Old Stuff Wednesday - September: The old Ultra-boring-Marine

In smurf blue....

Circa May, 2004.  Not my first painted stuff but close to it.  This is actually one of the first pieces that I painted for a paint competition.  I really did not know back then what to do in painting.  For an early piece it holds up pretty well in my opinion as I copied I think some painting by Bobby Wong (whatever happened to him????)

Sheesh what an ugly base, looks like Goblin Green.

Above some of the details.  The sword was just the beginning of me painting power swords like that.

And below the backside of the model.  I believe I had used some Higgins blue drafting ink for the recessed blue areas in the armor.

I sold this model years ago to someone.  I apologize to that the person that bought it.  LOL.

Old Stuff Wednesday - August: Crimson Fist Captain

 Somewhere around 2007.  I bought several of these metal Captain models a long time ago.  I the intention to include them in my Cerulean Templars army, but never did.  Then in 2006-7, I painted a number of one off pieces up just for fun.  I later sold the bulk of them. 

I remembered long ago painting a blue power sword with crackling energy and I definitely wanted to do that again.  I think this sword turned out pretty good.  I carried the color scheme over to the plasma pistol.

 My favorite color is blue, so I'm a sucker for cool looking blue schemes and consequently have always felt that I paint blue very well.  And having painted lots of Khorne over the years I think my painting of red gets a good depth and vibrancy in the color.  I did hand paint the crimson fist symbol on the open shoulder pad.

I also hand painted it on the backpack.

Wish I would have done something different with the base.  That was a bit of a let down.

I also hand painted the skull on the knee pad.  Its a fun model and cool pose.

Until next time keep painting and building models.....

Old Stuff Wednesday - July: Black Templar Dreadnought 2

Circa 2004.  This is the third Dreadnought that I had painted.  I already had one for my Cerulean Templars and really did not need another.  So after painting the old metal one in a Black Templar scheme, I decided to do this one in the same style, with the additional arms.  The plastic dread is much nicer to paint than the old metal dread.  After I finished this I sold it to someone.

Below is the assault cannon arm, I really like the two tone cross on the armor.  I think that is a really cool way to do crosses.

 Nothing spectacular in the back.

 I did the stripes on the other arm, similar to the previous dread.

 The front has alot of cool details.  I do wish I had done the lenses in a color different from the icons and missile warheads.

It was a fun project.

Old Stuff Wednesday - June: Black Templar Dreadnought

Circa: May 2004.  All the years that I have been doing this, I believe I have only painted three dreadnoughts.  That is quite strange since I really like Dreadnoughts.  Not only that this is one of the very few miniatures that I have painted on commission.  I essentially never paint on commission, nowadays, I would not even consider painting on commission unless it was an amount that could not refuse.  I cannot justify the time that it takes and most people are not willing to pay me the amount that I would ask for anyways.

So this is basically, I think, the third Black Templar that I have ever painted.  Did I tell you that I dislike painting black and white?  Oh that's right I did, but I do like the iconography.

 I also did this in the so-called NMM paint style.  This was the old metal model, based on a plastic dread base.

I do think the stripes held break up all of that black.  The red lenses really jump out.

 Below is a close-up of the front.  I do love painting crusader like crosses.

 

Old Stuff Wednesday - May: Black Templar on a Rock

Circa May 2004.  This is one of the few Black Templar Space Marines that I have ever painted.  I did a test piece prior to this for my Space Marine Templars and soon figured out that I did not like painting black and white, so I changed my color scheme to blue and white.  Later on I was commissioned to do a Black Templar dreadnought, so I painted this piece as a color scheme test.

 Not sure what I was thinking with that rock on the base, a piece of baked super sculpy.

 I still think this power sword really turned out cool.

I used to do collages of photos.

The back of the mini sported my stark highlight scheme, again from my Cerulean Templars.

Yea that rock looks dumb.  The tabbard was a sculpt by me, and not a very good one.  The black highlights look pretty decent.  I no longer have this miniature in my collection, as I sold it years ago.

Old Stuff Wednesday - April: Blood Angel OSL

Circa April 2004.  I believe this is the only Blood Angel Space Marine that I have ever painted.  I fondly remember doing this as an experiment around the time when light sourcing was just really taking off on miniatures, and seemed to be the cool thing to do.  Well I think its still a cool thing to do. 

I borrowed the so-called NMM techniques that I used on my beastmen in 2003 and the red scheme.  I also used a bit more subtle highlight scheme from Cerulean Templar Spacemarine army.

 Back then I really struggled with bone colors in painting.

The pick below I think is really cool.  The green glow effect that I did back then was a series of drybrushes from dark to light green.

Another angle.  If I remember right, I did go back and paint in some sharper green highlights.

Red and green always work well in my opinion.  This was a cool experiment.  The miniature is no longer in my collection as I sold it years ago.

Another Space Wolf Conversion

 Space Wolves for me are always fun, much like chaos and Black Templars.  You can do so much with them and there is so much good visual reference material out there for them.

I used this back banner mainly because I like back banners and also because of the runic symbols.  When I think of Space Wolves I think of Norse.

I don't use cork very open, but when I do, it gives a neat effect on the base.  And it paints up well.  I normally seal the broken edges of the cork with a thin and fast superglue.

I love doing drapings and sculpting fur.  The claws are not hard to do either.

Fun project that I shipped out and no longer have cluttering up my desk.

Converting the Old Space Marine Captain

I've always kind of liked this miniature.  It has a rather cool looking pose.  Having done this miniature several times I decided to convert this one and make it look a bit different.  So I added a new hair cut, a plasma pistol, an auspex and some draping to the back pack.

 I think it turned out the way I envisioned it.

And as much is the norm for my 40k modeling, someone is going to be painting it as I sold it to someone already.

Until next time.....

Space Marine Hero Conversion

 I built this model a while back for a friend.  He supplied the pieces, and he wanted a big tabard and some other conversion work done.

So I made the tabard and repositioned the pistol arm.  The head is a berserker head trimmed down and modified.  I added the berserker head on the backpack, and thought it was appropriate.

 I left everything in pieces to make it easier for him to paint. 

Fun little conversion after doing so many Vikings.

My new 40k Space Marine Army begins....

.....Slowly.  I'm so disenchanted with Warhammer Fantasy 8th edition, that I'm planning a return to 40k.  A game, I essentially, with the exception of playing a short team-up with Greg in Green Bay, last played just about 10 years ago.

So after my move I found all my loyalist space marine parts and began thinking about the army a bit.  It will certainly be a DIY Chapter, much in the vein of my Cerulean Templar army, except this time they will be red and not blue.  In my past experience, I never really had the firepower with that army as it was geared to close combat, overly so.  So this time there will be lots of marines with bolters.  So how do you make your army a bit different, dig through your bitz box.

In the digging I found an older boltgun like the one in the upper left, and I think a kill team bolter to the right of that (I have a bunch of those). 

Then I found some extra long bolters that I built long ago, and the metal one towards the bottom.  Still not enough diversity, so I will do some with drum magazines.  And then I found a bunch of flamers, so with a little bit of time today, I created the four boltgun you see in the center, using flamers, a bolt gun, and left over 40k ork bits from building my fantasy orc army. 

It's a start.  Its amazing how you forget what you have, as I found I had two Forgeworld Dreadnoughts in addition to a bunch of vehicles.  Much more to come on this army build. 

And no I'm not quiting fantasy as I still plan to build and paint the Chaos army and Orc army. 

Hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving.

A 40k Cerulean Templar finished...First in a Decade

It has been a long time since I painted a space marine. It’s been a decade since I painted a marine for my Cerulean Templar 40k army.


We had a local contest, where we were given a model to paint and convert, and so I ended up with a mismatched set of bits for a plastic scout sniper. The problem was the torso was for the kneeling shooter and the legs were for the standing scout. So the solution was simple, wip out a quick conversion as I really did not have time to spare with the contest deadline, to cover up the problem. This meant converting a base, urban rubble to match my old army, and piece of GS on the cape.

I decided that I may as well do an urban camo pattern for the cape, since he is a sniper.

I’ve been doing so much Fantasy and Ancients/Historicals lately that it was refreshing to paint a 40k Space Marine. I’ve nearly forgotten how much fun a space marine is to paint.


Been thinking lately about doing another space marine army. I may have to revist the Medieval Space Marine theme or possibly do a Word Bearer army.