El Viejo Dragon "Roman Optio" in 54mm scale

Its been a while since i painted a Roman! Unbelieveable! This time i painted a white metal figure from El Viejo Dragon in 54mm scale (1/32) representing a Roman Optio officer.
I wanted to paint this figure since i started with this genre but never got round to do that, either it was sold out or i found more interesting pieces instead. Well, finally i was able to paint the figure and as always i enjoyed it a lot. The overall level of detail of this figure can not quite be compared to figures of other, more expensive brands, but somewhere there must be the difference!

El Viejo Dragon is a manufacturer for white metal figures in various scales, they offer a big variety and are not as expensive as figures from other brands. If someone is interested in painting a figure i recommend to check out the ones from El Viejo Dragon.

The figure is painted with acrylic paints from Revell and Lifecolor, the shading was made with oil paints.

An optio (plural optiones; Latin: optio, optiōnēs, from optāre, "to choose", because an optio was chosen by his centurion), sometimes anglicized option (though rarely, to avoid confusion with "option"), was a soldier in the Roman army who held a position similar to that of an executive officer in modern armies. The optio seems to have held a rank roughly equivalent to that of a modern lieutenant, reflective of his status as the second in command of the century in which he served. The main function of an optio was as an optio centuriae, the second-in-command of a century, although there were many other positions an optio could hold.

Optiones were vital units in the Roman army. An optio was stationed at the rear of the ranks to keep the troops in order. Their duties would include enforcing the orders of the centurion, taking over the centurion's command in battle should the need arise, supervising his subordinates, and a variety of administration duties.

Optio pay was double the standard legionary pay and they were the most likely men to be promoted after the retirement, promotion or death of a centurion.

Unlike the centurion, the uniform was not the distinguishing part of the optio's uniform. The identifying part would be his helmet; this would have had plumes of horse hair or feathers on either side of his helmet that could be accompanied by a helmet crest.

An optio's armour would be more like those of the common legionary. He could wear the lorica segmentata or a lorica hamata as well as have his gladius on the right not left side. One thing that did separate him from the common legionary was the staff (called a hastile), which was used to keep the legionaries in line. This staff would be roughly as tall of the optio himself. Optiones often carried wax tablets on which they kept the orders of the day.

(Wikipedia)

I don´t own the rights for the music in this video.
Music: "Greco Roman" from the game "Civilisation III"