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Hey folks, im a returnee to the hobby after over 15 years and looking forward to playing again. I went the Ebay route and am having a blast restoring a little 2000pt Space Marine army from garbage into a lean mean fighting machine!

Its slow going but am steadily getting there and thought people may be interested in a noobs adventures stripping, restoring and learning to paint minis. I really wish i had thought to take pictures of the state they were in when i got them as they were in a really bad way, one thing i had not anticipated when going the second hand route is how badly people can ruin minis with glue :(. Under the thick layers of red and yellow paint was a world of glue damage and crappyness which was impossible to see on Ebay pictures, i was initially kinda bummed out but have enjoyed the satisfaction of restoring them.

In the following pictures you will see the entire army laid out minus a pack of 5 assault marines still in the box, they were a gift from a friend and the start of all this madness. With the exception of the five assault marines and a librarian in terminator armor everything is assembled from a pile of junk i bought for £120. So far i have managed to get a TacSquad, Rhino, Dread and the scout Sargent done, if you are interested i have made a thread on your army list forum detailing what the force should be when finished here (feel free to offer advice!)













I would love any comments, clearly my photography needs work and i will try to do better on that front. I used my painting lamp to light the pics but the stupid camera tried to self brighten aswell for some reason.

Ive tried to get some better pictures of whats painted so far taken since the last attempt was garbage...

Here is the Tactical Squad painted with 3rd company details, they were the first minis i have painted in nearly 20 year! And considering i was a child then and didn't paint a whole lot im fairly proud so far of how my dudes are coming along.





This is the Rhino painted to match the Tactical Squad, i am unhappy with the highlighting esspecially on the red and the weathering could have been better...





Here is the first of the two Dreadnoughts, this guy had a lot of glue damage so i am esspecially pleased with how he has come out...






And here is the Scout Sargent my most recent finished mini, i am very unhappy with how the face came out still got a lot to learn about layering...





Finally heres a pic to try and show the miserable state these minis came to me in, i wish i had taken pictures before trying to strip and clean a lot of them up.




Gonna get the rest of the scouts finished next, does anyone know what company a Predator and Whirlwind would be attached to?

Preds and WWs are chapter level assets, and don't belong to any specific company.

Nice collection you have, I'm sure you can get a nice army out of it.

Thanks man , i just need to stay motivated and this could be a nice lil army for me to get playing again with. The 2000pt list i have managed to assemble out of this im hoping should prove to be fairly balanced and fun to play.

And thanks for the info, was wondering about what detailing to give the other tanks. How about Land Speeders, i was going to paint mine with some red trim and 3rd company symbols with the marines being assault marines.

Land Speeders (and bikes) are often used by assault marines instead of jump packs. So painting them with the same company trim as the rest of your force works. The reserve companies are also big users, so if you wanted to go that route, it’d be fine as well. I know for the longest time I used bikes and speeders to count for half the 20 assault marines I needed for my battle company. It was not until fairly recently that I got 20 actual assault marines.

Yeh thats pretty much what i assumed, bikes and land speeders assault marines in there normal company iconography. I was thinking maybe the tanks were similar with devastator marines but seems your right they are just a pool of vehicles the company uses when needed not attached to any company. I daresay the crew when used is made up of devastator marines, my old school Whirlwind has a dudes top half sticking out kinda unsure what to do with him.

Ultimately plan to do nearly everything 3rd Company cept the Termies and scouts.

Your repaints are very nice looking.

Thanks , watched loads of you tube tutorials and such before starting.

They are looking impressive, you've really got the hang of this painting down to a fine art already. Looking forwards to watching your army grow.

Thanks man, i am rather surprised that they seem to be coming out as well as they are tbh. It helps that i chose a nice easy color scheme so i have cheated a bit there, gonna be a lot of black with edge highlights. The Scouts and mebe the librarian will prolly be the most complex minis in the bunch, if i finish these the next projects gonna need to be more colorful!

Slow going this week but making progress on the next 2 scouts! These 2 guys in particular had some bad glue damage, you can still see on the kneeling guy how how insane the previous owner was where he connects to the base around his knee. Ive cleaned them up as well as i can tho i seem to suck at fixing mold lines ect still, some clever use of flock/grass/rocks should hide it nicely.

All the base layers are down and tidy now, just need to do the heads/faces and then begin layers and highlights...



Hoping this camo pattern turns out well, whole project is an experiment really...

The camo looks nice, simple but effective. That's one thing I've not tried yet.

Fingers crossed the pattern comes together nicely when i start layering, was going to have a third dark green color but decided not to over complicate matters to much yet. Want the camo to sort of match the bases ive been giving them.

Took me a while but i learned a lot doing these, just 4 more scouts to go then will get to work on the Land Speeder.

A clear improvement for the face over the sarge, really happy with how they have come out...


The camo came out ok but the difference between tones could be stronger, stupid camera didn't wanna focus for rear shots :(...


Just a lil comparison with a couple of their m8s...

Camo is OK at subtle. You could try for a more high contrast option, but what you have looks good.

Love the old metal scouts, some of my favorite models.

Very nice

Your army is coming along great. Love the refurbish on the older models...they are looking great. Love the subtle camo on the scouts as well. Your paint skills are great man...I just got back into the hobby after a 10 year hiatus and had to relearn basically everything with my brush.

 Nevelon wrote:
Camo is OK at subtle. You could try for a more high contrast option, but what you have looks good.

Love the old metal scouts, some of my favorite models.

Yeh man, they are very cool looking minis. Kind of awkward to paint in places especially since wasn't really able to remove them from bases to paint, i just have the same minis over and over for rest of squad cept for Missle Launcher which gonna be a bit boring tho :(

dmatthewgooch wrote:
Your army is coming along great. Love the refurbish on the older models...they are looking great. Love the subtle camo on the scouts as well. Your paint skills are great man...I just got back into the hobby after a 10 year hiatus and had to relearn basically everything with my brush.

Thanks man, im just back after a long break to so i know that feel. One thing ill say is YouTube is your friend, so much great advice really wouldnt have had a chance without it! Just wish younger me had access to it tbh, i might never have stopped in the first place.

 Gantoris wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
Camo is OK at subtle. You could try for a more high contrast option, but what you have looks good.

Love the old metal scouts, some of my favorite models.

Yeh man, they are very cool looking minis. Kind of awkward to paint in places especially since wasn't really able to remove them from bases to paint, i just have the same minis over and over for rest of squad cept for Missle Launcher which gonna be a bit boring tho :(

You could pick up a box of the new plastics if you wanted to mix things up a bit. The design aesthetic remains very similar, so they blend into the same squad well. I’ve got a mix myself.

Yeh ill prolly do that in the long run, kinda swore to myself i wouldn't buy any more minis until i painted what i have tho!

Once these are done will either expand the army or mebe get some orks for something different, who know thos by then 9th ed WFB might be out and could buy into a small army for that.

One idea i have toyed with is if i finish the whole army to try and sell it as a whole set then use the money to re-buy a load of SMs brand new. I doubt when it comes down to it i would be able to do that after so much work lol, but i am learning so much i would prolly be able to get a really amazing looking force sorted out with my profits (This whole army didn't even cost £150).

Being very slow and to compound things am painting duplicate minis so thought might be interesting to see just how crappy they can look in production...

This is after first stage, putting down base coat. Second stage comes next which is to tidy everything up nice and neat before highlights so they look pretty rough here...



After those two scouts are done just these last two and the scout squad is finished...



Hopefully should speed back up after this week, once scout squad is finished im going to start on restoring the Land Speeder.

Im in the exact same situation as you. Had a few orks when I was 12, then moved on to totally un-wargaming-related-pursuits, now 27 and being dragged back into it by a bunch of closet wargamer mates.
Your painting is top notch, especially for someone who's been out of the game so long, and working with pre-butchered models? Props to you.

Thanks man, if im being perfectly honest no ones more surprised at my painting than me. Apparently there's something in the world im good at after all! I am defiantly looking forward to painting some new minis that's for sure, watch out for bad gluing if your gonna buy second hand is my advice. The paint comes of no worries at all but damage from glue is a whole different story.

One thing that ive had now that i never had in the past is YouTube, i have consumed a lot of YouTube vids about painting and it helps so much.


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And good on ya for coming back into the fold! Im starting to regret ever leaving in the first place, its fun, rewarding and wargamers are pretty friendly breed of nerd overall.

God i feel like ive been painting these scouts for years, finally got next two done just need the last two and finally got scout squad sorted. After this month is over i should hopefully speed up a lot, after the scouts lookin forward to tackling the Land Speeder.

Pretty happy with these two even if same as last 2 :(


The cloak kinda looks better as a cloak but the pattern is even more difficult to make out i really need to adjust the way i highlight the camo...


The five done so far lookin pretty good!


Once this squad is finally done ill restore this obscenity to life!

Always glad to see another raven guard player, keep up the good work!

Thanks man, i wanted a first founding chapter that was fairly uncommon (uncommon for space marines anyway). Big plus point that they happen to have pretty cool lore, really hope the rumors about a new starter set Raven Guard vs Tau turn out to be true. At the very least we would expect a lil mini codex and some new characters/unique troops.

Yay, finally finished with the scouts next stop Land Speeder city!

Was nice to paint the Rocket Launcher guy after the attack of the clones...


Did better on the cloak this time, defiantly learned a lot doing all of these guys...


And the family portrait...



These scouts have been an amazing learning experience and am quite proud of how they came out.

Got started on the Land Speeder today, its among the most trashed of the bundle i bought so im excited to see if i can restore it to life...

Most of the bits post stripping and a few other items i was thinking of using in the restoration (Lascannon was gonna be made into a weapon mount for the underside)...


Filled in a lot of gaps with green stuff, am a total green stuff noob so messier than i would like but seems to have worked out. Decided to save myself a lot of work by mounting a weapon where the antenna was, this saved me making an underside mount and repairing the antenna!..


Undercoated and ready to start painting, starting to look promising imo...

Nice kitbash with the spare MM. I’ve looked into modding my old LS’s for a second weapon mount, but alway gave up due to the fiddly nature of finding a spot to stick it while looking good.

Luckily I mostly run my speeders as TML/HB these days, which is an easy fix.

Thanks, had a moment of inspiration while i was trying to think of something to replace the antennae!

Plan is eventually to have 2x Land Speeders both as Deep Striking units. One with 2x MM for vehicle heavy enemies and one with 2x Flamers for blobs.