If they are fighting for Carthage, and you are desperate for some kind of symbol look at,

http://www.littlebigmenstudios.com/catalog/popup_image.php?pID=1753&osCsid=afa9b956a0742da742b370d4bd49de1b

the geometric Tanit symbol is obviously the easiest, drawn on with a fine pen.

Otherwise I'd go for some brown colour and give it a contrasting brown wash or black.  Irregularities in the surface will give plenty of patterning at 10mm.

Quote from: jdeleonardis on 24 August 2012, 01:03:04 PM
Luddite, thanks for the advice.  Ill have to give it a shot.  My first plan was to go ahead and paint the skin a darker beige and blend down to a lower color, but they were turning out so poorly that I gave up on that.

I use a technique on my shields to 'blend' them as follows.

Say i'm painting a mostly red shield.

Paint the shield a dark red.

Then get a lighter tone red of a flat brush that is quite wide, as wide as the shield if possible.

Then, begin with a single downwards stroke at the top of the shield, but make sure the brush comes off the shield about half way down.  It's sort of a flicking action down the shield.  You then get a lighter tone across the upper shield half and a darked tone on the bottom half that gives a bit of depth and a nice sort of 'blend without blending'.

If that makes sense...

Quote from: SV52 on 24 August 2012, 01:29:33 PM

http://www.littlebigmenstudios.com/catalog/popup_image.php?pID=1753&osCsid=afa9b956a0742da742b370d4bd49de1b

Wow!  Littlebigmen Studios have gone large on the new cookie privacy law there!  Good on them, but its a little excessive given the ICO's revised 'assumed consent' advice.

Thanks very much with all the comments.

And Luddite, thanks for your blending technique.  Im decent at it at larger scales, but mine have looked like crap at 10mm

Quote from: jdeleonardis on 24 August 2012, 01:03:04 PM

Yeah, they look pretty crappy.  My wife is occasionally my muse when Im in a funk with colors, or need some advice....last night, I said 'hey, be honest - tell me what you think of these'.  And she said "OH THEY ARE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES!  DO YOU THINK THEY WOULD KEEP THEM SAFE???"

Reminds me of my first wife's disheartening comment that my ornate trappings on a Siamese war elephant made the creature look like something out of a circus. She was right, damn it. I never learned to love that army.

Coming back to the skin tones subject, I use a burned earth tone for lybians and numidians in my carthage army, with the white basecoat it looks ok for me, darker, but without being "african". In the infantry I mix it with Dark Flesh, and Bronzed Flesh of Citadel, to give it variety of tones, thinking in liby-phoenicians citizens, peasants, and so on.

Numidian shields... In my Carthage Army, I pain them with white-blue tone used for all the army, with Tanit, Palm and Horse symbol, and in the auxiliar units of Numidian/Moorish allies, I use a mix of browns with white/lighter grey spots, like the ones in certain types of cows or horses.

Quote from: Phobos on 26 August 2012, 11:22:13 AM
Coming back to the skin tones subject, I use a burned earth tone for lybians and numidians in my carthage army, with the white basecoat it looks ok for me, darker, but without being "african". In the infantry I mix it with Dark Flesh, and Bronzed Flesh of Citadel, to give it variety of tones, thinking in liby-phoenicians citizens, peasants, and so on.

Numidian shields... In my Carthage Army, I pain them with white-blue tone used for all the army, with Tanit, Palm and Horse symbol, and in the auxiliar units of Numidian/Moorish allies, I use a mix of browns with white/lighter grey spots, like the ones in certain types of cows or horses.

They are African.

I mean BLACK.

Oh lord, my thread has turned racist!!!!  Im j/k  

Thanks again for all of your help with the leopard skin.  I only painted three for what I was working one.  One I came close to nailing, and the other two are decent efforts.  Here is a quick shot as I was walking out the door this morning (crappy quality)...i should be finished basing them tonight, so Im hoping to get some good pictures up tomorrow.

Well.....I'm very impressed !
Cheers - Phil.

Yuppie, those look right! Nice one sir. 

Wow man, I LOVE that horses...

Here they are....

Thanks again for all of the help with the skin, and now the kind words!  10mm is still new to me, but I LOVE the figures...they are small enough that they look really good en masse, but big enough that you can get some decent detail on them!

Hell yeah! Those are great! Really like teh way they have turned out, be proud of those!