PARADE GROUND'S WIP BLOG

The To-do List.

Welcome to the workshop. Just a side blog to keep my main blog 'tidy' with WIP info, painting guides and unpainted miniatures review...

Sunday 22 March 2020

Hand Painting Shield Designs

This post is a companion to this main post on Antiochus IV's Romanised infantry which was inspired by Angus McBride's plate in Monvet's Seleucid Army book which was also faithfully reproduced by Angel GarcĂ­a Pinto for Ancient Warfare magazine. The distinctive shield device was the main feature I wanted to replicate and this post is to expand on how I did this.  







The process to achieve the design was quite experimental not having much experience with free hand designs. Starting with the red basecoat (step 1) was the diamond shape (step 2) after haphazardly painting wobbly diamonds I broke the process down to slightly more consistent manner;

A) Along both sides of the the spine of the shield paint the height of the shape.
B) From the centre of the shield boss paint a line for the width of the shape.
C) Connect the top and bottom of the shape to the width lines.
D) Fill in the centre.  

The "diamond" shape break down

Quite hard to see the detail on the picture:

Step 1) Red basecoat.
Step 2) Turquoise diamond background.
Step 3) Edges and spine painted in bronze and also within the diamond rough wing shapes.
Step 4) The centre of the boss in dark grey for the face.
Step 5) In the dark grey area a rough face shape; a line in the middle for the nose, dots either side of that cheeks, horizontal lines below for the mouth and most of the area above the nose for the forehead. 
Step 6) Highlight step 5 with white   
Step 7) Highlight around the face and the wings with old gold (spine optional).
Step 8) Highlight the diamond with blue green to give wreath\leafy effect.

Step by step

Finished examples with the red highlighted


Tuesday 25 February 2020

Newline Comparison


As I chip away at two units of Newline Designs 20mm Imitation Legionaries I had some Hat Hannibal's Veterans and a Zvezda figure from the Macedonian pike set in 1/72.

Waiting for some bits to dry I set up an impromptu comparison picture which might be helpful to some.