Salamander Marine

The marine as he stands now... green, yellow and black are mostly done, but I have a fair bit to do on his cloak. I am unhappy with the way is coming on and have tried numerous colour combinations and am now thinking the whole cloak needs to be covered in scales (or at very least smoothed right out as what I was hoping to look like a rough leathery texture has ended up just looking messy...)

I still need to work on the gold - I've bought some alcohol based Vallejo metallic paints which should be nice and bright with a real shine to them. I'll break out the inks to try and keep them glossy and hopefully increase the contrast between the metals and the surrounding colours.

Here is a photo of the 30mm Marine with his inspiration, the 6mm Terminator

Salamander Marine getting there...

A quick update - the green is almost done, but a lot of the yellow highlights are being lost in my camera-phone photos here. I have been battling with the gold too, and can't decide whether I should have gone for a yellow chest eagle and maybe a stone eagle on the shoulderpad.

Anyone got any suggestions?

 

"I present to you the finest Green"

Its not often I get to start a post with a Black Adder quote! really enjoying painting the green - it seems to be really forgiving with fairly heavy shading and highlights. Just got to keep on plodding along with it - bit more green tonight and soon I'll be working on the black.

Before I go much further though, I will probably need to paint the dragonskin cloak as I am wanting to get some texture in there so may end up stippling and don't want to get that all over nicely painted armour!

Added colour to the marine

So I started adding some colour to the first of the Salamanders last night. The first step was a quick zenithal primer using Halfords care primer aerosols... this hasnt given a smooth edged blend from black to white, and is actually quite blotchy (as you can see in the photo) but, as most of it will be covered by the painting, it is not too much of an issue.

I started slapping some green on - I want it to be very saturated and almost glowing, with deep shadows and zingy bright highlights. This should contrast nicely with the black shoulders, gun and backpack. Still obviously a lot of work to do, but I definitely think I have made the right choice sticking with the bright green.

 

More Space Marines?

It's funny how doing something like painting that teeny tiny Terminator can spark off a sudden need to paint some 30mm Space Marines. I really enjoyed painting the high contrast saturated green and although in theory Salamanders wear more of an olive green these days, I am really tempted to go for the bright 'in your face' look of GW's Moot Green (in other words, how I painted the Epic Terminator)

In the meantime, while I decide on colours, I have started to put together the unit. Here are the first two from a command squad - Battle Standard Bearer with storm bolter and another veteran with an obligatory melta gun (heck, they are Salamanders after all).

They are going to be battle worn and gritty despite the brightly coloured armour - you might even be able to see some of the chips and bullet holes I have carved into them already.

6mm Madness

A post over on Platoon Britannica got me thinking about trying my hand at a 6mm piece...! There was a challenge to paint an Epic 40k Space Marine Terminator in roughly an hour. I must admit, not having many/any epic minis it soon slipped my mind but this weekend I stumbled across a handful of long lost Epic miniatures... and guess what? Yup! A handful of Terminators crudely painted in the dark blue of the Crimson Fists!

A quick Fairy Power Spray later and I was ready to go...

Here are my attempts - don't forget that this is just 6mm tall...

These photos are a bit better colour-wise