A Week in Miniatures: June 20 to June 26

I've been remiss in getting these entries done.  So let's catch up with everything since June 6th...

I pulled out my Heavy Gear Blitz models to work on, which resulted in a lot of stripping and rebasing.  The 25mm hex bases just don't plain fit most of the models.  So in accordance with the Heavy Gear Blitz living Rulebook, I rebased them.  Most of the models ended up on 32mm bases, while some of the bigger gears ended up on 40mm.  Honestly I prefer it that way because these are mostly metal models and need a bit bigger base so they don't fall over as much.  The Mammoth gets a nice 60mm base to play around on.

A pair of Northern Tigers for Heavy Gear Blitz.

Ultramarine Sergeant

I also worked on the Ultramarines.  Not much to say here other than they're so much simpler to paint than anything else I've been working on in recent months.  The Kantor Blue -> Macragge Blue -> Altdorf Guard Blue progression for the armor looks fantastic in my opinion.  I also utilized some of the latest paints in the Games Workshop arsenal for some bits and bobs.  Specifically the new metals and the gemstone technicals.  On the Ultramarines, they got used for scope lenses and teeny tiny gemstones.  For those who aren't familiar with the technique, you put down one of the new metallic colors (in my case I used Stormhost Silver) as your base layer, then carefully put on one of the gemstone technicals.  The results are pretty nice over smaller areas such as a tiny gem set in a Crux Terminatus pendant, but larger areas (such as the bolter scope lense) tend to be a bit blotchy.

Kastellan Robot with Alpha Legion Helmet

However, I did experiment with them further to achieve an effect seen on Forge World's Alpha Legion paint scheme.  We're talking about that colored metallic kind of blue-green.  According to a buddy of mine, they basically painted the entire thing with a bright silver then applied blends of Tamiya clear colors over that.  That sounds a lot like the new gemstone technique that Games Workshop is promoting, right?  I finally got off my butt to try it out.  I started with a nice solid coat of Stormhost Silver (since it is the best covering bright silver that I possess at the moment).  My thought process was that the recesses weren't going to get dark enough, so I gave the area a wash of Biel-Tan Green to knock it down.  It didn't really work all that well, but it did provide some unexpected benefits.  Because the next thing I did was start putting on the Spiritstone Blue and Waystone Green, and what the Biel-Tan Green did was draw the thick glossy paints into the recesses and break the surface tension.  The result was that the high points of the helm were left more silvery.  After letting the whole thing dry a good long while, I 'highlighted' the still silver areas with some of the Waystone Green.  The results came out pretty good for an experiment.

Mr. Beeg Hed

I managed to finish a second Ultramarine figure, and I have a few things to say about Space Marine heads as a consequence.  The unhelmeted heads are proportioned to the armor, not what you'd expect the guy inside to be.  So they look huge and totally out of proportion.  Before you say that the helmets are just as big; you're right!  They are.  The problem is that the heads should be smaller than the helmets are.  The helmets you can write off the bulk to being armor.  Unless the Space Marines are running around with giant scary Briton masks, the unhelmeted heads are just too big.  There's no wonder that the artists make the heads so much smaller than the models would indicate.

I'll conclude this blog with an old group photo of my Ultramarines infantry.  I'll try to take a big family photo or the Stormcasts and Ultramarines this week to put on next week's blog entry.

Over 2000 points of Heresy-era Ultramarines.