So much for getting my Tarentines painted. I got them prepared and primed by yesterday, and started painting - I got the flesh done on four of them! But then I realised that my left elbow was beginning to get sore - probably from leaning hard on it while preparing the figures. I know by now that to continue just means blisters, more pain, and a fair bit of time before I can paint comfortably again. So I've stopped for the moment, and gone back to rule writing. Hopefully in day or two I'll be able to get back to painting.
Having primed them, the Tarentines are, if anything, even nicer models than I had thought they were. I have been struggling to decide on suitable colours for their clothing and saddle-cloths - if anyone's got any real evidence I'd like to hear it! At the moment for the clothes I seem to be heading towards subtle reds and softish blues, with contrasting stripes around the hems - mostly white I think. Really not sure about the saddle-cloths though!
The word processor I've been using (OpenOffice) doesn't seem to like my diagrams - which are in PDF format - I tried importing one, which it sort of 'ripped apart' and scattered through several pages of the document, completely messing up the text as it did so - good job I keep copious back-ups! So I decided to 'bite the bullet', shift the whole project over into Indesign and combine the last of the writing/editing with page layout. The rules proper are more or less sorted, have the diagrams in all the right places and are looking pretty decent, if plain. This afternoon I wrote the last bits of the 'Designer's Notes', tidied up the Middle Imperial Romans 'list' and am currently working on the Sassanid 'army description'. I can hardly call them army lists - no points values, and not much in the way of 'you may only have X units of cataphracts' - so what ought I to call them?