March for Macrage '24 (Part 5)

 Here's the final miniature I was able to finish for the March For Macragge challenge. I completed him, well actually I painted the entire model, on March 30th. This was such an easy and satisfying miniature to paint. 

For the sake of brevity I won't blather on about the painting steps unless it's something I've not chronicled elsewhere. For example the steps for painting the cloak was discussed when I revealed the Eliminators. 

Basecoats.

The sword was an interesting departure. Perhaps I was inspired by a recent game I had against Necrons. No, not the  necrons themselves but my Deathwatch Librarian. When I painted him I made his force sword all green and glowy and during that game, I kind of realized how much I like it. 

Stepping out to smite the foe! 

So of course I replicated it on this guy. I painted the tip and the  runes on the blade using Moot Green. Then lightly applied Straken Green in layers to make a sort of faded effect before then adding a glaze of Tesseract Glow. The. I finished it off with a highlight of Stormhost Silver. 

Green and glowy.

This was such a quick model to paint. Before I knew it, I was slapping down the tufts! I was, and still am a little bit, tempted to paint his eyes with a electrical blue effect, but decided against it.

The finished model.

Peaking out from the cloak you can see a hint of his chapter icon. I free-hand painted this as trying to get a decal to work right might have driven me over the edge. I am pleased with how it turned out considering how subtle it is. If hadn't I would likely have just left blue. 

Another view of the sword. 

I decided at the last minute to keep his book black. The idea of a guy running around with a "little black book" amuses me and it's kind of a nod to the WHFB Dwarves of old.

The little black book.

Here he is joined up with the unit I will most likely join him up with. It's not just because they've coordinated their wardrobe, but the mutual benefits in the current edition of the game are quite good. 

Killing with friends. 

Hopefully we can get hims, and all the rest of my #MarchForMacragge models, on to the table top soon! 

Rest & Recovery Models

 A week ago I was released from the hospital  (yay!) But with a lame primary arm. (Boo). You can see more details on all of that in the previous post.. I couldn't paint or draw,  but I could, carefully, build models. As you might be aware, my pile of unbuilt kits is somewhat overwhelming and it's nice to find time to build some of  them even though the circumstances suck. It was relaxing actually and helped take my mind off things. 

Primaris invasion! 

So what did I build? Well, mostly all of the marines from my Imperium Magazine collection. Starting with a squad of Eliminators. Although technically I haven't finished building them yet as their gums and backpacks cover up a lot of details I need to be able to reach with my paint brush. So I will finish their build-outs as I paint them. 

Snipers! 

Next came the Primaris Lieutenant in Phobos Armour. I think he'll be a perfect leader for my Reivers. Even though he's not  nearly as terrorifying despite his big-ass knife. 

Lt. with scary mask envy.

The next unit that was assembled was  a rather large unit of Infiltrators. I think these models are rather bad-ass and I am very impressed with their poses and details. 

Does he  have a wrist mounted ...TV? 

"Yeah, anyway where was I?"

Pew pew.

I followed that up with the assembly of a Primaris Librarian with the cameoline cloak. I'm thinking that this guy might be fun to stick with the Eliminators since clearly they shop at the same military surplus outlet. 

Librarian Excedrin.  

Next came a squad of Assault Intercessors. I was careful to make sure not to use the same head on the Sergeant to distinguish him from the first squad of these guys that I have already built. 

Assault Intercessors Squad 2.

While building these guys I happened to review their army list to see that the Sergeant can have a different load out which inspired me to assemble the next squad of Assault Intercessors with a very kit-bashed Sergeant.  His head comes from the Ultramarines  Upgrade Sprue, the thunderhammer is from the old Vanguard kit, and his hand flamer is the classic one from the early '90s Space Marine accessory sprue.  I think I dig him! 

"I will set them on fire then beat 'em with my hammer!"

The final guy to be assembled (mostly) during this construction spree was the Ancient. This is the one from the 8th edition launch box that I later found on ebay.  I prefer him over the one that GW currently sells in a claim shell pack. For a guy called "the Chaper Ancient" I thought it made since for him to have a helmet that reflected this concept. Also it's a call-back to the first Ultramarine models my brother I built back in '89 from the classic RTB01 kit. I left his banner detached at this time because I think it'll be easier to paint. 

"C"mon gimme a hand." 

All of these models will most likely get their own threads and posts here on the Chronicle at some point, either later this year or decade. But for now I'm celebrating getting so many models off of their sprues and frames and upright and sort of playable. Meanwhile, now that my wrist is starting to feel better I need to get back to the drawing board and focus on my 2-D art. 

Leviathan Terminator Librarian (Part 4)

We have arrived to the finale of this saga. 

To date, I think this is my best painted Ultramarine model. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. Although I can see room for improvement, which is encouraging  and it will push me to do even better next time. 

In particular I think the psychic energy on the armor could've turned out more brilliantly. I think this is due to how I used the '90s Ultramarines Blue on top of the Macrage Blue which is a brighter result than the examples I reviewed when I started this guy. 

I decided to not have the runes glowing on the book, since I think it's obviously a tool not being used by this model in the moment. 

The most frustrating part of this whole model, yes even more than dealing with repairing the axe after the cat broke it, was the chapter decal. The one you see here is the final one. The first one sort of broke apart when I attempted to apply gloss ('ard Coat) to the decal after I used Microset on it.  After scraping off the whole decal I was able to get it to work the second time. 

I have definitely been spoiled by Guillman Fleshwash, it has completely transformed how I paint skin tones, especially faces.  I have seen examples of this model painted so that it's eyes are glowing the same color as the psychic effects on the armor and axe. Which is a pretty sweet way to tie it altogether. But I was happy with the model at this point and opted out of missing around with the face.

The next thing to do is to put him, securely, into a box and ship him off to Seattle! Hopefully he'll conquer whatever shelf/desk he comes to occupy.  I have to confess, if I can find time for a game I would love to get this guy into a battle report, but those odds are still low...

UPDATE:

The model made to Jay successfully and intact! Hooray for that victory! 

Leviathan Terminator Librarian (Part 3)

 Continuing on from parts One and Two it was time for the psychic glow stage. Referencing a GW painting tutorial after I had went and bought paints I found that somehow I still bought the wrong one. I was supposed to get Baharroth Blue but instead bought Hoeth Blue. The names were just too elfy I guess. I also picked up two Contrast Paints that I thought might work also: Pylar Glacier and Briar Queen Chill. Both of these look like they would look amazing on this model the Pylar Glacier being the one closest to Baharroth Blue. 

Choices. 

I went for the Pylar Glacier. I applied two layers as it does run a bit thin. And I think it turned out alright. 

Glowy psi power.

I am particularly pleased with how well the effect worked on the outstretched hand. 

Hand blasting for the win! 

I am also found of how well it seemed to work on the runic script on the paldrons. 

Runes of power! 

Almost a week went by before I could back to it but before I could calamity ensued. Or is it CATlamity? One of my more adventurous cat decided to explore my hobby table and when Mrs. Neverness attempted to intervene he wrecked almost everything in his mad dash to escape. Surprisingly, only one model was damaged and it just happens to be this one. The axe head busted off and I found it under the living room couch. 

Disarmed by a cat.

So this project is temporarily stalled while I fix the axe. Hopefully it'll be restored without too much effort in Part 4 of this series...

Leviathan Terminator Librarian (Part 2)

 Here is more work-in-progress on this chap continuing on from the last post.  In this first pic I added some more white ink, mostly to the hand. White was added to the skull on the ground as well as this dude's face. Base coats were also applied to the purity seals also. 

Guliman Flesh Contrast Paint was washed over the face. This is probably my favorite of the Contrast Paints, it never fails to give me the results that I want. The tubes that run down his sides got a coat of White as well. Macrage Blue layered onto the armor at this stage. 

For this next step I used Retributor Gold on the ornamentation that adorns this majestic suit. On the armor I once again telied on my mid-'90s Ultramarines Blue. That is still the best paint for Ultramarines, you can't convince me otherwise. 

Contrast paints were used on the tubes. I think this was a good choice, as the colors really pop and it took little time to accomplish. The skull was give a cost or two of Skeleton Horde Contrast Paint. I live that color also. I am thinking about trying it out on a Deathwing Terminator that I have hanging around to see how well it will work, but that's for another time.

Most of you probably tuned in to see if I pulled off the Psychic energy painting, and I am sorry to say that hasn't happened yet. Mostly due to me not having the proper paint color (or even a good analog for it). 30 years in this hobby and I simply didn't have those colors.. So I eventually made it to a game store and picked up a few that should do the trick. I will attempt that in the next part of this series which, hopefully, will see this guy wrapped up. 

Until then, have a merry one! 

Leviathan Terminator Librarian (Part 1)

 

Freshly assembled. 

My brother's birthday was back in August, and all he asked for from me was a painted Terminator Librarian painted in Ultramarines colors. Long-time readers might recall that he passed his old Ultramarines army to me about ten years ago. This was his primary army back when we played together (1st thru 3rd editions of WH40k).  Having a cool model to display in his office was something that he's wanted for a while now. 

Gritted up and Prined. 

And his most successful hero from that time had to be his Chief Librarian in Terminator Armor. The model he used was the original plastic one that we got in the RTB16 Terminators and Tyranids boxed set. I was up to the challenge, and at the time the 10th edtion launch box, Leviathan, was still quite fresh from it's recent launch, so I was able to acquire the Terminator Librarian from eBay with relative ease. 

Base coat on the armor.

This model has got to be the best Terminator Librarian model ever. And I was a big fan of some of the older versions. But painting those runic recesses with psychicly charged energy was immediately intimidating. I stalled myself by deciding that I needed to freshen up my Ultramarines paint scheme, this is why I pushed my Assault Intercessors up in the queue. During this time I found an inspiring tutorial on how to do the pychicly charged runes on the Terminator armor. I have seen a lot tutorials that used inks that seemed to flow off of the brush into the grooves of whatever model they were working on. They made it look easy. So much so that I figured I would give it a shot myself. I figured I would this model, using that technique  as I didn't see many other alternatives that I liked. 

Real white ink. 

I had some white ink in my art supplies that I use for my 2-D B/W art that thought might do the trick. This stuff was a bit thick so I added a dot of water to my mix to get the flow I wanted, but not so thin so as to undermine it's opaque nature.

White ink applied.

And that's as far as I have gotten with him. As I waited for the ink to dry, other matters called me to attention. But I wanted to share some sort of progress with you all, so here it is. My goal is to try to get this guy done by Christmas but it's feeling unrealistic.  Maybe by New Year''s Day so he can make the 2023 year-end review? We'll see...

Deathwatch: Kill Team Neverness (Part 3)

Deathwatch Epistolary.

 In spite of the strain on my free time these past few weeks I have managed to paint up another member of this Deathwatch Kill Team. I started this guy way back when the Deathwatch were featured in an early 4th edition Chapter Approved article in White Dwarf 306. Back then this guy was going to be the squad's leader but now he's an Independent Character again. Which, ultimately, makes a lot more sense to me.

Seems like forever since he saw any more paint.

I tightened up and darkened up some of the armored areas.  But the main thing I want to talk about here is the energy effect on the force sword. I base coated this using Game Color Livery Green. Honestly, I was tempted to leave it like this as it worked really well at this step.

Livery Green base coat on force sword.

But I wanted to stick with my plan so down of center of this effect I painted on Apple Barrel Colors Kiwi. Down the middle of that I added a line of Nurgling Green. This was turning out well but definitely a bright departure from the Livery Green. So I topped it off with a strategic application of Tesseract Glow. I defined the blade edge afterwards using Mithereal Silver. A thinned layer of Tesseract Glow over that gave the blade an interesting sheen.

Tesseract Glow on the force sword.

I had always intended this Librarian to be from the Ultramarines chapter. And now it's official. At least my crude attempt at freehand painting on the Ultramarines icon on the backplate of his backpack says so. 

Ultramarines icon.

Throughout the painting of this model I would find a detail I was unsure of and I would find the solution by referring to the picture of this miniature from the 2nd Ed Ultramarines Codex. The lack of a "random red thing" throughout my painting of this guy really makes him seem gritty and serious compared to the example found in that codex! 

Side view of the blade.

After some grass tufts, and a few lines of brown Micron added to his scroll work,  he was finished off with some protective dull coat. 

Finished!

And I am happy to report he is finally finished and ready to join in with the rest of his Ordo Xenos brethren as they accompany Inquisitor Draco to this year's Inquisitional Conclave.