Looking over my older Marine miniatures, there are a couple that stand out as not fitting too well with the whole strictly Codex, chapter approved and flufftastic direction I've taken my army in. It's not that they are particularly badly painted (I at least tried to stay within the lines), although my skills and technical understanding have improved in the last couple of years thanks to the wealth of advice and tutorials available on Blogs and Forums.
It's more that when they were painted I wasn't following any particular structure to the whole army, I just painted individuals with no real thought for the wider picture and now that I do have a plan their inclusion in the army grates somewhat; I should have remembered 'the 7 Ps'.
One of the main offenders is this Techmarine, Artisan Loricatus, not only is his armor way off the new deeper red scheme that I'm using (ok he looks like he's advertising for the Orange Network) but also to fit within the codex, his power armour should be an even darker 'Mechanicus' red. I'd also made an error painting the Mechanicus insignia the first time, getting the black and white of the icons the wrong way round; the Machine God would likely have a fatal exception error!
With limited hours and no real enthusiasm to start again from scratch, I find stripping paint as much fun as...well stripping paint! I set about him with a pot of Scab Red in the hope that I could bring him into line and here is the result.
His armour was brought more into line with that set down in the Insignium Astartes, I added the new improved Chapter insignia and sorted out the Mechanicus faus pax. I also added a servo arm (not sure why I hadn't first time round) and tried my hand at adding energy effects to his power axe, a first for me; using a mishmash of techniques gleaned from tutorials on Ron's FTW and by the Crew over on Manufactorum. It worked out surprisingly well considering, although the back of the blade came out better than the front (go figure) and I'll be looking to use this on power weapons from now on.
Overall I'm quite satisfied with the result, it's not perfect, but IMO he now fits the look of the army and my inner Fluff Nazi will let me put the miniature back on the shelf. Next up, a metallic green Librarian and a white Chaplain! I know, Guilliman will be turning in his stasis field!
3 comments:
It's a definite improvement, nice work.
Nice one mate - a nice step up from the old job. The axe head came up well although I would have suggested a darker base but keeping the lightning effect the same shades - this would have stood them out better. Some of those older figs stand up well to time.
Cheers guys, appreciate the support & feedback.
@Rogue, I agree although I don't think my 'pants' camera work helped. The base was Regal Blue but came up a lot brighter in the flash. Also I wasn't daring enough to go all the way to white, which may also have added that extra something.
I'll give both the darker base and the white a go next time.
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