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Author Topic: 15mm Samnites  (Read 6064 times)

Offline Battle Brush Sigur

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15mm Samnites
« on: June 03, 2020, 03:40:29 PM »
Heyhey, finally I'm getting to work on that 15mm Samnites army. Here's a WIP of the larger part of the infantry:



Circa 350 (345 or something like that) Samnite warriors. All Xyston miniatures.

The Samnites were a union of Italic tribes sat in middle Italy. As they expanded to the western shores of Italy they ran into the Romans and thus trouble. Three "Samnite Wars" were waged between Rome and the Samnites over the timespan of about 50 years. Despite alliances with the Etruscans and other peoples the Samnites had to submit to Roman rule and eventually were scattered across the Roman empire and beyond.

Samnite Warriors:



For the next step I'll finish the metallics, then I'll see that I get the feathers/plumes/etc on the helmets done. I can't say that I'm proceeding swiftly on this project. I blame the combination of white/light grey primer, individual tunic colours and patterns and of course my own laziness. ;) Hope to post useful updates soon!

Offline Ray Rivers

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Re: 15mm Samnites
« Reply #1 on: June 03, 2020, 05:40:23 PM »
A sea of white...  ;)

Super looking bunch of warriors there. Wish Xyston had been around when I was doing Greeks. They are great minis.

Offline Eoin OCnaimhsi

  • Librarian
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Re: 15mm Samnites
« Reply #2 on: June 03, 2020, 08:43:08 PM »
Glorious looking.

All set for the Caudine Forks!

Offline Easy E

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Re: 15mm Samnites
« Reply #3 on: June 03, 2020, 09:29:42 PM »
Nice.  I always love a Sigur thread about armies I know something about and am interested in! 

Interesting to note that the Samnites were a loose confederation of 4 (?) city states in the region, and not as monolithic as reading the Roman view of the history would have you believe. 

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Offline Irregular Wars Nic

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Re: 15mm Samnites
« Reply #4 on: June 03, 2020, 09:54:52 PM »
Always love a good Samnite. Looking forward to seeing where this goes.

Offline Wiegraf

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Re: 15mm Samnites
« Reply #5 on: June 04, 2020, 12:18:31 AM »
Looking awesome! Love all those plumes!

Offline Plutarch64

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Re: 15mm Samnites
« Reply #6 on: June 04, 2020, 12:48:19 AM »
These look terrific.

Offline Battle Brush Sigur

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Re: 15mm Samnites
« Reply #7 on: June 04, 2020, 07:21:48 AM »
@Ray Rivers: :D Oh yes indeed. Mostly due to the plumes/feathers, I suppose. Also of course shooting a picture of figures which are 1/3 white at this point with white bases against a white background is a bit of a bold move on my part.

@Eoin OCnaimhsi:Indeed. A classic wargaming scenario. ;)

@Easy E: Well, it's good that you're familiar with the guys, because I sure am not. I tried to read about them over the past year or so, re-listened to some episodes of the Ancient Warfare podcast and so on, but my knowledge is very limited. Good point about them not being quite that coherent of a mass.

@Irregular Wars Nic: Thanks very much! Hope it goes ahead fast. :D So much to do!

@Wiegraf: Oh yes. I only got started on those yesterday, and there's lots to do. When it comes to plumes these guys don't mess around. There's one sculpt featuring little wings, feathers AND a horsehair crest, all on one helmet. ;)

@Plutarch64: Thanks very much! :)

Here are some of these chaps I did as a 'test batch' last fall:




Offline Easy E

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Re: 15mm Samnites
« Reply #8 on: June 04, 2020, 01:45:45 PM »
Stellar test batch! 

We actually know surprisingly little about many of Rome's enemies, especially the non-Hellenized ones.

Offline Corso

  • Mad Scientist
  • Posts: 501
Re: 15mm Samnites
« Reply #9 on: June 04, 2020, 09:32:23 PM »
Thumbs up for the output!

Offline mc_deli

  • Bookworm
  • Posts: 64
Re: 15mm Samnites
« Reply #10 on: June 05, 2020, 06:50:38 AM »
Fantastic! I really like how you've brushed a few details here and there. Works great at this scale.

Do I guess this was white spray primer, but then you use a wide black as a shadow/undercoat for all the straps?
And with washes, looks like you have just washed the skin and fabric - no wash on the feathers or armour?
Any tips for painting with so much white?


(Sorry for the basic questions, but it's the stuff I still mess up!)

Offline Battle Brush Sigur

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Re: 15mm Samnites
« Reply #11 on: June 05, 2020, 09:58:43 AM »
@Easy E: Indeed.

@Corso: If only the output was better!

@mc_deli: light grey primer actually, but yeah, basically white. I paint these for someone who's been painting 15mm Ancients for quite a while and has a nice collection. I've seen them at shows a few times. However, with this of course come specific requests in terms of what the figures should look like. Everybody's got their own approach to things (one of the great things about miniature painting), and his main concern is: no pure black, no blacklining. Which of course makes painting over white/bright base colours interesting. 

I'm actually using a fair amount of GW's contrast paints on these (these paints couldn't be further from revolutionizing or changing anything of course, but they work as intended). Or just paint thinned with an ink/wash and a bit of acrylic medium. If these were mine I'd probably go for a different approach of maybe giving the figures a big old wash all across the board before the actual painting starts to give them at least some sort of shading beforehand, help work out the details, etc. Since I went with contrast paints/inks/thin paint for most of the block coloring I skipped that though.

So basically since I'm working over white it's all a very wet affair. Actually the only "solid" painting on these chaps so far is the tunic adornments and the metallics (although these also were applied very wet, with a wash on top. Highilghts to follow). With the plumes and feathers I'm basically going one by one colour. First I did some blue-grey plumes/feathers, then red ones (or red tips), then black feathers/plumes/feather tips, then I gave the remaining white feathers/plumes a bit of a wash. Today I hope to finish all the metal highlights (each step takes a long time given the number of dudes in that batch  :D ) After that I'll start touching up things. Skin (faces mostly), deepen some shadows where required, and then I'll do the cloaks on the ones who got'em (luckily not too many). I'll cut back on washes on these, because the gentleman I paint these for prefers a layered look on cloaks. Which is a understandable. Oh, some of them wear linothorax armour. These require a bit of extra attention as I skipped those in the tunics phase.Then I'll go for the final detailling phase. Hair and so on, further general 'neatening up of things'. Then I'll put them on the bases, put some paint on their shoes and sandals and then I'll add shields (which will cover up 90% of what I've done until then anyway.  :D ) and spears.

Yeah, that's it basically. Sorry for the lack of updates, but since each individual step takes so long it also takes longer between at least somewhat meaningful WIP shots. I'll put one up this weekend though. Maybe tonight, depending on how things proceed.

Offline mc_deli

  • Bookworm
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Re: 15mm Samnites
« Reply #12 on: June 05, 2020, 03:21:34 PM »
Where’s the like button!

Offline Battle Brush Sigur

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Re: 15mm Samnites
« Reply #13 on: June 07, 2020, 01:20:07 AM »
@mc_deli: :D

Right, I took a slightly dodgy WIP picture.


full size image: https://i.imgur.com/kOkQjqL.jpg

next on the to-do list: neatening up the skin and tunics I suppose. That should take long enough. :P Hope you like them so far.

« Last Edit: June 07, 2020, 06:05:29 PM by Battle Brush Sigur »

Offline Ray Rivers

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Re: 15mm Samnites
« Reply #14 on: June 07, 2020, 11:39:52 AM »
A bit difficult to see as they are all blending in.

 

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