MAGISTER MILITUM
A BIT OF HISTORY
Constantine the Great before the battle at Milvian Bridge against Maxentious he had a vision of the sign of XR (the first 2 letters of the Greek word for Christ). Then he ordered his men to paint this sign on their shields and they will win. Constantine won the battle on 312 AD and started the Byzantine Empire by transferring the capital to Constantinople and making Christianity a free religion.
Magister Militum ("Master of the Soldiers") was a rank used in the later Roman Empire dating from the reign of Constantine. Used alone, it refers to the senior military officer of the Empire. The Magister Militum was the supreme military commander of the Western Roman Empire from the late 300's onward. The position was usually held by Germano-Roman mercenary commanders who were the true power behind the numerous short-reigned emperors of the 5th century. It was also often used with a provincial name, such as the Magister Militum per Thracias ("Master of the Soldiers of Thrace"), to indicate the commanding general of a region.
THE KIT
The kit comes in the typical and well known white metal quality of Pegaso. It consists of 8 parts including a circular base. He wears a boiled leather muscular cuirass with a white linen belt striped around as a sign of his rank. He wears a tined helmet with chick and nose protector covered with semi-precious stones. On his right hand he holds a long sword ‘spatha’ while he carries a big circular shield typical of this period. The base is a simple representation of a gladiatorial arena.
NIP TUCK
The mould lines are kept to a minimum and minor sanding is required to get rid of them. I glued the legs and torso piece on to the base and the rest of the parts on wooden blocks ready to prime them. I used the all trusted Plastic-Kote Super Primer to prime the pieces and set them aside for 24 hours to dry.
PAINT SHOP…
I started painting the flesh parts first using the same technique for all of them. An acrylic mixture was used as the base color applied in two thin layers followed by oil paints. The dot method was used for the highlights and shadows. This is simply applying the lighter or darker colors with a fine brush in small dots and then blending in the colors. The first highlights and shadows were ‘wet on wet’, whilst the second highlights and shadows were applied ‘wet on dry’ the next day.
ARMOUR…
For the boiled leather armour I used the colors shown in the color chart. I was aiming for a red-brown leather color and I think I achieved that. The belt was painted with a slightly darker color than the armour. The decorations on the belt were picked out in bronze color.
BLACKSMITH…
For all the metal parts (helmet, sword) I used a technique described to me by the well known figure painter Adrian Hopwood. As I wanted to depict bare metal the helmet and sword were painted using GW Mithrill Silver as the base color. After they were dry a coat of Ivory Black oil paint straight from the tube was applied and was left to dry for about an hour or so. I wiped of the excess of oil paint using cotton buds leaving the paint into crevices (not easy to access anyway) and as a dark patina over the pieces. Some extra highlights were added by dry brushing GW Mithrill Silver. The semi-precious stones were picked out with several red, blue and yellow colors followed by a dot of gloss varnish.
The same technique was followed for the bronze fittings and the rim and hub on the shield. Humbrol Gold was used as base coat followed by Row Umber.
TUNIC & BOOTS
The color chart at the end of the article provides the colors used to paint the tunic and the leg protectors. A vertical red strip was painted on the tunic as a symbol of his rank. Pastel was used to depict the dust on the leg protectors.
SHIELD
The shield was painted at the final stage of the project. I adopted a faded red overall color with the characteristic XP designed with two small portraits of the Emperor and Empress on it. I think this is the only part of the figure that you can be really colourful and creative.
BASE
With the use of glue the metal base was glued on the plinth. Polyfilla was added to extent the base to the edges of the plinth. Before it was dry some fine sand and a couple of small stones were glued on. The usual brownish colors were used to paint the based followed by washes and dry brushing with lighter colors. Static grass was glued and dry brushed light green and yellows colors at the end. A kebab stick sanded down to size was used as the body of a standard. Thin metal sheet was used for the banner and plastic card for the standard’s spear head.
