Roman Cavalryman

In more ways than one, this figure represents the end of an era.

 

That sounded more dramatic than I might have intended. I am not stopping or even altering this blog in any meaningful way. The end that this figure represents, alongside that of The Western Roman Empire, is one of equipment. This figure saw both my first varnish can of Testors Dullcote finally give out, and the final days of the only brush I use to paint figures. It also marks the end of my first bottle of Taimya model glue.

When I say the only brush I use to paint figures I mean the only one I use to do basecoating and highlighting. It also generally does my washes, but I do have a wash brush and several drybrushes in various stages of their torturous existence. And a series of undead brushes brought back from the grave to apply typhus corrosion and pigments. But my main brush is nonetheless starting to wane even after two years of careful cleaning. Currently I am debating paying for a proper sable brush or getting another of the one I currently use. The latter option would require actually scraping it clean so that I could see what brand it was under layers of paint applied accidentally by my fingers.

As for Taimya, their glue is excellent. Especially compared with certain inferior brands I used for years. I use Taimya's orange-cap bottle for assembly and the green-cap for reinforcement. The latter also flows well into beads of Gorilla Glue gel but I have a sneaking suspicion that mixing solvents like that might have unintended consequences. As an aside, Gorilla Glue gel will produce a liquid at the bottom of a bottle after months of use. If this liquid is accidentally dribbed onto a bathrobe it will cause smoking and charring of the article in question. That was an exciting night.

From what I can gather, Testors Dullcote is no longer in production. For a replacement I hear Rustoleum offers a good solution in terms of a matte varnish. I did buy a pot of Citadel Stormshield to finish the parts of this figure that were still too satin, but eventually decided not to risk it on what is meant as a gift. Having for the future will nonetheless be a boon for when I want to touch up a specific area without the drying times of a spray varnish.

Onto the figure itself. This was my first cavalry unit painted, and I am quite surprised at how well it managed to come out. Granted, this took a lot of time but I am still pleased. There was a recipe at the start, but after a certain point it was entirely given over to improvisation. And since I have been on a tight schedule this month, I did not take the time to write down each step as I freestyled my way towards completion.

My knowledge of Rome is fairly limited, but the period works to my advantage somewhat better than with more modern figures. For one, so much is dependent on single sources that a level of creative reconstruction is expected, and for two the sources that do exist are well-documented due to their scarcity. A manual on the specifics of a belt buckle for an 1880s Redcoat would be drowned in the firehose of other 1880s uniform manuals, but a single line about belt buckles in the Roman world will have had at least a dozen books written about it before I was even born. That being said, I do still prefer the modern era due to the presence of machines more complex than a trip hammer.

SAGA is a game I would like to try at some point. The simplistic listbuilding and fairly casual gameplay appeal to me in much the same way that Turnip28 does. This interest was doubly sparked when I realized that the creator of Planetes, one of my favorite anime shows, also made the well-known Vinland Saga, which means I have a preready series to watch while painting a SAGA force when the time comes. The Vikings series has also been well reviewed, and I did like Black Sails which seems like it was in a similar vein.

This mural from the Wikipedia article on Roman Cavalry is the source I worked for when painting the shield. My freehand skills still have some distance to go, but I found that using watered down rhinox hide on the green produced a very nice gradient. Weathering was attempted with pencil lines, Rhinox Hide, and Wraithbone, but this proved too jarring and was painted over again with Mephiston Red.

Victrix was my main guide for most of the specific details. I did not go quite into the same level of detail, but being pressed for time and not wanting to learn how to use transfers gives me a decent enough excuse. The javelin case was fully forgotten though, to my everlasting shame.

Osprey provided a few clarifications, and the justification for me to paint the figure's clothing red instead of an undyed faded yellow. It is not uncommon to hear complaints about their accuracy, but I will take what is on offer when it comes to visual historical representations.

Here the result of playing around with the camera's focus can be seen. This effect amuses me.