Pressing on: Painting Plastic Persians

In between quite a lot of 'real life' ( including some '1:1 scale terrain' painting ), I have tried to keep on with painting my DBA Persian army to face Alexander's Macedonians,  concentrating mainly on the cavalry so far. I have no completely finished units yet, but maybe enough 'nearly done' to show here. 

So here we are, 'on the bottletops', so to speak . Front row left (green coats) are heavy cavalry with horse-armour, front right (Purple coats)  medium cavalry,   second row two more units of mediums (Blue, and Red).  Back row left is my sole infantry unit so far, some light archers, and back right is two bases worth of light cavalry. 

I've tried to go for a fairly colourful look while keeping a (relatively) limited palette, and taken inspiration from  Osprey  The Persian Army 560-330BC  ( the mediums loosely based on the 'National Cavalry' depicted there), and Phil Barker's Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars - in particular for the lighter troops, he thinks they would have simpler dress of natural wool material. He also mentions 'embroidery bands' on trousers and tunic, but I have not been so ambitious with my detail painting! Maybe on the next lot..

Here's another view, rather jumbled-up in the waiting area for further painting - they need a wash of 'soft tone',  then some varnish and finally basing.  Possibly a bit too revealing - don't look too closely! I make no claims to painting talent, and try to 'Keep It Simple, Stupid' ( I am certainly the latter )  but I think they will do at 'table distance'.  A minor success: at the suggestion of my old gaming  comrade Tony I tried doing the horses with a simple coat of 'contrast' paint ( Army Painter Speed Paint ), and I was very pleased with the result of that. 

 

 

When it comes to sources of inspiration, I have one other interesting picture - back in July I went to the British Museum to see an exhibition about ancient Greek and Persian culture, which included this : 

 

This is a modern reconstruction of an Ancient Persian outfit, which if memory serves was that of a member of the Imperial messenger service.  It certainly seems to reinforce the general impression of colourful clothing for those in the Achaemenids employ.  The patterning is interesting, and I think I should probably try to use a bit more of that if possible - I was a bit shy of trying it so far. Next up are the bulk of the Persian infantry and their mercenary Greek Hoplites, and I may need to be a bit more adventurous with the former! 

I'll keep this brief - need to spend some time preparing to participate in one of Jon Freitag's excellent remote games - this time set in the Spanish-American War of the 1890s. I'll be a Spanish commander, trying to hold the Dominica Plantation against assulting Yankees. We'll see how that goes - watch out for a no doubt excellent battle report from Jon!

After that,  it will be back to the Persians - really need to get them finished and actually try a game with them and the Macedonians!  Meanwhile keep well, everyone.