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!

Space Marine sniper Scouts

Next item up for painting in my ever expanding Space Marines army is my sniper scout squad. These guys are cheap (at least point-wise) and once stuffed away inside a building they can become quite a hassle. This makes them great at camping Objectives. Furthermore, the models are really nice with some good details, although a few of them are slightly to similar. I opted to leave the weapons off the model at first to better be able to paint the aquila emblem...

Here are the guys after being spray-painted with Chaos Black. One of the guys has been magnetized so I can switch his upper torso with the missile-launcher dude should I want some more oompf! from the squad.

As these guys are not full Space Marines yet and hence don't wear power-armor they pose a different paint-job as they are sporting way more cloth. I decided to use Dheneb stone for those bits as it gives a slightly off-white / worn look:

Secondly the armor-pieces was painted as usual using Macragge Blue:

As an under-layer for the gold aquila I painted Calthan Brown, followed by Shining Gold. The faces were painted Kislev Flesh:

The faces were the shaded using a thinned down Bestigor Flesh and eyes painted black and white:

I then line highlighted the black leather bits (mainly boots and belts) using Dawnstone and painted the bases using a watered down Scorched Brown:

As they chests were now finished the guns were glued on:

To start of the Camo cloaks they were painted with a 50:50 mix of Abadon Black and Dawnstone

followed by a wash with black ink and drybrushed with Dawnstone and then Administratum Grey. This is clearly the easy way around camo-patterns but at this point I have so many other model I wanna paint that I chose the fastest method...

Finally in a last surge of painting over the weekend I finished the models and got to caught up in painting to remember to take any pics. Below is the almost finished results with many MANY details added. First the blue armor has been line highlighted with first Ultramarine Blue followed by a 50:50 mix of Ultramarine Blue and Administratum Grey. The guns are highlighted with thin lines of Leadbelcher and lenses (on both visors and guns) are painted green, while the sniper rifles power-cables are given some nice bright colors as well. Last, the Ultramarines symbol is free-handed on the visible shoulder-pads:

Finally, the base rim is painted Steel Legion Drab and static grass is added for that final touch...

All in all some really enjoyable models and a results which I'm quite proud of :D

Space Marine Dreadnaught

It's finally time to finish my last Space Marine model from the Assault on Black Reach box (not considering the captain which I wont be playing with due to much better HQ choices), the big and chunky Dreadnaught! 

He's big and mean, but thankfully it's only one model, so effectively it didn't take me that long to paint... :) Several months ago he was put together, based with some sand and spray painted black. The first step was to get to work on the metal bits (which there are quite many of) and paint them Boltgun Metal / Leadbelcher. 

This was followed by a layer of Macragge Blue. The paint was thinned down quite heavily and applied in at least 3-4 layers to give a nice smooth finish...

 Then all metal parts were washed with Bedab Black and all tubes were painted red (Mechrite). The base was also painted using a few heavily thinned down layers of Scorched Brown.

The remaining metals bits were painted using Dwarf Bronze, while the skulls were first painted grey, then white and finally washed with a thinned down black wash...

 I opted not to do any free hand painting on this guy and instead used a few decals for two Ultramarines symbols and a skull...

Finally, the base and feet+legs were drybrushed with Calthan Brown and Bleached Bone. Additional details were finished and the whole model highlighted with Ultramarine Blue. Finally I had a go with some weathering on the armor, drybrushing/dabbing some Leadbelcher randomly over the model...

Although the model is still missing the last bit of weathering (and maybe some highlights), I will leave it for now and come back to the model once I have gotten a bit more experience with this. I do after all have some more armor and vehicles waiting for me, so stay tuned for some updates soon! :D