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...