Some more plastic hoplites

The three legged symbol is that of the Alcmaeonid clan

I have just finished four more Immortal Miniatures plastic hoplites which, as usual, were pretty easy to paint.  I am not entirely convinced by these, mainly due to the fact that the sword scabbards cannot possibly hang down vertically because they get in the way of the shield arm.  Someone at Immortal actually claimed that recent research showed that this was the way they were in fact carried.  Hmm. I'm not convinced.  Having looked at some examples of warriors on Greek pottery what is more noticeable is that hardly any warriors have swords at all so maybe I am better just to leave them off.

I've got some more from the new late Spartans box under way but I have some issues with those too which I will discuss when I have finished some.

This time my experience of Immortal's shield transfers was somewhat better as I invested in some gloss varnish for the shield surfaces which helped adhesion considerably.  I still got some frosting and rough edges however but, on the whole, I think they look nice.

Immortal plastic Hoplite painted

Foundry Greek (left) and Immortal Greek (right)

I just finished a very quick paint job on one of my Immortal miniatures plastic hoplites. They were pretty quick to paint, except the shield, which took ages due to the fact that the shield transfers only stick to a gloss surface (Airfix decals don't give this problem). On a matt finish, as they dry they just fall off. So I had to paint the shield gloss, apply the transfer, then over-paint with matt to cover some  "frosting" which got under the surface of the decal then varnish. A pain, but it looks OK.

Foundry (l) Immortal (r)

 

The interesting thing is that although the proportions (particularly the head size) are different from my Foundry figures they don't look bad together at all.

 

One thing I learnt is that I need to leave the shield with the arm off until I have painted it!

Immortal have now released a box of Spartan hoplites with pilos helmets but I have dozens of the Foundry ones which come with some great chracter figures so don't know if I want to go over to these.  I am also waiting to see what the new Victrix figures will look like.

I have some more plastics based up and ready to start.