Painting Vikings and Saxons

[YellowStreak]

Thanks for the link. I've browsed through some of that blog before, but I hadn't seen that particular article. It was quite interesting, though I'm not altogether sure that there is any benefit into having seasonal palettes except for as an arbitrary aesthetic theme.
For my own forces, my Saxons are mainly dressed in light grey or beige tunics with a strip of colour along the edges. My Vikings are more colourful in red and blue tunics. This was mainly to aid in visually identifying them at table height rather than any research based decision.

Got any good references on viking shield designs?

[Primarch]

Got any good references on viking shield designs?

From Wikipedia

Most shields are shown in illuminations as being painted a single colour although some have a design painted onto them; the most common designs are simple crosses or derivations of sun wheels or segments. The reason for this paint was to conceal the wood grain of the shield so that it would be harder for an opponent to find a weak spot and split the shield along its grain. The few round shields that survived have much more complicated designs painted on them and sometimes very ornate silver and gold work applied around the boss and the strap anchors.
.... Some Viking shields may have been decorated by simple patterns although some skaldic poems praising shields might indicate more elaborate decoration and archaeological evidence has supported this. In fact, there is a complete subgenre of Skaldic poetry dedicated to shields, known as "shield poems", that describe scenes painted on shields.[7] For example, the late-9th-century skaldic poem, Ragnarsdrápa, describes some shields painted with mythological scenes.

And from a site that reproduces shields.

Some surviving shields show evidence of paint (mineral pigments ground into an oil base) on the wood surface, suggesting that they were not covered. Either way, shields were probably painted and decorated. The shields on the Gokstad ship were painted black and yellow. A Viking-age shield recently found at Trelleborg was painted red and white, in accordance with the requirements of the old Norwegian law codes. The sagas suggest that carrying a red shield signaled hostile intent (e.g., Eiríks saga rauða chapter 11).

Other info I have read suggests that shields were usually seen as being fairly disposable, so a force on campaign may have a variety of shields and designs in use at any time. Neither the Vikings nor the Saxons had professional standing armies and each man was responsible for his own equipment to some degree. The household troops of Jarls, Earls and other landowners may have had a somewhat uniform design, but there isn't a lot of evidence one way or the other. Wooden shields with leather covers don't stay in good condition over nearly 1000 years sadly.
So really, it's up to you how much effort you want to put into painting them. I went for two colours split down the middle for my Vikings and two colours split into quarters for my Saxons, but again that was mainly to be able to differentiate my minis from a distance.

[Krobrawlg]

My eyes look terrible! Anybody have any tips?

[The Other Dave]

Mine is: don't bother!

Like, take this guy.



That's just a fleshtone base, a wash of your favorite flesh-colored wash, then another light drybrush of fleshtone - no special treatment for the eyes whatsoever. Done and dusted, and at tabletop distances it looks fine. For me, the danger of bug-eyed maniacs is much worse than the danger of shady-eyed squinting people.

[Primarch]

Eyes aren't necessary, so don't do them if you don't want to.

Otherwise, start with a small white patch, add a small black spot with a marker pen/brush and then correct any errors by going over them with your skin coloured paint. Try to get both black spots in roughly the same position so the model doesn't end up with a lazy eye. Make sure that the black spots reach the top and bottom of the white patch.

[The Other Dave]

Another pro tip, if you really want to give it a go, is to start with black and dot in the sclera on either side - this prevents the biggest cause of bug-eyed maniac syndrome, which is white showing above or below the iris.

(Seriously, though, faces are why most of my 40K armies have been space marines - they're hard. Helmets for the win!)

[me_in_japan]

I'm with P and ToD on this. Eyes are a pain in the ass*, and if you don't need to do them, then dont. If you absolutely must do them, try this:

1. paint the rest of the face
2. carefully paint in the whole eye with a pale bone colour. Use your pointiest brush for this.
3. carefully use a dark brown ink/thinned dark brown paint to outline the eyeball. You shouldn't need to paint this in, per se - just let the liquid flow around the eye. If you get the right amount of paint/ink on the brush, it should be relatively straightforward. If you get a bit on the eyeball, that's fine. It should be thin enough that the eyeball still looks light compared to the surrounnding skin.
4. Dot in the pupil using a dark brown or dark grey paint. This this a bit to help it flow. As previously mentioned, make sure there is no white showing above or below the dot.
5. Tidy up around the eye where you inevitably got some bone/dark dot colour on the eye socket.

Hope that helps. Generally, though, I don't bother with pupile (but then I mostly paint evil night-dwelling aliens and goblins, and who says they need pupils anyway?)

ps - pupil dots give the eye direction. make sure both eyes are pointing the same way - this always gives me trouble...


*sounds a bit Tzeentchian...

[Mike the Pike]

No!
Paint in every little detail. I wanna see Eyeshadow, Eyebrows, Pupils, Blush and Lipstick on your Vikings!!!



Seriously, I tend to agree with the above re: ya average Joes, but I like to make a bit more effort for my heroes/commanders etc. Personally, I like doing the eyes, it makes the models really 'come alive' at that point (No, NOT like the movie "Small Soldiers" ) and helps me keep going.

[me_in_japan]

actually, Pikey makes a good point - on blokey models (eg hairy viking invaders) eyeshadow and lipstick look daft*, but theyre very useful for making models look female. Also, look at Pikey's dark elf sorceress' eyes - note the pupil extending all the way to top and bottom of the eye, thus avoiding starey-eye syndrome (although to be fair, if ever a mini justifed a bit of starey-eye, this is it )

*I mention this just in case, y'know, you hadn't thought of it for yourself

[Konrad]

A buddy of mine's method, that I copy is this. Base coat your flesh, then base the eyes with a sliiiighly off-white. Don't worry about getting everything in the lines. Then paint the pupil (or iris first then pupil if you want to get fancy) as a stroke, not a dot, again don't worry about getting it on the eyelids, just get it centered and the right width. Then go back, outline and cover up the messy bits with another base coat. That avoids the google-y, Marty Feldmen eyeball problem. Then do the outlining, washing and tricky bits. He would even go as far as to put little white dots of reflected light just off center in the iris/pupil to make the eyes look really natural. I don't think my hands are steady enough for that anymore.