"Blood and Sand" Roman Gladiator

Post by **HamilkarBarkas** » Sat Aug 31, 2013 1:32 pm

Hi folks, this is my entry for the group build!

Its a Roman Gladiator from Scale75 (in 75mm scale as the brand name suggest). I bought it in this larger scale because i think its easier for me to film the painting process later. Apart from that 75mm scale is an impressive thing, i love them a lot although they are quite expensive.

Content of the box and proof that it is unstarted.

Post by **spruecutter** » Sat Aug 31, 2013 1:41 pm

Good choice, it looks like a well sculptured model.

Post by **HamilkarBarkas** » Sat Aug 31, 2013 3:09 pm

Okay now we take a closer look at the figure:

The upper part of the body. The level of detail is nice, there is some flash (especially on the sword) and seamlines but thats typical and not a big issue. I like the look of the muscles, very natural.

Lower part of the body and one leg, again some seamlines but they are not really visible.

Here the sprue with the other leg and a head without a helmet. Especially the head has great detail, but i won´t use it. I like the head with the helmet more. However, its nice to have the option between two different heads.
The feet look nice and natural.

Thats the head i´m going to use. I won´t be able to show you how to paint a face in this case, i might paint the alternative head anyway to show you that.

The shield looks alright, the second hand is moulded on the backside. I might add some damages to the shield.

A very little base is included. As always i will incorporate it into my own little base. It would be a bad idea not to use the included base because it fits nicely to the leg and will give the figure a safe stand.

Post by **HamilkarBarkas** » Sat Aug 31, 2013 8:07 pm

I think some of you appreciate some historic background information as a little introduction to the topic (if you don´t like history you can simply skip this post).

The word "gladiator" derrives from the Latin word "gladius" which means simply "sword". Therefore a "gladiator" means swordsman (although not all gladiators fought with a sword).
These armed fellows performed violent fights with other gladiators, animals and criminals who were sent to the arena for execution purposes. It was a typical form of Roman entertainment and gladiator fights were always the highlight of every "ludus" (Latin: game).

The origin of this custom to let humans fight each other are still not clear, some historians suggest it derived from Etruscan burial rituals.

Gladiators were usually slaves who were trained for this dangerous task, but sometimes there were criminals who were condemned to join the gladiators or people who joined them voluntarily. Therefore their social status was very low, they had no rights or the freedom to go where they wanted. However, they were very popular (especially successful fighters), some of them even became "superstars" and "sex-symbols". There was always the possibility that a gladiator could earn his freedom by proofing his bravery many times.

There a couple of different types of gladiators. They differ in their equippment and training, the intention was to make the fights more varied and interesting. I will name a few:
- "hoplomachus" (medium gladiator, armed with a round shield and a short sword (sometimes a lance) imitating the Greek warfare style)
- "retiarius" (light gladiator, armed with a trident and a net)
- "samnite" (medium gladiator, imitating the Samnite warfare style)
- "secutor" (heavy gladiator, "chaser" armed with a short sword and a big square shield)
- "thraex" (medium gladiator, "the Tracian", armed with a short curved sword and a square shield).
- "murmillo" (heavy gladiator, armed with a short sword, a square shield and a "manica" (swordarm protection) - this is the type of gladiator my figure represents.
Apart from that female gladiators existed imitating the mythological Amazons (but female gladiators were very rare).

The idea was to send different types of gladiators to a duel, the usual opponent of the hoplomachus was the thraex for example. It was important that both fighters had similar skills and no one had an overall advantage over his opponent - fairness was crucial. It was considered to be a shame when a gladiator had to fight an inferior opponent. A referee was supervising every fight and like modern boxing referees they could stop the fight.

At first those fights took place in wooden improvised arenas, later bigger arenas were build out of stone. I have been in the famous "Amphitheatrum Flavium" (better known as the Colosseum) twice and i can tell you, this building is simply stunning!

We as humans of the 21st century can not understand why the Roman people was so amused by those bloody fights, of course ethics were much different back then. It is a common misconception (caused by silly Hollywood movies) that every gladiator fight was a fight to the death. It is true that many gladiators died, but the chance of surving a duel was not that bad. Gladiators did not fight to the death necessarily, if one opponent became too weak due to injuries or exhaustion the referee stopped the fight. Even if a fighter became disabled to defend himself it was possible that his life was spared, especially when the fight has been exciting. The crowd would demand to spare him. If the crowd was in a bad mood they would yell "iugula!" (stab him!).

Here a scene from the famous movie "Gladiator". Till this day no movie was able to portray these fighters correctly and i really doubt this will ever happen!
Marcus Junkelmann, a well known historian, said: "The armour of the "movie-gladiators" has always been wrong, but not as wrong as the ones we saw in Ridley Scotts movie."

I often wonder how much more people would watch boxing matches if they were fights to the death...in the end we are all humans, we are all quite blood-thirsty (just think of action and horror movies!) and i would not go that far to condemn the Roman society for their games.

Post by **Nige201980** » Sat Aug 31, 2013 8:29 pm

The figure looks amazing cant wait to see you do it and love the history the ancient Greek and roman history's is some of my favourite Time periods from the Trojans to the Spartans and on to the end of the Roman Empire in about 400AD did you know that some experts think that the survivors of the Trojan war and settled in the 7 hill which became Rome.

Post by **Coen** » Sat Aug 31, 2013 8:42 pm

This is a beautiful piece, I think that it will be an excellent addition to your collection Michael.
I love the way the cloth flows and folds. So delicate. The sculptor was top quality I think.
I think your choice of head was a great idea, mostly from the standpoint of realism. The face is well done thought and it's a shame not to use it.
decisions decisions
I'll enjoy watching this come alive.

Post by **HamilkarBarkas** » Sat Aug 31, 2013 10:38 pm

Nige201980 wrote:The figure looks amazing cant wait to see you do it and love the history the ancient Greek and roman history's is some of my favourite Time periods from the Trojans to the Spartans and on to the end of the Roman Empire in about 400AD did you know that some experts think that the survivors of the Trojan war and settled in the 7 hill which became Rome.

Well thats what the Romans thought of themselfes, i have red the "Aeneis" saga by Vergilius (a continuation of the "Ilias" by Homer which deals with the Trojan War). The "Aeneis" is the national epos of the Romans, it starts with the escape of Aeneas from the burning city of Troy, then it tells the story of his journey to Italy (the gods have decided that he has to initiate the foundation of a city which will later rule the world), but due to a storm he lands in North Africa first and meets Dido, the Queen of Carthage. He falls in love and wants to stay with her, but the gods remind him of his task and force him to leave her and sail to Italy. Dido kills herself because of this rejection, this is the mythological basis for the conflicts between Romans and Carthage.

Now as far as i´m concerned this is nothing more than a myth which was ennobled by Roman poets and also a justification of the Roman conquests. The Romans liked the idea that they descend from the famous Trojans and are enemies of the sneaky Greeks and the hideous Carthaginians by nature. There is no proof of that with regard to archaeological evidence, but of course the "Aeneis" is a great piece of literature and a good read!

Apart from that the Romans thought that they also descend from Mars, the god of war (quite suiting!) because the founders of Rome, the brothers Romulus and Remus were procreated by the priestess Rhea Silvia and Mars. Just another national myth which can´t be true at all but a great empire always demands a great heritage to justify itself. Its not much different today if you think more about it.

Post by **gosselin2112** » Sun Sep 01, 2013 7:10 am

Michael,

Nice subject for the group build. I agree, the helmet is pretty impressive. Thanks for the historical write up. It's a nice touch.

Russ.

Post by **Paul** » Sun Sep 01, 2013 9:53 am

That is gonna be cool

Post by **Lee** » Sun Sep 01, 2013 1:16 pm

Nice choice Michael, love the history too

Post by **HamilkarBarkas** » Sun Sep 01, 2013 2:58 pm

Thank you

First of all i cleaned up all parts using a knife and sandpaper to get rid of seamlines and flash. It was not a hard thing to do but its very important to get rid of seamlines in particular.

I assembled the figure using instant glue and mounted it on a round plastic base from MiniArt. Next i will fill some gaps, its hard to avoid them on such figures so prepare yourself for that aswell if you participate in this group build

I will do a detailed video documentation about this project like i did on my WW2 group build entry. As soon as i have enough material together for a proper video i will post it here, in the meantime i post the pictures and explain what i did this way.

http://m.youtube.com/user/MrBobsBuilds · Post by **Rob** » Sun Sep 01, 2013 4:18 pm

Great choice. What a super figure - a dynamic pose, nicely sculpted and full of action. Scale 75 produce some wonderful models. I recently purchased their flesh paint set and I am really pleased with the results. They have a stand at the forthcoming Euro Militaire http://www.euromilitaire.co.uk/ which I hope to attend so I look forward to seeng this one in the flesh to get a better understanding of the challenges you are taking on.
Good luck, I really look forward to seeing this one come together.
Regards
Rob

Post by **Coen** » Sun Sep 01, 2013 4:37 pm

Waste no time eh? Great start.
I love that base... I went hunting in my stash for one but I don't have one that small.
I'll see what I can find at the craft shop today.

I started mine at about 5am this morning. Haha.
My 4 year old daughter joined me during the video, then my wife... it turned into a family event.
I decided to keep it the way that it was... "warts and all" as my mom says. haha.

Post by **HamilkarBarkas** » Sun Sep 01, 2013 7:14 pm

Coen wrote:Waste no time eh? Great start.
I love that base... I went hunting in my stash for one but I don't have one that small.
I'll see what I can find at the craft shop today.

I started mine at about 5am this morning. Haha.
My 4 year old daughter joined me during the video, then my wife... it turned into a family event.
I decided to keep it the way that it was... "warts and all" as my mom says. haha.

No time to loose indeed! You all don´t know what to do so i have to "guide" you through this a bit haha

Nah, just joking, you know i finished the Optio today so i just continued with the next one. It gives me also a great opportunity to make a good figure painting tutorial video (at least i will try that because its really hard to film and explain).

I´m looking forward to see how the other figures come along, the tartan look of your scotsman will be a challenge (i never attempted such at thing because i´m a terrible freehand painter).

Let´s continue with the gladiator:

It is pretty much impossible to avoid those gaps between the parts. This has nothing to do with bad moulding quality, its just necessary to fill them to give the model a natural look without such visible joints. Here for example there are some awkward looking gaps on the throat and the belt area.

I filled them with "Magic Sculpt" (first time i used this stuff, in the past i used Milliput). Works perfectly fine, i apply some tiny amounts of the filler with a toothpick and distribute it with a wet Q-Tip stick. This way you won´t have to sand down excess filler, instead you just fill the gaps and blend them with the surrounding area. The toothpick is also useful to remodel creases if this becomes necessary at bigger gaps. (I will demonstrate that in the video documentation).

Finally i used Milliput to blend the white metal base with the plastic base to create my own section of the "arena". Finally i added the shield.
The figure is now completely assembled and ready for priming.

Post by **Coen** » Mon Sep 02, 2013 12:50 am

Great progress. I was tempted to use the milliput on mine as well.
I ended up using Tamiya putty thinned with Tamiya Extra Thin.
Mostly because I was too engrossed with the build to turn around and dig out the milliput haha.
It would have been the better choice. Less mess.
I'm really looking forward to what you do next.

Post by **Greg37985** » Mon Sep 02, 2013 1:01 am

Great choice of figure and he will fit in with your Ancients collection. Look forward to seeing him when he is done.

Post by **HamilkarBarkas** » Sat Sep 07, 2013 12:05 pm

Now its all primed up with light grey acrylic colour. Of course you could use a special primer product instead of a white or black colour but i personally prefer light grey. The paints won´t loose too much brightness and i´m also able to see where i still have to remove seamlines for example.
Apart from that the priming provides a good surface to work on later.

Post by **HamilkarBarkas** » Sat Sep 07, 2013 5:58 pm

Lets paint this thing up!

First i painted all flesh areas with flesh base 1 from the Lifecolor flesh painting set. Then i applied some darker flesh tones with a thin brush on the recessed areas of the body, especially on the stomach and back area, always blending the freshly applied paint with a second brush to get soft transitions between the colours. I did the same on the raised areas with light flesh paint.
You see the effects are very subtle, but i like it this way. In the end we will drybrush the figure with some oil paints anyway and this will add a lot to the depth of the figure.

Post by **Dunhill2005** » Sat Sep 07, 2013 6:25 pm

Great job

I love your figures. Especially from the period of the romans

Post by **Coen** » Sat Sep 07, 2013 11:25 pm

How fast it comes to life.
Do you always use the Life Colours Michael? I've heard great things about them from Paul.

Post by **HamilkarBarkas** » Sun Sep 08, 2013 9:22 am

Thank you guys

Do you always use the Life Colours Michael? I've heard great things about them from Paul.

When it comes to painting flesh on figures my answer is yes, they are very good. I also use them for painting IDF tanks because they offer a big varietey of the correct colours which are hard to mix on your own. As you might know the famous "IDF sand grey" is a colour that made many model builders insane already because its a weird looking colour hard to reproduce.

Post by **Paul** » Sun Sep 08, 2013 9:25 am

HamilkarBarkas wrote:Thank you guys

Do you always use the Life Colours Michael? I've heard great things about them from Paul.
When it comes to painting flesh on figures my answer is yes, they are very good. I also use them for painting IDF tanks because they offer a big varietey of the correct colours which are hard to mix on your own. As you might know the famous "IDF sand grey" is a colour that made many model builders insane already because its a weird looking colour hard to reproduce.

Yeah gotta agree that flesh set is very good, beats anything else I've used. And they brush paint so nice too.

I'm seriously considering getting rid of my tamiya acrylics and replacing them with life colour.

Post by **Coen** » Sun Sep 08, 2013 10:25 am

Right then... Off to the store again.

You people are all so terrible. Spending all my money like you do.

Post by **HamilkarBarkas** » Sun Sep 08, 2013 10:33 am

I like the Lifecolor paints a lot indeed, but they are kinda expensive and hard to get for me. If i build a model and realize that i need a certain paint now which i don´t have right here i just go to the next shop and buy Revell acrylics. If i use Lifecolor only i would need to buy them online all the time and thats not as handy as a 15 minutes trip to the city and buy the colours

You don´t need to thin them down really for the airbrush, they are great for that aswell as brushpainting. They have a lot of covering power.

Post by **Coen** » Sun Sep 08, 2013 11:00 am

I have the same problem. My local shop carries,a few of the more old, school traditional paint lines. Nothing interesting.
No life colour, no Vallejo. Mostly poly scale, testors, alclad, and Tamiya. If I want anything interesting I have to order it online. If its enamels... I'm screwed. No one will ship that any more.

Post by **Paul** » Sun Sep 08, 2013 11:03 am

Coen wrote:I have the same problem. My local shop carries,a few of the more old, school traditional paint lines. Nothing interesting.
No life colour, no Vallejo. Mostly poly scale, testors, alclad, and Tamiya. If I want anything interesting I have to order it online. If its enamels... I'm screwed. No one will ship that any more.

My local shop carries just tamiya acrylics and the usual humbrol enamels.

My favourite shop is about an hour away (approx 40 miles) and carries the full lifecolour range as well as tamiya etc.

Post by **Coen** » Sun Sep 08, 2013 11:12 am

Post by **HamilkarBarkas** » Sun Sep 08, 2013 6:50 pm

Time to paint the (limited) clothing of the gladiator!

First i painted the loincloth with Matt37 "brick red" completely. Then i painted the padding on arms and legs with beige paint. Of course you have to very careful not to paint offside and ruin the paintjob we did on the flesh areas.

When it was dry i mixed the brick red with some black and applied it on the cuttlings of the loin cloth. Again we blend the paint in with a moistened brush to get soft transitions.

It would be a bit too tedious to paint the cuttlings on the paddings with a brush individually, so i just applied a medium brown acrylic wash over them.

Many figure painters prefer oil paints for the shading, i just use them for drybrushing and on large scale figures (like 1:10 scale busts). When it comes to simple shading techniques i prefer acrylic paint washes.

Post by **Coen** » Sun Sep 08, 2013 9:59 pm

Is it bad that I'm kinda sitting back and not working on Mr. Campbell because I'm watching how you turn out Maximus here. haha.
This is extremely useful stuff Michael. It's certainly not like painting at 1/35 that's for sure.

Post by **Greg37985** » Mon Sep 09, 2013 8:07 pm

Looking great looking forward to seeing this when its done

https://www.youtube.com/user/bnealuk · Post by **T3hGuppy** » Tue Sep 10, 2013 7:58 am

Looking great dude.

Post by **HamilkarBarkas** » Sun Sep 15, 2013 2:27 pm

Thank you guys

Serious lack of time prevented me from finishing this figure this weekend, so i just show you the little progress i made:

I just painted some smaller details, like the belt and straps aswell as the shiny armour. For the straps i used several tones of dark brown. The armour was first painted with a mixture of Revell Matt91 "iron" and Matt9 "anthracite", then i drybrushed the still wet surface with Matt90 "silver" to achieve the shiny polished metal look. Same proceduce with the sword.
Then i painted the other metal parts like the leg armour and the shield parts with Matt94 "gold" to represent the bronce applications. I prefer the enamel paints for gold, for some reason the acrylic gold tones from Revell are very bad.
Note that i just painted those parts with these colours i mentioned, i did not apply any washes on them. I simply painted them up.

Finally i painted the base with sand brown colour, later when everything is finished i will use some pigments to represent the floor of the dusty arena.

Then i sealed the figure off with Matt2 clear varnish. The basic work is done now, all whe have to do now is to apply some more washes for variation and drybrushing the figure with oil paints for the highlights on the clothing. I tend to paint the shadows with acrylics aswell, but for highlighting i prefer oil paints.

Post by **Dunhill2005** » Sun Sep 15, 2013 3:26 pm

Looks great like all your figures!!!!!!!
By the way,have fun at the exhibition and much success

Post by **Coen** » Sun Sep 15, 2013 11:47 pm

Wonderful work Michael.
You'll be done before you know it. Any other figures to enter?
I'll be entering three myself.

http://www.youtube.com/user/longlance67 · Post by **longlance67** » Mon Sep 16, 2013 3:33 am

Beautiful work !

Great stuff

Shane.

http://m.youtube.com/user/MrBobsBuilds · Post by **Rob** » Mon Sep 16, 2013 10:59 pm

Looking fantastic already. Can't wait to see the final reveal

Post by **HamilkarBarkas** » Tue Sep 17, 2013 4:50 pm

thank you all very much

You'll be done before you know it. Any other figures to enter?

thats true and the lenght of the GB allows me to enter a lot, but i barely build non military figures. i plan to enter another one, maybe elrond this time but of course i can not promise it now right away.

Post by **Coen** » Tue Sep 17, 2013 9:28 pm

Elrond ... The elf?
Very cool.

That ill have to see.

Post by **Lee** » Wed Sep 18, 2013 12:05 am

That's come away since the last time I looked.....!!!

Post by **HamilkarBarkas** » Fri Sep 20, 2013 6:57 pm

After the matt varnish was dry i applied a black oil paint wash over the whole figure. I was very careful and focused on the armour and clothing as black is not the perfect paint for shading the flesh areas. Spare wash was removed with Q-tip sticks.

Then i painted some wounds on the body of the gladiator using red oil paints and odourless turpentine as a thinner. First i painted the little blood streaks, then i painted a rather big red line which simulates the actual cut in the flesh.
I also applied a very light red wash on some areas of the body. The red colour gives the flesh a much more realistic look, its like blood is running through it.

Similar approach on the blood stains on the sword and shield.

Then i drybrushed the clothing. I used two tones of red oil paint and simply drybrushed the raised creases. Same with the paddings and helm crest (but i used beige oil paint instead of course!).
This finishes off our shading on the figure (aswell as the actual painting of it!).
Just a short general summary: First we painted the clothing with one acrylic colour, then we mixed it with black and painted the creases separately. Later we came back and drybrushed the clothes with oil paint. My useage of oil paints is actually quite limited as i prefer acrylic paints, but for the final touch ups on the shading oil paints are simply the best solution.

Post by **Paul** » Fri Sep 20, 2013 7:12 pm

That's looks fantastic Michael wow

Post by **Coen** » Fri Sep 20, 2013 7:39 pm

AHHHH!!!
That is amazing work Michael. I really hope that you did a vid on this... I would love to see it up close. Holy cow that came out fantastic!!!
WOW!!! I love it.
It's given me a few ideas for my own figure.
Great job Michael!!!

Post by **Nige201980** » Fri Sep 20, 2013 8:46 pm

Im speechless mate WOW WOW WOW and i could go on WOW

Post by **HamilkarBarkas** » Fri Sep 20, 2013 8:52 pm

Thank you very much guys

I paint my figures the simple way, it works better for me personally.

I really hope that you did a vid on this... I would love to see it up close.

Sure i´m doing a video on it

its not yet done as i won´t split it into several parts, it will be one long video. You can expect it on Youtube in the next few days as i´m about to finish this figure.

Post by **HamilkarBarkas** » Sat Sep 21, 2013 4:43 pm

Finally i had to deal with the floor of the arena which was very easy: I mixed wood glue, water and MIG dust pigments together and applied it with a brush. then i sprinkled some more pigments on the wet surface.

In order to find a connection to the title "blood and sand" i mixed some red and dark brown oil paints together, thinned them down a bit with odourless turpentine and made two blood splashes on the dust.

Some black acrylic paint was used to paint the base black, then it had to dry for a while and here is the result:

The video of the whole painting process will follow soon, its about 40 minutes long so it will take a while for me to write the subtitles. You can expect the video in the next days. It will finish off this building review.

Post by **Coen** » Sat Sep 21, 2013 4:54 pm

Utterly magficent Michael. I think that this might be one of your best ones yet!
I can't wait to see the vid.

Post by **DC87** » Sat Sep 21, 2013 5:05 pm

Amazing stuff Hamilkar, great painting process and end product. I particularly like the skin tone you achieved.

Post by **HamilkarBarkas** » Sat Sep 21, 2013 5:22 pm

Thank you very much

I keep it simple with my figures so there is not much to do wrong, i´m glad you like it so much!
Its nice that this thing is done now, i have to focus on other project, such a cool figure in between is not that time consuming and also quite rewarding when done. It looks nice next to my other figures in the cabinet.

https://www.youtube.com/user/bnealuk · Post by **T3hGuppy** » Sat Sep 21, 2013 5:28 pm

Fantastic work dude.

He looks great.

Post by **Lee** » Sat Sep 21, 2013 7:21 pm

Very nice work Michael