"Help me plan my first historical painting " Topic

Sooner or later I'll have to paint the cover of my ancient rules Attrition, currently in playtest. I want to paint a nice ancient battle scene with the following criteria:
1) not too difficult to do (subjective, I know-- let's say I want to avoid chariots)
2) a period that is not overdone, or an overdone one in a different perspective
3) it must challenge me or I'll find it boring:-)

I'll put the final painting on sale on ebay (I'll keep reproduction rights so I can use it for my game) and on my site yessy.com/umbra

Any suggestions welcome! I have a few nice books, can get any Ospreys and other documentation from the wargaming club, etc.

I like your paintings of naked ladies. I suggest something with naked ladies, as you seem to have a talent for it.

The Rape of the Sabine Women, perhaps?

Or Alexander trying to get it on with Roxanne (the Rosario Dawson version, please). That was the best battle scene in that movie.

That would surely attract women into playing my game :-)
I've been painting nudes for too many years to count now, I want to do something different.

Besides, the scenes you suggest wouldn't give me much of a chance to draw armor. Unless you think that Alex wore his linen armor as an undergarment. :-P

Sorry, I was just pulling your leg. But I do like your paintings.

I'll go away and have a think about a serious answer.

Do your rules cover a specific era, or is all of what we consider "Ancients" (I mean Bronze Age right through to the Dark Ages) fair game?

anything's good from Sumer to early middle ages, I guess. But for commercial reasons I'd stay away from the latter -- I think someone looking for an "Ancient" ruleset wants to see something from the classical period, say DBX book two armies.

I say stick to the naked ladies, everyone likes those. :)

Well oiled greek king locked in close personal combat with an Amazon Princess. Flaming city in the background.

I would like to see either greeks fighting greeks(could be colourful, but also intense mano-a-mano combat) or one of hannibal's elephants fighting whoever. A bit cliched I know, but cliche works.

I don't know anything about your rules, i.e. whether they are for skirmish or mass combat, but regardless I think a closeup of a small number of troops locked in combat would look good.

Cheers, Sqush

Attrition strikes my ear as an odd title for an Ancients game. If you are intent on using it, I would suggest a picture that plays to that theme, such as a scene from the Peloponnesian War -- siege of Syracuse? Or the 1st or 2nd Punic War. Grim soldiers, apparently unattainable goal in the background. Nekkid ladies surely don't evoke a sense of attrition (rather let's not go there!)

The full name of the game should be "Attrition – Ancient Rules". Attrition is a game mechanic I intend to use on other periods as well. Of course I'm a non-native English speaker so what sounds nice to my ears may be odd for others.

It's a fast play army level game, focusing on Command. you can learn more about the game on my blog attritionrules.blogspot.com and download the rules

I would avoid the elephant as there are at least 2 wargame covers with infantry being charged by an elephant… Grim soldiers, I like. Maybe a snow scene? Nah, that's been done on the second Warmaster book.

How about a Macedonian Phalanx hunkered down, under attack by Skythians?

OK, here's my two yuan's worth: have a strong, *historical* female central figure in your cover art, such as Bat Zabbai (aka Zenobia), Boudicca, or Mulan leading a charge/directing troops, etc. You seem IMHO to have the female form down pretty thoroughly, so why not use that by combining what you do best with the new subject matter?

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

Classic image – serried ranks of grim faced Roman legionaries butchering 'barbarians'.

The various HaT box art are a fairly good source of inspiration!

"I've been painting nudes for too many years to count now, I want to do something different."

May I never get bored…..

I like the title and a scene after a battle would fit it nicely. Maybe a shot of an uphill field full of dead bodies and wounded in armour. You get to do both sides of the fight and maybe at the top of the hill the fight continues.

PJ

Didn't Alexander the Great have a sister, Artemisia(?) who fought for her share of his Empire?
The sack of Troy, plenty of women there and lots of bloodshed.
Who was the woman warrior (Mahb?) who trained Cuchulain, perhaps one of the famous cattle raids in Ireland.
An Ancient Egyptian scene such as the from the start of "The Mummy", hmm Patricia Velasquez in body paint.
Freya Eiriksdottir who journeyed to Greenland and fought the skraelings & Norwegian Vikings.
Then there's always Lady Godiva…

I have the theory that if you put boobies on the cover, your sales will go up about 20%.

Justified Ancients claims to be the only ruleset that increases Virility and sexual attractiveness and I would say that this is the reason for it's success.

PJ Parent,

I am not bored, but I want to do something different. I put a woman warrior on the cover of my skirmish system Warbound. Suggestions about female warriors sound nice though -- but I also like the "end of the battle" scene.

I could also do a wrap-around cover so I can paint in a landscape format. The service I use to print can also do a landscape 9 x 7 landscape, so if I do a wrap-around cover in that format, I get plenty of space to draw a battlefield.

Tommiatkins,
it's a well known fact, but since I plan to sell just 10-20 copies (it's gonna be a niche game in a gaming niche IF it is successful), selling 2 or 3 copies more won't make any difference :-)

Almost off topic: For those interested, I just posted the point system formula on my blog: attritionrules.blogspot.com

How about a lone Marian Centurion (directing with a vine stick?) standing on a slope with dead and dying Germans at his feet with the setting sun in the background?

Something nice and light like that.

What springs to my mind with the name Attrition is a Thermopoly scene, towards to end.

As to the nude women, I checked out your site. Nice work, & nice to see that your work is selling well too! The oil of the woman reading is excellent. I do a little figure work myself for some reason I tend to have men in armour, and women without armour or anything else.

Fred

Parthian cataphracts in full armour, facemasks and cloaks about to overwhelm a little knot of Crassus's legionaries at Carrhae; lots of dead Romans scattered about the field as well…

Dang – I just posted on a 7-month old thread…
:P

What did he end up doing?

Your guess is as good as mine.