Space Marine Heroes: Celestial Lion Sgt. (Part 1)

Assembling of a hero...

Hello. Way back in the winter of 2018 (it's been a long year for me) I bought a Space Marine Heroes Sergeant from Ebay. At the time this range was exclusive to Japan so he made for a cool rarity to have. Also with the arrival of the Primaris range of Space Marines, the classic style of Space Marine didn't seem likely to ever see any additional releases. And I wanted this guy to lead a unit of Ultramarines that I wanted to build around the color scheme test miniature I painted in the summer of 2017.

Materials included with the Japanese release.

Fast forward to now, and this range has been mostly relaunched for the rest of the world. I say "mostly" because some of the Japanese miniatures are simply not part of this release. Those "missing" miniatures have been recast in uniquely colored plastic and included in a game you can get from Barnes & Noble (tip: get a B&N coupon!) if you really must have these guys.

The release for my part of the world.

 So I bought a few boxes, and as my luck typically runs, the first box I open is another Sergeant!

The sprue right from the box.

Clearly I had options available to me, but the one I decided to go with is to make him into another Celestial Lions Sergeant. I made my Celestial Lions for the previous incarnation of Kill Team, and if my schedule ever allows it, I hope to use them for the current version as well. Having an alternative Sgt doesn't seem at all like a bad idea to me, and who knows, maybe I can now break them into two smalls squads for allies or something in a proper 40K game? Regardless, options are good!

Primed and (mostly) basecoated!

So I started with basecoating the sprue with a gold spray paint. Pretty simple way to start. Then I detached the parts and focused on the base first. Applebarrel Graphite for the rocks and Terracotta for the dirt.

Coats for the base. Basecoats. 

Next up it was an application of Chaos Black to the areas that will be metallic or black. These are the joins between the armor, weapons etc.

The parts are gathered and basecoated. 

Next I used Chestnut Ink in the armor recesses to create depth in the tone. I then applied a dark blue to the shoulder and knee pad areas. I'm a bit torn on how to paint the leather loin cloth strappy thing... going to have to think about as well as which head I want to use. And I am also wondering if I should do something different with the chainsword this time also. Hopefully I have made up my mind in Part 2 and we can get this hero assembled.

Progress thus far.

Until then, thanks for checking out the start of this one.