WIP "Fortissimi sunt Belgae." - Belgic village scene 1st Century b.C.

Project 9 - "Fortissimi sunt Belgae." - WIP, prep stage.
A bit of nostalgia and a refresher for (mostly Belgian?) students of Latin. When Julius Caesar wrote his "De Bello Gallico" in the first century BC, he praised the Belgae as the bravest among the Gallic tribes. Firstly, they were less influenced by civilization, therefore less prone to the pitfalls of luxury. Secondly, they lived in perpetual strife with Germanic tribes, which kept them on their toes at all times.
Since then, we have of course completely and utterly succumbed to the finer things in life, such as beer, chocolate and surrealism
Be that how it may, I'm proposing, for my next project, a small, peaceful village scene featuring a noble, a warrior and a female villager. None of the models is very recent, and the villager even dates back to the first half of the 1960's!!! She's actually a double from my extensive collection of miniatures on Belgian history. At this stage, I have no idea if and how well they will fit together, but then I suppose, that was the big problem for the Belgic tribes at the time as well, forming a united front against the Roman invader
ARES MYTHOLOGIC AM54T-100
PEGASO MODELS 54-238
STORME/MOKAREX
Metal / Plastic 54 mm

This appeals to me. There was also a big Belgic population in southern Britain, although they seem to have been more amenable to Roman rule than many other tribes, especially in the west and north.

Thanks for your interest Tonton, you are absolutely correct! I hope to be able to keep your interest going ;-)

Phase 2 completed, prepped and based.

This looks very interesting, looking forward to following your progress.

Roger.

billyturnip said:

This looks very interesting, looking forward to following your progress.

Click to expand...

Thanks Roger.

Makings of a very nice little scene here nice one
Steve

Thanks, Steve!

Project 9 - "Fortissimi sunt Belgae." - WIP, update.

Two days of frustration and not much to show for it, I'm afraid. The Ares kit (the one with the naked torso) has made me painfully aware of the fact that my flesh-painting skills are very hit and miss, and basically nowhere near where I want them to be. Anyways, done most of the work on the female villager. Not much detail on her, but I think she'll make a nice addition to the scene.

I welcome any suggestions/comments/questions and if you have a link to a really good tutorial on painting flesh, feel free to post it. The ones I've found so far haven't yielded the expected results, but then, quite possibly, that's my fault

ARES MYTHOLOGIC AM54T-100
PEGASO MODELS 54-238
STORME/MOKAREX
Metal / Plastic 54 mm

Another day, another update.

All three figures are now finished, bar some retouching here and there. I freely admit that it was NEVER my intention to paint up the chief/noble like on the cover art, which had a tartan pattern on a very wrinkly cloak, complex Celtic symbols on the shield and even an elaborately decorated hem on his robe. I just don't have the skills for that kind of stuff yet. And maybe never will, LOL

Onto designing the village scene now, which will incorporate a sow with piglets, and quite possibly a drinking warrior seated on a skull which I painted up right at the beginning of this comeback blog. It'll depend on whether or not I can blend him into the scene without too much of a conspicuous quality difference, as I have to "admit" (fortunately) my skills are on an upward curve, looking back to where I was four months ago...

Project 9 - "Fortissimi sunt Belgae." - WIP, base continued.

Short update. This will be my final WIP update here before I post the completed piece.

Rock formations are in place. I first made a full-on tree (pix enclosed), which I have decided not to use as it will distract from the scene, and, personally, I don't find it "botanically/enviromentally" appropriate. I will replace it by the trunk in the picture. Also painted the sow and her piglets and constructed a small drinking trough.

To do: add vegetation/grass, small stones, paint the rocks properly, fix some straw for the sow to lie on. Adding in the figures, of course, but that's a given.

Dreaming of: adding a tiny waterfall trickling down, and disappearing to the right of the scene, although I have no idea of how I will technically achieve that.

I am really enjoying watching this coming together. I'm loving the groundwork and the figures are very nicely painted.

I wouldn't worry about the lack of elaborate patterns on the Chief's garments, he looks very nice as-is. I'm exactly the same: I can paint a half-decent "bread & butter" figure (or so I've been told), but all that intricate freehand stuff that we often see from the master brushsmiths on here involving complex embroidery, tartans and mythical creatures - no chance!! I can only marvel at how others do it, it's a complete "black art" to me and on the occasions I do feel brave enough to attempt it, it only ever ends one way: Much swearing, the liberal application of paint stripper and a return to a more basic, less ambitious but also far less frustrating approach.

- Steve

LOL, Steve, thanks for the kind words and for giving me the feeling that I'm not alone in this. In fact, the majority of us are like "us", I'm sure. Back in the day you rarely saw other people's works, let alone the true masterpieces. Nowadays, we are daily being bombarded left, right and center with stunning masterworks by genuine artists. Frustrating, on the one hand, inspiring, on the other. And always a joy to behold, of course. But as you say, knowing your limits and slowly building up your skills, is the best way to go...

To let you in on a little "secret": I had first painted the standard-bearer's pants in a blue and white banded (horizontal) pattern, which actually came out really, really nice quite unexpectedly. Instead of leaving it at that, which I should have done, I suddenly felt over-confident and wanted to take it one step further by now adding in a blocked pattern. Which, of course, went terribly wrong. Stripper, indeed, and another lesson learned ;-)

Haha! Yes indeed - another "skill" in this hobby is actually knowing when to stop! I've done what you did more than once myself, when really I should have been content with what I'd achieved and just left it alone.

I also feel exactly the same as you when I see the works of the true masters on here: Depressed but at the same time inspired. But these days I try not to get too deflated about it because when all's said and done, we can't all be Danilio Cartaccis, Bill Horans, Diego Ruinas, Sergey Popovichenkos or Mark Bennetts (to name just a few of the great painters I admire). And I am very much of the belief that a lot of the painting skills that these guys (and others on here) possess are skills that cannot be taught or learned. They are natural artistic talents.

Sure, we can all improve with each figure we paint, and then quietly bask in that warm, self-congratulatory glow that I'm sure many of us feel when we compare our latest figure with earlier efforts (I know I do). But I think that for most of us, the point will come at which we will pretty much "plateau out" in terms of our skills. And while we will continue to knock out decent enough efforts that will impress our friends, families and maybe even some fellow modellers/painters, we are never going to be in danger of giving the judges at World Expo or Euro a headache when they're deciding who they're going to dish out Gold medals and Best Of Show awards to.

Anyway enough of my waffle, I'll let you get back to your vignette and I look forward to the next update!

- Steve

Thanks again, Steve, some great insights there

Will be posting the completed dio soon!

Since I have no clue how to change the status of an existing thread, I've taken the liberty to create a new one with the correct prefix here:
http://www.planetfigure.com/threads/fortissimi-sunt-belgae-belgic-tribe-1st-century-b-c.67769/

Ah, I forgot. The thread for the finished product is over here. If anyone would care to enlighten me on how you change the status of a thread from, for instance, WIP, to COMPLETED, I'd be very grateful