More Space Marines and…something old…

Hmm, no posts for over a month. But I have been busy. Just about finished off that Space Marine Battleforce box I picked up last year. All that’s left are five Marines and the Scouts, which I have half-finished. Some pics for you.

First up are the Assault Marines. These came out nice and I want five more to fill out the squad.


No, I didn’t forget to paint the kanji on their left kneepad. Rising Sun Chapter Marines don’t get that final character on their armor until they finish/survive their service in the Assault Squads and are assigned to a Tactical Squad – at which point they paint on the final character (you’ll note their Sergeant has all four).

Next is a Rhino. I have another one painted pretty much exactly the same way, only the driver’s hatch is closed on that one.

The Scout Sergeant, and another WIP Scout, which I’ve included to show the kabuki style kumadori facepaint. Each Marine in my force that is bareheaded has a different pattern.

Finally, this ugly critter, a Genestealer Patriarch from around 1992 that I originally bought for Space Hulk. I dug him out of the box where he’d been lurking for the last 19 years, dumped him in the Green Stuff to strip the old paint (a Genestealer model in a glass jar full of green liquid looks kinda freaky!), and re-painted him over a weekend. Still ugly, but looks a lot better now!

Space Hulk Repaint – Take 2

The spirit has moved me to start repainting my old 1st Edition Space Hulk models again. I dug out the first Terminator I did last year and re-did him a bit, bringing him more in line with the color scheme of the regular Space Marines I did later on.

So here’s what they’re going to look like:

Basically, I switched the steel trim on the armor plates to burnished gold, and painted the bolter over black instead of red. It’s not perfect – the Rising Sun chapter symbol should be on the right shoulder, but I’ll leave it as is and call this one the Sergeant. I’m also going to get some texture bases and remount them. I painted that steel grating on there and I don’t like it so much.

I may be on a roll. Which may result in my painting all of the genestealers I have, as well as the hybrids!

Space Hulk re-paint begins

I finished my “proof of concept” paint job on my old 1st edition Space Hulk Terminators. Well, on one of them anyway. I usually paint one figure in the colors I’ve decided on to see if it all comes together, before I go and do a whole unit.

For these Terminators, I painted them in the colors of my old WH40K Space Marine chapter, the Rising Suns. Obviously, there is a Japanese motif. The base color is grey, which reminds me of the color of old warships. The helmet is white, which symbolizes death. The left shoulder has the rising sun emblem. The various kanji characters are hi/fire (right shoulder), shi/death (storm bolter), and shi/four (left knee). The texture on the base is just painted on, and I added a thin strip of paper to give it a little relief and resemble the decking printed on the Space Hulk tiles.

It’s not the best job I ever did, and the camera reveals lots of flaws up close, but I think these Terminators will look good on the table! At least I think my technique has improved over the first paint job I did on them 20 years ago!

Space Hulk – still soakin’

Well, my project to repaint my old 1st edition Space Hulk minis proceeds apace. However, I’m still soaking my plastic Terminators in Green Stuff to strip the old paint. I put them into a jar full of it almost two weeks ago and the paint is only just beginning to soften. I guess the paint I used 20 years really cured on to the plastic! Anyway, I’ll give them a few more days and go at them with a stiff toothbrush. Hopefully the paint will come off.

Green Stuff has always done the job with an overnight soaking. So I’m a little surprised it’s been nearly two weeks!

Space Hulk 1st Edition – Operation Re-paint!

So, with the utterly lovely new Space Hulk out, and my not buying a copy since I still have all my old 1st Edition stuff, I’ve decided that re-painting the old 1E Marines and Stealers from the original game is going to be my next project (now that I have finished my Space Lords).

I have all the original minis from the set I first bought in 1989 (none missing), including the Genestealer Hybrids. I also have some lead to go along with all that – two squads of metal Terminators, a Genestealer Magus and even a Patriarch!

But I’ll keep my goals reasonable to start with and re-paint the original Terminator minis that came with the game. I recall painting them 20 years ago, and I think my technique has improved a little since then. This time, I’m really going to try and do them justice. I played dozens and dozens of games of Space Hulk with these minis and these battle scarred veterans have won more than their share of glory.

Here’s what these guys look like, 20 years on.

The original Terminator miniatures; two 5-man squads

Sergeant in the lead

Flamer

These battle-scarred Marines have served proudly for 20 years! Time for a re-fit!

The first thing I have to do is strip the paint off of them, so into the Simple Green they go!

Obviously some sort of Adeptus Mechanus rejuvenation fluid.

I’ll talk about my new color scheme once I have them stripped and re-primed!