SBS Soldiers Aquilifer

[JP PRAJOUX]

Hello everybody !
Here is a SBS of the figure I’m painting these days.
It’s a 1rst century BC aquilifer from Soldiers. I will try to finish it for St Vincent competition to put it next to my other aquilifer..
I hope you will appreciate the SBS. Any comments are welcome of course.
This SBS is the translation of the one I’m making in French on the Etendard Occitan website (les articles)...
Sorry for the mistakes in my English, I try my best !

STEP 1 : Discovering and preparing the figure :
This figure was sculpted by the talented Adriano Laruccia. They are 10 pieces and a base that I usually don’t use.

The figure is beautiful and finely sculpted and molded like all the figures of this range.
Here is the picture of the bust as you can find it on the box. Yes it’s a 54 mm !

Removing the mold lines was quite easy except on the chainmail. I will know if it has been done well after the base coat will be applied.
I reinforced the figure with metal rods and little pins as shown on the picture. (another pin was add for its left arm…)

Next steps as soon as I will transalte them. Step 2 and 3 are already online in french
See you soon..
Bye JP

 

[Jim Patrick]

Jean-Philippe, thank you for taking the time to post this SBS here. I think I can speak for everyone here that we will be watching this . I really enjoy your painting style so I'm personally looking forward to this.

Thanks again,
Jim Patrick

 

[megroot]

Jean Philippe,

I really looking forward to a SBS from you. I can really learn alot of it.
Keep posting.

Marc

 

[JP PRAJOUX]

Here is the next STEP...

STEP 2 : BUILDING THE FIGURE
I build the whole figure except the shield and the lower part of the wolfskin. Building the right arm needs some attention to make the three parts fit correctly. I glue the parts together with araldite 2 parts epoxy glue.

I filled the gap between the right arm and the torso with green stuff/ kneadatite/duro.

I made a new bracelet on the left wrist with rolled Duro glued will fresh with Trichloréthylène (don’t know the name in English)

The wolfskin gap was again filled with Duro textrured with a toothpick and I put some masking fluid (Maskol) to protect the area where the lower part of the wolfskin will be glued.

Once the figure is built I put two thin layers of Tamiya gray primer. With this base coat I can detect all the mold lines that may have been forgotten. Like here on the wolf nose.

This Tamiya base coat is ideal for acrylics and also makes me save some amounts of Humbrol (old generation) that I use as a base for oil paints.

I than put this coat of light grey Humbrol on the parts to be painted with oils. I don’t know yet how I will paint the tissue parts (it depends on the colour I will choose). This Humbrol basecoat is applied in three layer with diluted paint (white spirit).

On the next picture you ca see the maskol protected part.

Here we are, the guy is ready to be painted and it was hard to resist…..

 

[Kisifer]

Excellent SBS Jean Philippe with lots of pictures and good details in each step. I can't wait to move into the painting and groundwork section

 

[JP PRAJOUX]

STEP 3 : PAINTING THE FACE AND THE BRONZE PARTS
Let’s start the serious part : painting the guy

The face :

Since two or three figurines I decided to start with the eyes. Doing this, I noticed that I spend more time on them, a time they deserve to be realistic…
Here’s the work in progress. I start by painting the “white” background with pale grey. I outline it with dark brown and paint the pupil. In 54 mm I’m not convinced that a white dot in the eye to give the shine is necessary. It’s often too big or invisible. Here the eye is wide open so it might be interesting to put it. I will decide later on. I couldn’t wait to paint the face…

The face surface is very small so I worked with a reduced range of colours compared to what I’m used to. I won’t be the case for the legs and arms… Here the attention will more be paid on the contrasts…

Here is my oils palette for the face. All the mixes were prepared on the palette before painting. This is useful here because the face is full of little details. The paint job is more applying small spots of paint and blending all this spots together than applying a large base coat highlighted and shaded (Is it clear???)…
I put the right colour at the right place at once.
Burnt sienna + Yellow ocre + dot of cinnabar green deep in the “middle light areas”
Burnt sienna + Yellow ocre + dot of green + white in the light areas
Burnt sienna + green in the dark areas
I blend all this and then I put the light highlights (nearly pure white) and dark shadows (burnt umber + green)
The outline of the face should be pretty dark to make the face look like it is “inside” the helmet.
At this step the face looks alright but not “alive”. The following touches will change everything.

A little bit of cadmium scarlet was applied under the cheekbones and under the nose.
For the beard effect I add a mix of black and blue on the fresh paint. I goes a little bit green but it’s like that in reality. It’s looks less green than in the picture in fact…
The work of the contrasts looks important but the work between warm and cold colours are also very important to me.
The eyebrows where painted after the face was dry, it’s important not to forget them…

So here is the result. The picture is poor but it gives a good idea. There are bigger pictures down but I think it doesn’t mean nothing to show huge pictures. Figures are not to be seen with a microscope !
I put a 1/1 picture to have a better idea of the size of the head.

I need to work more on the mouth, the teeth, the eyebrows (which are too thin). I’m not too disappointed with the result but I noticed that the contrasts decreased more than I thought (magical oil paints !). I will have to make little corrections but that’s not a pain…

The whole face was painted with one brush. A martre 3/0 from Prince August.



The helmet and the eagle :

They are supposed to be in bronze. I painted the helmet before the face because it changes the way you see the contrasts and colours.
Here is my palette for painting the bronze.
It starts with gold printers’ ink. The base colour mix is gold + Laque bitume vibert (Lefranc & Bourgeois) + Cinnabar green deep.
The « Laque bitume vibert » is a cold deep brown…
I work with the printers’ ink like if it was a “normal” colour. The mixes dry quick so I put a little bit of white spirit to make it smoother.
The highlights are made with more gold ink, the shadows with more brown and green. And finally with black.
I add some dots of green+yellow ocre and cadmium scarlet here and there to give nice reflections. A google/image search with “bronze helmet” will show you many pictures that show all the colours that can have a bronze helmet… The last highlights are applied with gold powder in painting medium. But there are applied only in two or three areas for example on the borders of the cheek guards.

Here is the result at huuuuuge scale. It looks alright at true scale… The beard isn’t so green also…

Here is the eagle before the light highlights. You should pay attention to this eagle because all the details should be underlined one by one ! I nearly never use “drybrush”…

Here it is with this important step. That’s why I tried to give more details. If I forgot something, questions are welcome…
Sorry if I make mistakes in my English

See you soon for the wolf skin and the chain mail…

Bye
Jean-Philippe

 

[Calvin]

Jean,
what a beauty that face, not all figures tolerates such close up, but your is a real lesson of painting.
Luca

 

[megroot]

Jean-Philippe,

You are doing a great SBS with a great lesson in oilmixing and detail painting.
I also gonna do a helmet in almost the same way as you did this one.
Thanks and keep posting.

Marc

 

[JP PRAJOUX]

Thanks guys, I'm glad you like it
The next step will come soon.
Bye
JP

 

[Anders Heintz]

Awesome!! So good it almost (ALMOST!!) makes me want to give oils a try again!

Looking forward to the next step.