Little Tanks & Tiny People

Two posts in a day! I’ve also repainted this old Space Marine Dreadnought for my Blood Raven army. I painted straight over the original paint job, so it may not be as smooth as it could have been. There’s not a whole lot to say about it. It was a pretty quick job, just two painting sessions and a bit of basing. The colours I used can be found here .

After four months, my Space Marine army is all done! No more red armour for me for the foreseeable future... All that was left w as  a plastic captain, two more metal veterans/champions, two plastic close combat marines and a metal apothecary.   I think the apothecary is a 2nd edition sculpt. He really shows his age, being noticeably shorter and chubbier than his - also not that new anymore - brethren. I really like him, though, and enjoyed painting him up.   The white armour was a fun change and all the little vials and probes are a nice touch. And finally, a shot of the whole army: 4 tanks, 4 bikes, 23 tactical marines, a 6-man command squad, 6 terminators, 5 assault marines and 8 scouts, for a total of 56 models! Click here for part one Click here for part two  Click here for part three Click here for part four

Right, up next in my Space Marine army are the tanks! I chose to repaint my rhino, two razorbacks and landraider. I also own a predator, but I never really liked the look of a turret on top of a rhino chassis. I decided not to strip the models back to bare plastic. I wasn’t sure whether I would be able to get them completely clean and was a bit worried that paint gunk from the stripping process would hide some of the details. Stripping also requires a lot of isopropyl alcohol to completely submerge the models and I didn’t feel like ordering a new batch of ipa just for this project. Painting over the old paint jobs resulted in some subtle brush marks, but they are only really noticeable when you are holding the models right up to your face. And even with the brush marks, I think you’ll agree that the new paint job is a vast improvement over the old one! I really enjoyed painting these tanks. I even enjoyed the edge highlighting step, and there were a lot of edges... Apart from tha...

It’s time for part three of my ongoing project of stripping and repainting my old SpaceMarine army ! Now, I have to be honest. I didn’t actually have any bikes in my old army, those are new purchases. I just really like the cartoony look of those chunky bois on their chunky bikes. For some silly reason the bikes come with bases, but the attack bike does not. It probably has to do with the fact that the bikes have a tough time staying upright without a base, while the attack bike is stabile enough to not need one. I just thought it would look a lot better if all bikes had a base, so I made my own out of 3.5 mm polystyrene sheet. I briefly thought of giving it a round base, but I didn’t think my coping saw skills were up for the task. So in the end I settled on a simple rectangular base. It’s a bit large and plain, but all in all I think it looks pretty good. The assault squad are old miniatures that I stripped and repainted. I also cut off and repositioned the sword hand of the sergea...

As a fun little one-day project I painted up this marine in celebration of Pride Month. He is basically a Reiver that I had left from making my Space Wolves Kill team .  The only conversion work, if you can call it that, is that I sanded off the skull and crossbones on his chest and sculpted a simple heart out of Milliput. I’m not a big fan of the Reiver helmets, so I replaced it with a Grey Knights one. I loved freehanding the rainbow and sparks on his pauldrons.

Up next in my project of repainting my old Space Marine army are some Space Marine Scouts, Terminators and a Terminator Captain. The paints I used are essentially the same as for my tactical squads. So if you’re interested in which paints I used, you can find out out over here . To start with the Scouts, these are the old (late 2nd edition?) metal minis that came in blister packs. They may be pretty old, but the sculpts hold up really well compared to some other figures. There were only two sniper sculpts available back then - at least in my local hobby store - so I added in a couple of Cadians for variety. Once painted I think they fit in very well with their Space Marine cousins. To be honest, my original Scouts were already painted to a fairly decent level. The biggest improvement are the camo cloaks. The camo pattern was inspired by a four-tone desert camouflage, with the colours swapped for light and dark grey, black and white. I realise that the grey cloaks don’t make a lot of...

  It’s been a while since my last post, but that’s because I’ve started a pretty big undertaking. I’m going to repaint my old Space Marine army ! Or, you know, at least a significant part of it. Painting the Space Marine Armour through the ages box set got me in the mood to paint some more genetically modified super soldiers. I’ve started with two full squads, including two veteran sergeants, and some extra models with heavy weapons so I have options. That’s 23 models in total.   The figures are a mix of one-piece plastic tactical marines from the old Battle for Macragge starter box, multipart plastic models, all metal veteran marines and plastic/metal models from the old devastator squad box. Quite a few of the figures are now out of production and those that aren’t haven’t changed since the early 2000’s. Although not quite Rogue Trader old, you could by some definitions call these Oldhammer. But that would make me old too, so let’s not...   Two veteran sergeants wi...

From left to right, Mk. I, II, III, IV, V, VI and VII After a couple months of historical stuff I felt like doing some Warhammer minis. This is the Space Marine Armour Through The Ages kit by Citadel, representing the Mk. I, II, III, IV and V suits. For a laugh I also stripped and repainted a Mk. VI and VII from my old Space Marine army.  As an archaeologist I appreciate a good typology, so painting up the various armour variants was a lot of fun. Other than that these resin minis were a little rough around the edges and needed some cleanup, there is not a whole lot else to say. I’ll just list the main paints I’ve used   Mk. I: Vallejo Medium Blue 70.963 Mk. II: Citadel Caliban Green Mk. III: Vallejo Royal Purple 70.810 Mk. IV: Vallejo Black 70.950 and White 90.951 Mk. V: Vallejo Medium Sea Grey  70.870 Mk. VI: Vallejo Dark Prussian Blue 70.899, drybrushed with Medium Blue 70.963 Mk. VII: Vallejo Gory Red 72.011 and Bone White 72.034

  Time for my second 100 pt. kill team, this time featuring the ever popular sci-fi Vikings known as Space Wolves. It’s a nice little group of three Intercessors and three Reivers. The new Primaris models are massive compared to the old Tactical Space Marines and to make them look even more impressive I based hem on bits of cork painted to look like rocks.   The models were primed in Citadel Fenrisian grey. After this, I painted most of the details apart from the faces of the two tough guys that are too cool to wear helmets. I then gave everything a black wash and added (a bit crudely) the odd edge highlight. I then painted the faces following a pretty simple process of applying a base skin colour, washing with brown and then highlighting with a lighter skin tone. Finally, I drybrushed the rocks with dark grey, then light grey and finally very gently with white. As a finishing touch I added two layers of AK Snow Sprinkles for a nice half-melted snow look.   I took my...

A project from the vault, a quick overview of my Space Marine army for  Warhammer 40,000. Most of these models were painted ages ago, so the paint jobs can be a little simple at times. Just troops for now, as I think I will make some improvements to my tanks and Dreadnought at some point. Captain and veterans One of my two Terminator squads Space Marine scouts. These are the metal figures that came individually packaged, with some Cadian snipers mixed in for variety. Some of the rank and file. I've got quite a few mor e, but they're just more of the same. One of two assault squads with  jump packs .   I seem to have forgotten to photograph my Devastator squad and some other figures. Oh well, some other time.