Tuesday, 29 August 2017

Painting Hellenistic Pikemen Rank and File

Just a quick painting guide for my Seleucid Phalangites. I try to keep things as simple as possible and I depend a lot on the science of the washes to provide the main shading with only a basic highlight of the original colour. Also its a handy future reference for my future pike blocks I have found quite often that I come back to a project and think "how did I do these last time!?". Using a white undercoat was something I had not done since I first started painting in the mid to late 90's. I have become a fan of the Army painter spray paints an basically use the methods from their painting guides the main being undercoating in the dominant or main colour.

Base/undercoat: Army Painter white spray paint

Base colours

Flesh: GW Tallarn Flesh
Tunics: GW Enchanted Blue (thinned down a bit over the white gave them a bit of shading also)
Straps, scabard & sarissa: dark brown
Helmet & greaves: VJ Brass
Sandles: mid/light brown

Washes:

Linothorax: watered down GW Mud wash over the white undercoat
Everywhere else: GW Mud wash

Highlights

Face: GW Elf Flesh
Tunics: GW Enchanted Blue
Straps & scabards: GW Vermin Brown
Sarissa: GW Snakebite Leather in thin varied length lines
Helmet & greaves: VJ Old Gold

Sarissa and Shield

Tip and butt: Black basecoat, GW Chainmail for tip and VJ Brass for butt
Back of push pin shield: GW Vermin Brown