Space Marine Land Speeder

With a ton of models ready-build and just sitting in my cabinet waiting to get painted, it's getting harder and harder to decide which one to paint next. Clearly I need to start spending more time on painting and less on buying, building and modifying models :P

With the new Space Marine codex rumored to come out in September it would be great to have all my current units painted and ready before then, but that will require me to paint 5 Terminators, 10 Tactical Marines, 1 Drop Pod, 1 Rhino, 1 Aegis Defense Line + Quad-cannon and furthermore build and paint 7 Sternguard Veterans. But with the danish summer you never know how much time you get inside :D

For my current project I however decided to finally paint my Land Speeder, which have been sitting around for quite many months...

I decided to keep the two marines driving the thing out until I have the interior and them properly painted, as I hate looking "into" a model and see spots I can no longer reach and paint... As usual the model was spray coated Chaos Black, followed by Macragge Blue on the armor parts and Leadbelcher on the metal areas.

I then painted up the bald marine head along with their golden aquillas (chest-eagle). The remaining metal elements on the vehicle were also painted...

I got a little carried away with colours on the control panel, but in the end I think it looks quite nice. Even the stern Ultramarines surely like big coloured buttons :P All elements are glazed using Gloss Varnish to give them a shiny finish.

 The seats were painted a lovely Scorched Brown to give them an exclusive leather-look, and most gold elements were pre-painted with Calthan Brown to make the gold colour stick better.

I then proceeded to shade the entire vehicle and both marines using Drakenhof Nightshade. The metal areas were washed with Bedab Black. Both the underslung gun and the pintle-mounted one were painted with Leadbelcher and Dwarf Bronze. To ensure a nice crisp and white Ultramarines logo, I first painted it with Dawnstone.

And then Skull White :)

Finally, the two marine models were mounted in the vehicle...

To finish of the model I did some extensive highlighting. The metal areas were highlighted with thin strokes of Chainmail and the armored parts with Ultramarine Blue. To add an extra finish a second highlight was added with a 1:1 mix of Administratum Grey and Ultramine Blue. Below is a bunch of pictures of the finished result, which I, once again, am really proud off :D

While I have enjoyed painting this model I think I like painting smaller models more (but I still have a Drop Pod and a Rhino to do, so I might change my mind).
Now all that remains is to decide what to paint next, that is, after two weeks on Gran Canaria :D Either my Assault Terminators or my Rhino.We shall see...

Space Marine Terminator Chaplain

Wow! This one has certainly been a long time in the making... I originally bought this Chaplain together with my Librarian as part of my HQ, simply because the model looks AWESOME!

He did however look so awesome that I felt quite a bit intimidated by the painting-challenge he proposed and hence he's been standing around unpainted for quite some time (he was however prepped and glued quite early). As my confidence has grown I now felt certain I could make a satisfactory job of it, so here comes:

As he comes as a Finecast model he required quite a lot of preparation as the model was in really poor condition (many mold-lines, bobbles, voids etc). Here he is on his base (elevated slightly on two plastic washers) and with a little custom-made skull-display in front of him (my first real use of green-stuff).

Afterwards I glued sand to his base and spray-painted him Chaos Black. This was all done back in February.

As I usually start painting from the inside out, the first item to paint was the large amount of parchment scrolls all over this fella. They were painted with a 1:1 mix of Bleached Bone and Skull White. The base was also painted using a watered down Scorched Brown.

As he is to lead my Ultramarines army, the next bit was to paint his right shoulder-pad Macragge Blue. To get started on the white insignia's they were painted Administratum Grey and then washed with Bedab Black. 

To get a proper coverage with on the golden elements, these were first painted using Calthan Brown. His skull mask was carefully painted with a 1:2 mix of Bleached Bone and Skull White. Metal elements were simply painted with a layer of Leadbelcher.

I then started painting the gold elements with Shining Gold and gave the red elements (gems, eyes and wax-insignia's) a coat of Red Gore. 

The remaining gold elements were painted and all purity seals given a coat of Bleached Bone. The two angel insignia's (shoulder and chest) as well as his terminator honors (other shoulder) were very carefully line highlighted with Skull White. Lastly his the handle of his Crozius Arcanum (power-weapon) was painted with Red Gore.

Finally his gun was painted Red Gore and both gun, staff-handle, gems and was-insignia's were highlighted with Blood Red. All golden elements were washed with Devlan Mud. 

To finish the model off the base was drybrushed with Calthan Brown and then Bleached Bone. All black armour was line-highlighted with Dawnstone and all parchments and purity seals had some black scribbles added to emulate writing. Gold elements were highlighted with Shining Gold and metal elements with Mithril Silver. 

With many many hours spent on all the finer details of this miniature, I must admit this is my best model so far. I think the model itself is simply great and I really like the finished paint-job. Cant wait to have this bad-boy lead my marines against the xenos-filth of the galaxy!