"helmet color for Caesar's gallic legions" Topic

i admit that i'm woefully ignorant of roman army stuff. trying to fix that.

I'm painting up some of Foundry's gallic legionaries, with various gallic helmets on. would these be bronze or iron? i have a mix at the moment, but i don't mind repainting to get it right.

a google search mostly brings up pictures of holywood style imperial helmets. thanks!

I'd do bronze.

Actually, I'd do brass and wash them with brown ink, that comes up really nicely.

these might help a little.

link

Some could be iron, I use a mixture of both iron and bronze.

Cheers, Simon

I have found this site to be quite useful:
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these links are great. just what i was looking for. thanks!

Is there any evidence that Romans painted their helmets?

keraunos, most of my other infantry have those helmets. those seem to be what the wargames factory plastics are wearing. I will try brass paint, since i'm useing the dip meathod to paint theses suckers. the foundry guys have some of the later helmets. i'm using those guys as hardened veterans, thinking they would get the cool new stuff.

my main ancient army is a huge celtic one, so i'm working on some enemies to fight. thanks for the tips, all.

Is there any evidence that Romans painted their helmets?

Nothing in any of the archaeological, visual, or literary evidence of which I am aware. Bronze helmets were sometimes tinned to give them a silvery appearance, but otherwise the surface was bare metal.

Montefortino and Coolus bronze. Agen and Gallic iron

Montefortino helmets acre bronze.
Gallic helmets are iron that is in the Imperial Gallic style tha mimicked Port or Agen Helmets.
Roy

personally, while i have happily used coloured hemlets to indicate rank within my helenistic army.

I would not mix iron and bronze within a roman army.
To me that just looks like the artist got bored when doing the helmets.

different colour plumes is more than sufficient

Bronze and Iron seem to have both been used but note when people say bronze they mean the alloy not the colour. Much more like brass to look at, any legionary with a 'bronze patina' on his equipment is looking to pull a lot of latrine duties.

Painted helmets more than likely as current research seems to indicate it being used on hellenistic equipment.
L

@ Keraunos:
the artist it's me, and I weren't bored.
But I think you should revise your idea of ancient soldiers, who, of course, weren't standard equipped like modern Marines. One for all, many of the equipment items were war prey.

I can't imagine units were anything other than mixed!

TESTUDO,
Very nice artwork!
And very true good gear wasn't left on the battlefield and Legionaries bought/aquired their own equipment so would get the best they could afford.
L