Mycenean Tower Shields - speedy painting
Ever since seeing Peter Conelly's illustrations of Ancient Myceneans in his book 'The Greek Armies' published way back in 1977 they have always been been my favourite ancients, though Assyrian bowmen behind enormous pavises run them close! Now thanks to the magic of 3d printing and the skill of Scropha miniatures these and other classic ancients are available in great quality. I have no connection to whoever Scropha is other than loving the sculpts!
My problem nowadays is time. I am a full time commission painter and frankly that leaves me with less time to paint my own minis than I would like so I have had to develop a faster way than I use for my commission work to be able to get anything done at all for myself. The result is a speedypaint/ normal paint hybrid which sacrifices absolute quality for speed and a lesser, but for me, acceptable quality.
Part One - Speedypainting
Step one is prepping and you can see this on any number of youtube videos called 'Slap chop' however I dont use the full black and white version. I prime dark grey and then lighten up with 2 or 3 passes of white and a drybrush of white. This creates a less harsh effect but still enhances the speedypaints. The degree to which you like the white/grey/black finish is entirely personal and for these guys who would be mainly in lighter colours I didnt want any really dark underpainting.
I call it speedypainting because I use different brands of paints, mainly Vallejo xpress (Vx) and Army painter Speedpaints (APS) and one or two Citadel but mix brands all the time. The minis below show this mix of speedy paints, the flesh was Vallejo dwarf flesh, the cloth Vx mummy white, the helms and the lion skin on the captain were Vx sack of bones. The shields were APS rigor mortis. To be honest any light colours would have done just as well!
You can see the shading on the figure of eight shield caused by the underpainting without it seeming harsh
Next was the Bronze. I like my Bronze to look a bit coppery rather than a goldy type bronze. The new Speedpaint metallics are a mixed bag but I like the bronze and gold more than the silver. Here you can see the bronze speedpaint which looks good already I think and you could leave it like this. A tip with the metallics is to make sure you shake them to death before using as they do separate a bit! The lion skin also visible here!
At this point I added in some of the colours going with darker shades to act as shadow colours. Speedypaints are ideal for this as they run beautifully into the cracks and crevices. I used a dark brown for the leather and hide shield colouring on the assumption that they did not have Holstein Fresians in the Bronze Age! To be honest these are looking usable now but I want them a bit better.
Worth mentioning is that if (when) i make a mistake and get paint where i dont want it then it is literally the work of seconds to retouch with a grey white for the next colour.
Part Two - Touch up - using normal acrylics (Vallejo)
For me speedypaints dont do large ares of flesh well so I always use thinned flesh to go over the highlights and leave the speedypaint in the recesses. Its not a super great effect but does the job as you can see unsubtly on the legs and more subtly on the arms.
In the same manner I highlighted the cloth lightly leaving most just in the speedypaint! The helms had the opposite speedy technique drybrushing with a lighter bone/sand colour
As the biggest part of the mini the shields now got some love with the dark brown patches getting a more solid look with some lighter brown and where possible this was lighter on the upper surface of the roundy bits leaving the lower roundy bits darker. Straps and belts were done in the same way. The weapon shafts were given a run over the upper half with a very slightly thinned version of my favourite wood colour from the Vallejo Panzer colours range called Old Wood. I usually use this over Vallejo Flat Earth in my commission work but its always good.
The final photo shows several quick jobs in one shot. The crests were essentially drybrushed in a much brighter version of the base colour and the fringy coloured cloth parts had highlights added again with a distinctly brighter colour to contrast with the speedpaint.
Lastly the bronze. I do the bronze last as I use metallic pigments from greenstuffworld which i mix with flow improver. The Bronze on its own is really nice and can be lightened up with the antique gold metallic pigment. These blend really nicely but need varnishing straight after to keep in place. I think it gives a lovely bronze with some nice highlights and depth from the speedypaints.
And thats it. Good enough for my use and with a pretty light time footprint. To be honest once the speedypaints are done it is entirely up to you which of the touch up sections you think worth the investment. I would always do the flesh and bronze but could leave the rest.
The tufts are my own and how I made them is described here!
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