"My 6mm Romans are small, and here are lots of them." Topic

As a veteran of painting (poorly but getting better) GHQ and CinC 1/285 figures and 1/600 aircraft, I thought a 6mm Baccus army would be a a breeze -- well, do-able. Looking at all those figures has rocked me on my heels a bit. Can anyone give me some suggestions on going about this project?

Paint "the unit" not "the figures." Dab and go. Check the painting guides on the Baccus web site.

A black base coat is your friend

What Extra Crispy says.

A friend recently painted some WSS in 6mm and blogged about it;

link

I saw what he did. Based all the figures, black undercoat and then just "dabbed". The only thing he spent time on was the hat lace because you saw that from the top. Some of the figures in the back rank were still all black on the trousers, but you didn't notice at all until you picked them up and looked.

Cheers,
JohnG

There is a good painting guide on the Baccus website: link

& an equally good one in Battlegames 23 (which uses Romans for its examples and is particularly good for emphasizing speed): payhip.com/b/0awc

Here is a video, about 20 minutes, by a guy named Ringo Simpkins, and he uses Romans. Pretty simple, straight forward, and looks rather easy.

I'm finishing up some 15mm Marians right now, but like you I've got some Baccus EIR waiting to be painted and a contingent of the Dacians arrived yesterday.

These are my first 6mm figures, so I just googled "painting 6mm Romans" and several tutorials popped up, including the video from Mr. Simpkins.

Simon MacDowell (rules author and Osprey books) also has a nice tutorial with a little different technique as the black undercoat.
link

Here is yet another technique where the painter uses a brown undercoat rather than the usual black or white.

The assembly line painting techniques all appear to be the same, it looks like the big difference in painting styles is which undercoat to use.

I haven't decided which technique to use myself yet. I've been reading that at 6mm you want really bright colors, so it would seem white would be the best for that as black mutes. Black, on the other hand, seems to make invisible a lot of places that the eye will overlooks at 6mm.

Other than the tutorial advocating brown, I haven't seen any tutorials using other undercoat colors and I am not sure why not.

For my Samartians, who are mostly covered with metal, I will use some of the Army Painter Plate Mail color undercoat (if 6mm is supposed to be bright, I would thing the plate mail is better than the gun metal/chain mail color in this case). I've got some in the workshop and that seems like it would make my life easier, so I'll try it.

I might do that on my EIR Romans as well. The only reason I am hesitant is because I've seen no one advocating it on any of my internet searches: every thing is advocating black, a few white, and one brown undercoats.

But I am thinking of trying the Army Painter Plate Mail undercoat myself.

Hope that helps

Richard in Saxony

Simplicity. Romans are: flesh, metal, cloth, wood. So undercoat, pick out all those things, go to town on shields and helmets as they are the most visible things.

I use hammerite flat aluminium spray as an under coat, so the armour is just a highlight.

Here is a handy tutorial on painting 6mm --> link

As Extra Crispy says, paint the unit, not the figure.

I would always advise brown undercoat rather than black or white.

Here's mine:

The recipe is priming in white, then spraying them with Tamiya TS-42 Light Gun Metal, after that block painting red for tunics, flesh and leather, and finally covering them with a home made magic wash and lastly some lights where needed.

Final result:

Wowee, quite good looking. I'm planning on doing a similar quick style on my 28mm Romans. Undercoat AP plate mail, block in flesh tones, block in red for clothes, hit the boots with brown, do a wash then shields. That will get them on the table then add more details later on.

I wouldn't even hit the boots with brown. Just assume that they are down in the grass.
I'd love to do large 6mm Wars of the Roses armies in 6mm but I have very little confidence that I could pull it off.

Blacksmith,

Are those decals or your own brush on those shields? I've got my 6mm Romans on popsicle sticks at the moment waiting for me to finish my 15mm project at the moment. I wanted to add some shield design but I am not going to fiddle with decals at 6mm and I really don't trust my brush to a good design at 6mm either. Is there a trick to shield designs at that scale? I'm doing Trahan's theater of operations in Dacia, so the designs should be for 30th Ulpia and 2nd Traiana as according to Dando-Collins' "Legions of Rome." but there is no way that I can do thunderbolts and tridents at 15mm, not to mention 6mm.

Also, what red did you use? I use mostly Foundry paints but on a couple of stands used the GW Mephisto Red because it is such a deep, rich red. It looks great on my 15 and 28mm models, but on the few 6mm stands I painted it on, it looks as if it is too deep and dark (they're primed with the Army Painter Plate Mail undercoat I had on the shelf, so it's not due to a dark or black undercoat). Perhaps I should redo those in the Foundry Bright Red, which is really a bright, bright red.