The Siege of Amida, 359 A.D.

[Galeamin]

Hi all!
I'd like to share with you these pictures of my mini diorama "The Siege of Amida, 359 A.D.".

3 kits of 54mm Late Romans by MMA (Italy) used here.

I'll be grateful to receive critical points of view, which will help me to improve my future projects.

Thanks
Arkadi

 

[Galeamin]

one more pic

 

[Anders Heintz]

Hey Arkadi!

The pictures are too dark for me to try to give you some pointers, maybe take some more in lighter conditions. The composition is looking really good though.

 

[Guy]

Hello Arkadi,
I love your vignette and downloaded it and lightened it. Great work and the only critique I could gove to a well done scene is to weather the next one you may do. Everything looks "Too" new. The timbers and the sheilds.could be weathered as well as the tunics showing some wear too. If I had just finished this I would take pleasure on a job well done.

guy

 

[Lou Masses]

Hi Arkadi,

I actually love the lighting of the photo-it sets the mood and makes me think that they're just waiting for the order to fire just before the night time battle. I have to second the previous comments though that I can't really see to offer any kind of critique (other than Guy;s comments about looking "new").

As a photograph though I really love it.

Lou

 

[pkess]

I agree that the photos set the mood of the scene. However the lighting is a little too dark to really see the painting. One thing I would suggest is to vary the colors and add some randomness to the painting. For example, each of the Romans' tunics appear to be painted in the exact same colors. I would vary each one slightly by adding a tinting color to you base color mix.
I would do the same thing with the wood of the ballista and the stone work. The stone work is really easy. Mix up several thin washes and randomnly apply to individual stones. Some will be reddish, some gray, some yellowish, etc.

 

[Galeamin]

Thanks a lot to all of you!

I'll post the updated photos soon and will explain how the results of my historical background research influenced my decisions regarding panting of different diorama's parts.

Arkadi

 

[Galeamin]

Hi all!
This time I asked my friend to shoot the diorama in order to give you better pictures.
According to Ammianus Marcellinus, the Fifth Parthian legion was the garrison of Amida.
So I decided to show the clean clothes (because this is a garrison, but not a field army). Each tunic was painted in slightly different light color.
I think washing the clothes is easier than cleaning the shields, so the shields were painted as "used".
The shield patterns are my own speculation based on the pattern of the Sexta Parthica shown in Notitia Digmatum. I changed the colors according to the color difference between the patterns of Prima Armeniaca and Secunda Armeniaca.
Gibbon wrote that Amida in his times was called by locals Quara-Amida (Black Amida) because it was build using dark stones. You can see clearly that the stones were painted in different grey color shadings.
Hope you'll enjoy the pics.
Arkadi

 

[Galeamin]

One more pic

 

[Edson]

I love it the diorama!!!! looks great , how did you make the walls??

keep the good work
Cheers
Ed

 

[Galeamin]

Thank you, Edson!
I did nothing with the walls - there were the part of one of the kits.
Arkadi