Looking good mate. Hardy

Hi Carl, thanks mate. Yes, some interesting metallic effects can be created on the helmet and greave.

Hi Tony, thanks for your comment. I mixed three parts Basic Flesh with one part Burnt Cadmium Red and diluted with distilled water to a ratio of 1 part paint to 5 parts water. For the shadows I added a couple of drops of Sepia Shade colour to the base colour and thinned the mix with water to 1:10. For the highlights, I added some Ivory to the base colour and thinned it to 1:10.

Hi Alexandros, I agree with your comment that the skin needs more shading. I will add a glaze of oil paints over the skin to add more contrast to the skin and make him look more southern European in his skin tone.

Hi Hardy, thanks mate. Since I'mnot rushing to complete this figure before a show I can relax and take my time. I bet you're furiously trying to finish a few projects before Euro??

This one is really looking good.
Looking forward to your painting of that impressive helmet.

Hi Marc, thanks for your comments mate.

As you can see from the attached pics, I'm still base coating this figure.

What I've done is apply numerous very thin coats of Vallejo Old Gold over the helmet and greave to give a base for further metallic colours and oil stains. It won't look like this when I'm finished, I promise.

I've also treated the flesh areas with a very pale, dilute mix of Flesh Tint, Titanium White, Burnt Sienna and Crimson oil paint, applied mainly over the highlight areas. When this is completely dry, I will apply a series of darker washes of oils building up some darker more swarthy skin tints in the shadow areas. It looks very pale at the moment, but that will change.

I'm experimenting as usual, and not following any particular style or sequence, just free-stylin'

Hope you like my progress.

Always good to see your work progress, Tony


Kind of a continual how to book, typed in an Aussie accent!

Keep up the good work (as well as WASMEX)

Cheers

Hi Jamie,

Thanks for your comments mate.

Since my last pics I've allowed the oils to dry completely and then added a series of controlled oil washes over the shadow areas of the skin to darken the skin colour and increase the contrast.

I'll now leave the oil washes to dry for 24 hours before applying another, darker wash of oils over all the flesh areas to tie it all together.

The oils I used are Flesh Tint, Yellow Ochre, Permanent Rose and Burnt Sienna,diluted with White Spirits.

Giant step forward.
alot of work to do.
Gonna have a painting session this evening (i hope)

Marc

Hi Marc,

Thanks for your comments mate.

I've added several more oil washes over the flesh areas now, and I'm pretty happy with how its turned out. The major advantage of the oil wash is that it allows for some very subtle transitions and allows blending to occur over several hours.

Using oils over acrylics is certainly an approach to painting flesh tones that I'm getting better at with more practice. Ihaven'tadded any cuts or bruises yet. I'll leave them until later.

The next step will be to shade and highlight the metallics.

Tony lovely transformation with the oil washes mate, might have to try this out one day, looks like it has good potential.

Steve

Great progress Tony!

Marcel.

Hi Ya Tony,
I thought you said that you wont have it done for Wasmex, the way you are going, it will be done in no time, you still have one week!!!!! I'm trying to finish a Seil model as well.
Ben

Lovely piece of painting tony,thing i like about gladiators is there's no set rules to what colours you use when painting,Seil had a stand at Euro a couple of years ago which i found quite interesting with some lovely pieces on show,wish i brought something now,once again great work mate!

Hi Steve, thanks for your comment mate. I'm starting to really enjoy doing oil washes over acrylics, particularly on flesh areas.

Hi Marcel, thank you mate. Hopefully I'll make some more progress this weekend.

G'day Ben, no chance this will be ready for WASMEx mate. Too much to do and toolittle time. I'm curious to see what you're working on though, care to share some pics or are you keeping it secret???

Hi Brian, thanks for your comments mate. I like Gladiators because they offer the painter some freedom to choose his own colours. I've been quite boring with my colour choices,partially influenced by the BBC DVD series "Colloseum: Rome's Arena of Death" which I've used as inspiration on this figure. As for Seil, I share your regret. I had the chance to pick up many cheap Seil kits a couple of years ago but couldn't afford to at the time. Now I wish I had. I still have one or two tucked away for a rainy month.

Tony,
This is shaping up very nicely and great skin tones so far. Thanks for all the info on methods.
Cheers
john

Hi Tony,

I'm not familiar with Vallejo palette but is the gold paint you used for the metallic parts a metallic paint, I mean does it contain mica ?

Thank you !

Alex

John,

Thanks for your comments and your encouragement mate, they are greatly appreciated. I'm happy to share my methods and techniques with everyone since I've borrowed and copied them all from others anyway.

Hi Alex, I'm not an expert on the Vallejo paint range, so I don't know the answer to your question about mica. The colour I used is called Old Gold and it is part of the metallics range of Vallejo acrylic paints.

Looking great Tony, fantastic flesh tones. Makes me want to try the oils over acrylics.
Keep the updates coming.

Andrew

Hi Andrew,

Thanks very much for your comments mate, they're greatly appreciated.

The oils over acrylics technique is certainly not new and there are many people who are better at it than me, but I do feel I'm starting to get the hang of it.

I scraped off the primer on the sword blade to revealbare white metal,, which I think looks much better than painted metal. I've also added several washes of diluted Prussian Blue and Black oil paint over the helmet and greave, and on the leather pants.

Not pictured is the shield, which I'm painting separately and will attached when everything else is done.

Hope you like my progress.

Thanks Carl,

I've had a busy painting session tonight and thought you might like to see where I finished.

Now that the shield is on, I'm going to start weathering and adding the finishing touches. Still a few more washes and highlights to add.

Hope you like it.