After finishing the skin and most of the metals, I move on to the cloth. I begin my reds with a nice base of Sanguine Highlight. Not really sure why it’s called Sanguine “Highlight” since its a rather dark tone. Some Ryn Flesh is mixed with the Sanguine Highlight to create my actual highlight. Shading is added by mixing some Coal Black with the Sanguine.
Then I blend it all together.
Then I wash all the red areas with some P3 Red Ink. Rather than adding shading, P3 red ink is a simple way to drastically increase the saturation of any red areas. I also start the straw on his skirt with a base coat of Sulfuric Yellow.
Since the ink can diminish some of the values you’ve spent all that time working on, you may need to re-apply some of your shadows and highlights. This can be done easily enough by mixing a little of the Red Ink with whatever your shadow and highlight colors were – in this case that would be the Coal Black and the Ryn Flesh. This will give you a nice translucent glaze that you can use for touch-ups with minimal blending.
Let’s move in for a close-up. I’ve also completed the skirt. It was washed with GW’s Agrax Earth before getting touched up with Sulfuric Yellow, then Sulfuric Yellow mixed with a little Menoth White Highlight. In a few places some additional shading was added with a mix of Umbral Umber and Exile Blue – Navy Mix as I call it.
That same Navy Mix was used to highlight the Thamar Black used as a basecoat on Micon’s black Leather Belt. To lighten it further I added some Hammerfall Khaki to the Navy Mix.
I decided to go with a nice clean steel color on the rings on Micon’s skirt. Once again the Navy Mix was involved – this time as the basecoat. This was highlighted up with Frostbite and finally given a nice little dot of Menoth Highlight at the apex to represent a highly reflective surface.
The highlights on the belt were finished by adding more and more Hammerfall Khaki to the Navy Mix. Micon has quite a few black straps all over him and all were painted using the same technique as the belt. I also added a little freehand to the Base of Micon’s skirt just using Thamar Black over Hammerfall Khaki.
One of the last parts of the project was to finish off the wraps on the backs of Micon’s legs. These started with a basecoat of Trollblood Highlight which was Highlighted with Hammerfall Khaki, and shaded with more of that Navy Mix.
Everything was blended together and some further highlights were added with Menoth White Highlight.
After a little more blending, I was satisfied enough with the cloth to paint the metal rings that fasten Micon’s armor plates to his legs. These were done with the same technique as the rings on the skirt.
And after giving him a final once over for touch-ups (including finally painting all his armor rivets), Micon was ready to be based. You can check my basing technique in my first Arena Rex painting article. And now, more pics.
Of course I also painted some of Micon’s buddies recently. So here are Urbicus and Noxi.
Noxi is a slave condemned to die in the arena.Something about him looked Germanic to me so I decided he must be a prisoner of war from somewhere up North – where the sun isn’t quite so bright as it is in Rome. For his pale skin I used a 1-1 mix of Ryn Flesh and Frostbite Highlighted with Menoth White Highlight and Shaded with Beast Hide. Navy Mix was used anywhere I needed particularly dark highlights.
Advertisement
And last up is Urbicus. The techniques for his armor are mostly the same as Micon. The patina on his shield is added with a mix of Meridius Blue and Menoth White Highlight. For his very bronzed skin I used a basecoat of Bootstrap Leather highlighted with Rucksack Tan and Menoth White Highlight, and shaded – once again – with the Navy Mix.
Advertisement
Subscribe to our newsletter!
Get Tabletop, RPG & Pop Culture news delivered directly to your inbox.
~ Hope you enjoyed it! If Gladiator minis sounds like something you could get into, stay on the look out for news from Arena Rex. If you missed out on the Kickstarter, the minis should go on sale after all the pledges have been fulfilled.
Ben Willimans is a Professional Painter and Columnist at Bell of Lost Souls. He has been involved in the hobby and art side of miniatures and the tabletop gaming industry for over 20 years. He has won multiple national painting awards.
