My first painted miniature of 2016

...is a Space Marine. Bit of a departure for me, since most of the stuff I've painted so far has been fantasy rather scifi. I've never painted a Space Marine before, but I have boxes and boxes of them, and they kept looking at me. I'd also been investigating the latest Games Workshop paint ranges and I noticed there were some recommendations for painting an Ultramarine, so I thought I'd give it a go.

Here he is:

The figure in question is what has been labelled a "Transition Marine". They are composed of a bunch of armour mark variants and were sculpted in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

I decided on the following colour scheme for the armour, following GW's recommendation: Macragge Blue base, Altdorf Guard Blue layer, Calgar Blue layer and edge highlight, with a very slight edge highlight of some GW grey that I forget (I think it was Astronomican Grey?). I glazed with a few layers of Guilliman Blue. I used this neat, but a chap working at GW Nottingham suggested I should mix it 1:1 with Lahmian Medium, and about 7 parts of water. Or was it 4 parts? I forget. Anyway, I'll give that a bash next time.

I went for a very retro look on the chainsword. All in all I'm pleased with how he's turned out, and I thimk I'll be painted more of these intergalactic peace-keepers...(!)

Blood Angel next!

Unreleased female Space Marine (1993): the Bryan Ansell collection

During the time I've spent trawling through Bryan Ansell's collection of Citadel Miniatures castings, looking for unusual and unreleased figures, I've uncovered a few gems. The feature of today's post is certainly one of them!

From 1993 I present to you an unreleased female Space Marine:

Bryan Ansell's Rogue Trader Space Marines: part 3

If you've seen my previous posts on this subject (Part 1 and Part 2) then you'll already be aware that Bryan has some wonderful old Rogue Trader Space Marines in his collection, most of which were painted by the 'Eavy Metal team and appeared in various publications of the time. So today I present some more for your delectation.

The Bryan Ansell collection: Space Marine Scouts (Rogue Trader era)

Just a quickie today to showcase some of the painted Games Workshop/Citadel Miniatures Space Marine scouts in Bryan Ansell's collection. A mixture of metal and plastic (from the Advanced Space Crusade set). Some of the plastic scouts are particularly well-painted, and the metal scouts look great with the face paint!

The Tim Pollard collection: unreleased Space Marine with guitar

It is not known if this Space Marine was ever intended for release, or if it was simply an in-house cast. The front of the tab is labelled "MARINE" and the rear "GW 1987". I've looked through my back catalogue of Rogue Trader era Space Marines and I can't find any obvious candidate for a donor figure, so it's possible that this is a completely new sculpt. If anyone spots a potential donor then please leave a message. Slaanesh had their Noise Marines - is there anything in the fluff of the period that mentions Space Marines wielding guitars? Not that I'm aware of.

So here he is: pretty crude, but great fun!

The Tim Pollard collection: unreleased multi-part Space Marine metal kit

Back in the Rogue Trader era Games Workshop produced the RTB01 Space Marines, a boxed set of multipart Space Marines in plastic. They were and still are today a very popular kit. Multipart kits of Space Marines following the RTB01 model with multiple options of heads, bodies, arms, guns, knives, backpacks etc were only produced in plastic, right? Well it seems not. At least one multipart Space Marine set was produced entirely in metal, but was never released. Fortunately it was discovered in Tim Pollard's collection:

Bryan Ansell's Rogue Trader Space Marines: part 2

Back in July I published the first pics of some of the Rogue Trader era Space Marines in Bryan Ansell's collection, and focussed on some of the earliest Space Marines that went into production. Today's post concerns some of the figures in Bryan's collection which made it into the Space Marines Painting Guide, which appeared in White Dwarf 119. I've added a link to the Guide at the bottom of the post.

Have a read of the "Medic's gesture of respect to his fallen Brothers" under the Salamanders' section of the painting guide; could someone please tell me what the following means: "he used his left arm to hold his carnifex". It makes no sense to me!

As per usual, if anyone can name the painters of these figures please leave a comment. Thanks!

The Bryan Ansell collection: Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader Adventurers and Forces of the Imperium

These guys were produced in 1988 and made their appearance in painted form in White Dwarf 99. Sadly Bryan's collection does not appear to be complete; the remainder may yet to be found in his collection, or may have been scattered to the four corners of the galaxy.

Bryan Ansell's Rogue Trader Space Marines: part 1

Looking at my blog archive, I can't believe I haven't written anything as yet in July, despite the fact I have a ton of photos. Time does slip away. I'm aiming to make amends for that over the next couple of weeks with several pic-filled posts for your delectation. I shall start with a subject which I don't recall having addressed to date with my blog posts, or indeed in my Bryan Ansell gallery: Rogue Trader Space Marines. Bryan has a wonderful collection of these, and it will take me several posts to cover them all. I promise you though it will be worth waiting for; hang around and you'll get to see some female space marines as you've never seen them before!

Now, although I still buy White Dwarf and attend the occasional event at Warhammer World in Nottingham, I have to confess I'm not entirely clued-up with the modern era fluff. I couldn't for example, give you a detailed breakdown of how many of the original Rogue Trader Space Marine chapters have survived to today. Ultramarines, Space Wolves, Blood Angels, Dark Angels - hard to miss the likes of those of course. But what of chapters such as the Rainbow Warriors? Do they still exist in some footnote in a contemporary codex? Given that a number of figures I'm about to present bear colour schemes which may not be familiar to some readers with more contemporary tastes, I thought it might be worth revisiting some of the chapters that were illustrated in the first edition of Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader:

Above: from Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader 1987.