Miniature Monday 4/10/2017

Oh boy.  It's not that I haven't been doing things, it's that I've been incredibly lazy in updating this.  As a consolation, I'll publish a step by step guide to painting Carcharadons sometime this week.
First of all, I got back to painting Ultramarines.  And assembling them.  There's still a storage issue, but that's slowly getting solved.  Most of what I did was bulk assembly, so I won't bore you with the details as none of them were particularly impressive.

Ultramarine Legion Praetor

 I've shown the Ultramarine Praetor on this blog before, but he looks a lot more lively after the blue was finished and other colors were layered on.  There's still some gold to layer in, but the contrast of both colors makes the whole model pop.  The sword pommel busted off and fell into my pot of Macragge Blue, so it's been replaced with the pommel from a Stormcast Eternal weapon.

Ultramarine Legion Herald

I'll have to write up a guide to painting the Ultramarines at some point.  Not the first time I've said this, but doing so gives me an excuse to sit down and finish out one model from start to finish.  I am not sure if people would have the patience to paint things as carefully as I do though.  There's 34 paints involved, though many of those are spot colors for odd things.  There's about a baker's dozen of colors that make up the primary blocks of color.  The blue armor is Kantor Blue, Macragge Blue, and Altdorf Guard Blue.  The gold is largely just Retributor Armor, using Auric Armor Gold as a highlight if necessary.  The reds are really just Mephiston Red, Wazdakka Red, and Evil Sunz Scarlet.  Leadbelcher gets used for just about every gun metal component on the model, while Runefang Steel goes onto bolts and rivets for that extra pop.  Whites are composed of Administratum Grey, Pallid Wych Flesh, and White Scar.  The rest of the colors are primarily for incidental color or to push in shades.

Let's talk about the Ultramarine Legion Herald.  This was an exclusive model released by Forge World to Games Workshop retail shops.  The model is easy to put together, though that standard is fragile; I ended up having to put a pin in it after it broke off.  That's clearly not the original head, as it is the same grey as any Games Workshop plastic kit is.  The original head is alright, but it looks like the dude has seen one too many plasma guns overheat.  Eventually you'll spot the original head among the Plasma Cannon toting Space Marines; it's the one that looks like his face was badly burned.

I also completed two Tactical Legionaries.  They're on either side of the text here.  Interesting how the new wider layout lets me play around with things like that.  As I write this in the editor, they're actually above this text, which makes previewing the post more important than ever.  I only have nineteen more Tactical Legionaries to assemble.  Now, I could easily do this with the sheer number of post-Heresy models I have lying around in parts, but I decided that I'd bite the bullet and buy ten Mk II Space Marines and ten MkV Space Marines from Forge World to round out the Tactical Squads.  This will give me a lot of visual variety in what would otherwise be 120 Space Marines with bolters.

Onward to the Space Sharks.  I mean Carcharadons. Have I mentioned these guys are incredibly easy to paint?  Well, you could make it complicated if you wanted, but why bother?  I built them for Kill-Team and now Necromun- I mean Shadow War: Armageddon.  They're getting used as Chaos Space Marines in Shadow War: Armageddon.  Because the Mark of Khorne, that's why.  I mean, it seriously just fits the extremely nasty and brutal background of the Carcharadons.

Their background says they use a lot of older Space Marine gear and it looks patched together.  Naturally I went to the effort of making these Space Marines look like their wargear is mismatched and cobbled together from all sorts of older stuff.  I had lots of weird bits hanging around because of breaking down armies of Space Marines into their components as well as leftovers from Heresy-era models.  I'm pleased with the end result, especially with the head of the power axe wielding sergeant.  Just look at them!

Carcharadon Astra: the Reavers of the Outer Darkness

That said, they're extremely simple to paint given how devoid of color they really are.  You can see that I primered them in gray, which eliminates the need to basecoat them with Mechanicus Standard Grey.  Hilariously, if you use Rust-Oleum American Accents Gray Primer, you can use Mechanicus Standard Grey to fix any mistakes you make while painting.  The gist is painting most parts, then throwing a light coat of Nuln Oil over the whole mess.  Then pick out details as needed.

I'll probably have them all finished up by next week.  I'm still not quite sure how I want to finish the bases.  I may experiment with some pigment powders and dry-brushing.