Painting 28mm Greek Hoplites: Armour, Linen and Shields

By Victrix Limited 28mm miniatures | Published: 2026-11-03

Category: Handleidingen

A practical order for painting 28mm Greek hoplites: bronze armour, linen cuirass, shield faces and crests, with checkpoints that keep a ranked phalanx looking consistent.

Quick answer

Paint each hoplite from the inside out: skin and tunic first, then bronze armour, linen cuirass and helmet, and finish with the shield face and crest. That order protects the brightest areas from handling and lets you keep a consistent 28mm hoplite colour scheme across the whole phalanx.

Why the painting order matters on ranked hoplites

Hoplites are usually fielded in tight ranks, so the shield face and helmet crest are the parts viewers see first, while the torso is partly hidden behind the man in front. Spend your detail time where it will actually be seen, and keep the armour and linen tones consistent across the unit rather than treating each figure as a separate display piece.

The order below also solves a practical handling problem. Bronze and linen are the two large mid-tone areas, and both are easy to smudge if you paint the shield first and then reach over it. Painting the body and armour before the shield keeps the final, most visible surface clean.

Bronze versus linen: two different painting problems

Bronze armour is a reflective metal, so it reads best with a dark base, a mid bronze and a small, controlled highlight rather than an all-over bright metal coat. Linen cuirass is a matte textile, so it needs softer transitions and a slightly desaturated tone; if you paint linen with the same high-contrast recipe as bronze, the two materials stop reading as different.

This is also where pose variety affects your plan. Figures thrusting spears overhead expose more of the torso and armpit area, while upright spear poses hide more of the body behind the shield and the man in front. Decide your front rank before you start so you can put the strongest armour work on the most exposed figures.

Shield faces: the part that defines the unit

The shield is the largest flat area on a 28mm hoplite and the main place a unit's identity shows. Keep the design simple enough to repeat by hand across many figures: a broad field colour, one or two bold bands or a single motif, and a clean rim. Complex freehand on every shield slows a unit to a crawl and rarely survives the ranked view.

If you use transfers for shield designs, apply them after the shield base colour is fully dry and before you varnish the figure. Check the transfer sits flat over any curvature and seal the edges, because a lifted edge is far more visible on a shield than on a cloak.

Step-by-step: painting a 28mm Greek hoplite

Clean and prime in a dark tone: Remove mould lines, then prime dark grey or dark brown rather than bright white. A dark prime gives bronze a natural shadow base and stops linen from looking chalky. Check the spear hand and shield arm joints for flash before priming; they are hard to reach later.
Block in skin and tunic: Paint exposed skin and the tunic under the armour first, keeping skin tones slightly varied between figures for a natural unit. Leave the armour areas untouched. Keep tunic colours within two or three choices across the unit so the phalanx reads as one body.
Build the bronze armour: Base the helmet and bronze armour in a dark bronze, layer a mid bronze over the raised areas, and add a small bright edge highlight on the helmet dome, cheek pieces and greaves. Keep highlights tight rather than covering the whole surface. If the bronze looks flat, the fix is a darker base coat, not more bright highlight.
Paint the linen cuirass: Base the linen in an off-white or natural tone, shade the folds with a slightly darker, desaturated wash, then bring back the raised folds with the base colour. Keep the contrast lower than on the bronze. Compare the linen and bronze side by side; if they look equally shiny, the linen contrast is too high.
Paint the shield base and rim: Base the shield face in your chosen field colour and paint the rim in bronze or a dark leather tone. Let it dry fully before adding any design or transfer. Paint the rim before the design so you can clean up the design edge against a finished rim.
Add the shield design or transfer: Apply a simple repeated motif by hand or a transfer, then seal the edges. Keep the same design across the unit unless you are deliberately marking different contingents. Test one shield completely before committing the design to the rest of the batch.
Finish the crest and spear: Paint the helmet crest in a strong colour that contrasts with the shield field, then paint the spear shaft and tip. Keep the crest colour consistent within a rank. A crest colour that matches the shield field will blur together at table distance; pick a contrast.

The figures you are painting

Greek Hoplites: The Greek Hoplites set contains 48 figures and can be posed advancing or charging with thrusting spears or swords, with upright spear options for easier ranking. With 48 figures in one box, a repeatable, batch-friendly painting order matters more than per-figure perfection.
Greek Hoplites