"Painting caligae (Roman military sandals)?" Topic

I have begin painting Roman (25mm) soldiers, Caesarian and early Imperial, and the caligae boots are a problem for me. Even when well sculpted and cast, I find it impossible to paint those straps over flesh realistically at that scale. How are the rest of you handling these? Any tips?

After various attempts I have basically given up letting any skin show thru the leather straps and just paint a mid-brown over all and then a brown ink to bring out some detail. Who has a better way?

I did much the same but added a few flesh-colored dots in gaps in the leather. At arm's length distance it all washes out!

I just paint them dark leather with a wash and a dry brush. They are called 'boots' after all and generally blend into the base anyway. After a hard day's marching through the mud/dust, I'm not sure much flesh would be showing in any case.

Same as Martin, my Republican Romans just have brown feet with a brown wash, whether leather or flesh it is all going to be dusty in my opinion.

All leather brown on the feet for me, with a spot of flesh on the toes. It's all going to be dirty after a day of marching anyhow.

What happens if you paint the feet brown and use a flesh colored wash or ink or contrast paint or speed paint over the top?

In theory, if you can get the wash to settle into the cracks, it will make a pool of lighter color as it dries. No telling if that would work, or how many coats it would take.

If the gaps in the sandal straps are deeply scribed, you can wipe the flesh color off the top after it dries for a bit. This works better if the leather color is gloss. I use this technique on 1/200 plane canopies all the time, though admittedly in the reverse shade order (dark wash over lighter colors).