Wednesday, May 10, 2017

WIP: Ultramarines Sternguard Veterans


Decided to paint the Start Collecting! marines I have as veterans. Here's a quick step-by-step.

I bought the Start Collecting! box when it was released last year, and just recently started on it. I was going to paint the marines as a tactical squad to fill out the Gladius strike force, but realized I'm never going to play in a game that large (hell, I haven't played in ANY SIZE game in over a year).

So instead, I decided to make them veterans, kit-bashed some combi-meltas together, and gave them a traditional Ultramarines veterans color scheme. Each is adorned with additional seals, tabards, blessing scrolls and medallions from my bitz box. I wish the pauldrons were more ornamental, but I worked with what I had.

We'll use the Sgt. as an example. I'm actually really pleased with the was this pose turned out. I based the models blue and did a subtle highlight pass with a lighter blue using the air brush.


I painted any areas that were going to be white with grey, to work up from the blue. This allows me to use fewer coats of white to cover the blue.


Next, I layered on the white. I decided that the chest emblems, backpack cover, weapon and right shoulder pauldron would be white to further set them apart from the main force. I then painted any area that was going to be gold with a brown undercoat, and any area that was going to be gunmetal with a black undercoat.


I applied the gold to the model.


I then painted the gunmetal, and the purity seals, and washed the recesses of the model to bring out the details.

Once that was dry, I edge highlighted all the surfaces using a light blue, and the gold areas with silver. This makes the details pop and gives a little life to the gold which can look flat when ink washed.


Lastly, I glued on the head, which was painted separately so I could get to the details, and based the model using a texture paint and some static grass tufts.


And there we are. Only nine more to go! (why do I do this to myself?)

-trip

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