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UPDATE:

Micon is done. Took me a LOT more time than I expected him to, but overall I'm really pleased with how he turned out. I adjusted how I tackled the armor from last time, and third time's the charm with his skin - that was far and away the hardest part of the big lug.







And here he is with his homeboy Urbicus...


Thanks for looking!

UPDATE:

It's been awhile since I finished anything on this project (end of semester in my classroom plus holiday season tends to do that), but I've finally finished the pillared covers for my arena's pits.

Here's the overview...


And here are some close-ups...






And naturally an action shot...


They hardly look painted in these shots, but getting the right color combos to drybrush onto these pillars was actually quite a challenge. I wanted something that looked like real stone/marble, something that wouldn't be distracting in the background, and something that would be relatively easy to finish. After some trial and error, this is what I ended up with and I'm reasonably happy with them.

Now I'm hoping to get Noxious done sometime this week and then start on Leo - I'll try to get some more WIP photos posted as I go.

As always, questions, critique, and general feedback are all appreciated!

I got Urbicus, too- can't tell, is Micon huge, or is it just that Urbicus seems too small for the game?

 spiralingcadaver wrote:
I got Urbicus, too- can't tell, is Micon huge, or is it just that Urbicus seems too small for the game?

Micon is pretty big compared to the 30mm miniatures, but pales in comparison to the other 40mm I've got - Gaius Pallidus is a head taller, for example, and Otho is an absolute giant compared to both of them. As for Urbicus, he's pretty much in-line with the other 30mm minis I've built, though his hunched stance makes him seem a bit smaller. IMO each sculptor's "35mm" scale is just slightly different from the next, so Oliver Nkweti's figures (Aemila and Sven) are a little thinner and smaller than Seb Archer's (Aquila, Gaius, Vargr) which are in turn just slightly off from Benoit Cauchies's (Frigge, Noxious, Tiet-Khebi). None of the miniatures is terribly out of scale (though Otho is really pushing it), but differences are definitely noticeable.

UPDATE:

Noxius is done. This is the guy that made me jump in on Arena Rex in the first place - the art, the background, the sculpt, everything just worked so well.

His story is that he's a slave condemned to die as sport for the real gladiators in the arena, but somehow (through fate, luck, or savage desperation) stays alive and keeps on fighting.





A little bit of an art shot...


And Noxius, Micon, and Urbicus posing in front of my newest arena hazards.

I'm not sure exactly what they are supposed to be beyond pieces of PP's "Grind" game, but for my purposes they can be upright spiky pillars or horizontal rollers of doom. Wasn't sure how the verdigris would turn out but I'm pretty satisfied with it.

At various stages in the painting queue are Hermes, Marcus Furius, and Leo.

As always, feedback, questions, critique, etc. all appreciated. Thanks for looking!

Awesome!!!!!

Ooh, I love the hazards! Noxius is cool, I didn't realize he was quite *that* naked, though

 RiTides wrote:
Ooh, I love the hazards! Noxius is cool, I didn't realize he was quite *that* naked, though

Yeah, his "ARM 0" is pretty fairly represented...

Thanks for the feedback, guys - always nice to get a response in here!

The ArenaTex guys look really good.

Beautiful paint jobs. I really like the slave fighter. Historically speaking a lot of those guys got bought by training houses and eventually earned their freedom. Even a death sentence could be commuted if the fighter fought bravely against impossible odds.

Cheers, guys - thanks for the feedback! Every comment is useful IMO.

@Warboss_Waaazag: Pretty much everything I know about gladiators has been learned after buying into this KS - that's a cool tidbit, and fits really well with Noxius's background.

I've also got a couple WIP shots of Leo. His face is essentially done, barring a few more glazes around his muzzle. Used TONS of reference photos which is new for me in this medium - with my minis I have pretty much just winged it but with this guy I wanted to make sure he looked reasonably authentic. Everyone has an idea of a lion, but there are tons of little things I would've left out if I didn't research a bit...





Next up is his mane, then on to the rest of his body.

Also, a tiny sneak peek of what I've got done on Hermes as well...



First try on a leopard pelt. Generally happy with it so far (thought it'll obviously need some touching up around the white fur above the belt and around the fringe) and it's given me the confidence to try some snakeskin armor on Viatrix whenever I get around to her. Oh, and the white spots are intentional, even though they don't look it - they stand out here more than I wanted them to so they may not be long for this world.

I love your Flesh Tearers terminators. Arena Rex looks like a very cool game.

Leo is looking fantastic so far, very lion like indeed.

UPDATE:

Leo - WIP




I know he doesn't look that different from the last WIP shot I posted, but I've got his mane done now. Tried to get a few different shades of brown in there to mimic the dark-to-light transition in older, more badass lions' manes and think it largely succeeded. Next is his pelt which is a huge hurdle for me... With the way I paint it'll take a while and I'm hesitant to start unless I know I can finish in one go, which means I keep putting it off. I've been planning to just take an evening and knock it out "next week" for about a month now.

Hermes - FINISHED
Finally have another model done! Huzzah!






This is one I wanted to get painted ASAP as he's my son's favorite fighter, but once I got started I realized I didn't like the sculpt as much as I thought I did originally. I guess more accurately, I didn't like painting the sculpt as much as I thought I would... In particular the arm wraps and armor plates with faces gave me fits, and I kept snapping off those little helmet plumes. Had fun with the leopard pelt, was really pleased with the red skirt, and I think the shield turned out just like I wanted.

And, like always, a little action shot...


Thanks for looking! Any feedback you've got would be greatly appreciated!

Fantastic man. Just really fantastic. The leopard pelt in back is wonderful.

Really nice, the lion looks like a great sculpt, where are they from?

@Wehrkind: Thanks - I really appreciate the response. I've never been much a free-hander, but after checking a few references it was actually pretty simple to do. Glad you like it!

@Calibanite Lion: Thanks for the feedback! All these gladiator figures are from Red Republic Games's first game, Arena Rex. It's a small-scale skirmish style game that's got amazing figures, simple and interesting rules, and tons of cool. Very excited about it. You can check it out here at their Kickstarter page.

The lion looks great. And the gladiators. So everything. It all looks great.

 Warboss_Waaazag wrote:
The lion looks great. And the gladiators. So everything. It all looks great.

Thanks!
(And feel free to say, "Except your camera skills." I know it's true.)

UPDATE:

So, I recently got the package from RRG that almost every Arena Rex KS backer has been eagerly awaiting: Septimus and Nero. I'm currently in what I call a "hobby downcycle" (i.e. I'm generally prioritizing other things in my limited hobby time ahead of miniatures) so I haven't made anything like "real" progress in my Arena Rex paint/build quest, but I did get these two bad boys started so figured I'm throw out a WIP post.

First of all, the casts of these guys are super clean and went together very easily. I did have to do the hot-water trick with Nero's right rear leg to get it to match his hip correctly, and again with Septimus's legs to get a nice tight fit with Nero's back, but overall very little tinkering and clean up needed. That said, I'll have to use some GS to sill a few minor gaps, but it's totally in line with what I'd expect from any other fairly large model.

Now, anyone who's played AR knows that there are rules for dismounting riders from their rides, so I started out by breaking out the rare-earth magnets I bought months ago specifically for these guys.

Here...

you can see where I started with magnets in Nero's back, and here...

you can see where I lined up their partners in Septimus's thighs to allow me to remove him whenever he gets knocked off his big bad bull (or whenever I want to run Nero as an arena hazard, or as part of a cohort but sans rider). Pretty easy to do with the appropriate sized drill bit and super glue, though making sure everything lined up WAS a bit fiddly.

The magnetic hold is just right too - no worries about him falling off, but pretty easy to pluck him off as needed.

Here they are together...

which allows you to see what's driving me up a wall: the reins don't line up well at all. Now, for the sake of convenient rider removal I may have to just deal with a little bit of a bad fit, but I think I'm going to see if my GS skills are sufficient enough to build up the knots where the reins meet the horns to create little "seats" for the ends to hide a bit better. Not sure I'm up to it, but that's where I'd headed I think. I'm anal retentive about stuff like that and It'll be tough to swallow on such an otherwise amazing looking figure.

Anyway, twas my first time magnetizing anything and I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was. Now I'm kicking myself for not magnetizing the horns as well, since the folks at RRG were kind enough to include an unwrapped set as an alternate.

As always, feedback, questions, critique, etc. are all appreciated. Cheers!

That's such a splendid model, and I love your idea of hiding the ends of the reins! I think it's worth trying you can always scrape off most of the greenstuff if you don't like how it's turning out.

The magnets under the rider look really well done too - that's a nifty idea!

So, here's what I settled on for a solution to the reins/horns/connection problem...


I "pinned" the reins. They're way too small to actually drill holes in and pin conventionally, so I took one of my riffler files with a nicely defined edge and filed a groove into the back of each end of the reins. Into these I set and glued some wire (also filed to make it as close to flush as possible).


Then I used my pin vice to drill out the spaces where the reins connect to the horns so the pins can slip right in. Once I add some GS to make the pins blend into the reins I think it will look just like I need it to. Bonus: now Septimus is even more solidly connected to Nero.

UPDATE:

Actual painting this time! Only terrain, but still - it counts.

I built these fences back when I was creating my arena and just recently got around to finishing them. They're just made from balsa wood, various plastic spear heads, and plenty of superglue.

Normally in Arena Rex, when a model gets pushed into a hazard they increase one fatigue level (in addition to whatever damage they were dealt). That should work for these, though I'm toying with the idea of adding another point of damage if the gladiator is pushed into them from the front, due to the spikes.

UPDATE:


Another piece of terrain for my Arena Rex arena. Like all of the stuff I've done , it's pretty simple - these are taken right from GW's Brettonian Peasant Bowmen set. I doubled up the number of spikes just to give it a little more visual "presence", but other than that they're just mounted on a base and primed. I've got enough to make another one as well, but haven't started it yet.

And here's where I am with Marcus Furius...

He's a retiarius with the Ludus Magnus, and his story is that he's from a wealthy family but fell into being a bandit and rustler for sport, which eventually led him to become a gladiator. I've got his skin mostly done, but still need to work on his eyes and facial scars - getting the latter to look right has been challenging because they're right up by his eyes and not easy to separate the two. His net is essentially done as well - just need a few touch ups on the highlights and it's set.

Also finished a Beastman for my Chaos Blood Bowl team that's been sitting in my painting queue for more than a year.


A few close-ups...



(Sorry for the blurriness - using my son's camera, and the macro is a little wonky.)

And here are the three Beastmen I've finished all together. You can see how I've changed/improved in painting flesh - the leftmost guy was completed years ago, then the middle one, and the most recent on the right. I've gone from pretty much just using one of the GW flesh tones and as a base and then adding white for highlights to mixing my own color and using all sorts of washes and glazes.


As always, feedback is appreciated. Cheers!

Marcus is looking really nice so far, well quite amazing really.

You can definitely see how you've improved with the beastmen over time, the skin tones on the latest are very nice.

 GiraffeX wrote:
Marcus is looking really nice so far, well quite amazing really.

You can definitely see how you've improved with the beastmen over time, the skin tones on the latest are very nice.

Thanks for the comments, GX. I appreciate the feedback.

I used to just paint by "going up" - I'd pick a basecoat, then add successive amounts of white for each highlight until I was satisfied. It looked all right, but made for pretty flat colors, sort of "cartoony" for lack of a better term. Now I start with my middle color and go both up and down, so to speak, as well as using lots of glazes and washes (GW's washes are really great). I think it's added to every aspect of my painting - but it's especially noticeable when painting skin. I think I've been getting better with that technique for a while, but I actually think I turned the corner when I was trying to speed paint my Sedition Wars Strain... If you go back a page here you can see the shift pretty clearly IMO.

Anyway, hoping to have more on Marcus tonight or tomorrow.

Thats interesting that you start from the middle colour, I always go from dark to light. I'm doing ok now with female skin as I paint it quite light, male skin I'm finding harder at the moment to get the right end result like you have done with Marcus.

i got a lot out of this tutorial but TBH the biggest thing was the sequences of Reaper skin tones. They have a mid, shadow, and highlight in a variety of color variations, and that helped me out a TON. Very much worth reading.

Thanks for that will have a read later, looks very interesting.

Your Arena Rex stuff is amazing, beautiful skin tones!