5 Charity Space Marines

I don’t normally paint marines. I’d painted a Black Dragon for a local competition because I thought I could do some work to add the bone spurs. I wasn’t too happy with it and I fanced having another go. So I reserved the Black Dragons.

I was able to secure 5 assault marines. Their poses suited a Black Dragon so I went with them and 4 more chapters: Star Phantoms, Blood Scythes, Disciples of Caliban and the Covenant of Fire.

I fashioned some bone spurs for the Black Dragon from some Nid claws. The other marines were just assembled.

I should admit now to having been a bit slow getting this write up done.

I wanted a different style of base for each marine. I went for the following.

1, a beach base. I green stuffed some ripples which I then covered with sand. I cut a portion of the base out and reattached it lower down. I poured a water effect over this. I had some foliage I soaked and glued down to appear like wet seaweed.

2, a swamp base. I build up some sand around a piece of slate. I then painted the middle section to appear like a swamp and poured water effect over it. The look was completed by layering a soil like flock and a mix of greens.

3, a Mars style base. Nothing clever, some sand and different rock textures all layered over with pigments.

4, a snow base. Easy. Just a variety of rocks and filled round with Woodland Scenics snow.

5, a tech base. I base rollered some green stuff for this and add a zip tie and some bits.

With two days to go I had two marines finished. The other three had their gloss coats and only waited for their matt finish. I came down to find the inks I’d use to freehand had run.

So I had a bit of a manic finish to get these done.

I seemed to get a lot of problems with this project. This time trying to spray a matt coat on the Mars base. It didn’t just frost, it gave a full snowfall!

I was able to get it back nearly to it’s previous look. More matt coats did the job. No idea why I had so many accidents with this project though. On a side note the  frosting lived up to it’s name and gave a very nice finish.

I didn’t have much time to try and find stencils for all the different chapters. So I made to freehand. In some cases I went with inks. I find it hard to get the paint’s consistency right when I freehand.

The results are ok. They’ll do.

I hadn’t heard of the Blood Scythes before this drive. I believe they’re one of the new Primaris legions. Really I picked them up ‘cos there was a pile of minis with white schemes no-one wanted to do.

Another chapter I knew near nothing about. I picked up the Disciples near the end of the challenge. I liked the colour and I’m happy with how mine turned out. Even the lion logo.

I bagged the Covenant early. I like the scheme a lot. It’s very striking. Apparently the Covenant are a new Primaris chapter derived from the Salamanders. I’m a Salamanders fan so this was very welcome.