lower orders and so got a variety of earth colored tunics. The Spanish cavalry were most likely nobles, and so they get off white tunics. These men were, if not quite professional warriors, at least semi-pros. The individual shields still show their tribal roots, but the more uniform tunics and horse tackle indicate a first rate fighting unit. These guys did routinely smash the Roman equites, after all.

And here is where I am after about a month of serious painting. I have now finished about 1/6 of the total commission, which means I should be done sometime in March or April! I wish I could find a way to speed this up, but now that I have two kids I really have less than half the time for painting.

Next week I'll be finishing up the Spanish contingent by painting five units of Balearic slingers and two units of archers.

Caetari

This week I finished off the 32 Caetari in Glenn's Carthaginian army. These figures are all from Renegade.

I painted these troops with duller tunics than the Scutari, figuring that the Caetari would come from the poorer classes. The shields are smaller, which gives me a smaller canvas for fancy designs, but I think I was able to make them bright and interesting.

Two figures got some very specific shield designs.

The Rest of the Scutari

The last of the scutari are now done. The spears are all from Northstar. I used five minute epoxy to join the spears to the hands. The epoxy leaves some unsightly bulges, but nothing too extreme. And these spears will never be locked loose by a clumsy gamer.

Now I'm prepping the next batch of Spanish: caetari, cavalry, and skirmishers.