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Greetings all Daakians,
My name is Sprak, and this is my Ultramarines "my first army" blog.

A bit of background about me:

I'm 25, living in Canada, and have been into science fiction since my blessed grade 5 teacher enthralled me with the glory that is Star Trek: TNG. Since then, I've consumed a massive amount of science fiction, which naturally led me to WH:40K. My first purchase (about 7 years ago) was the 3rd Edition box, as well as a Lascannon marine (can't find that darned metal arm!), an assault cannon Terminator, and the WHFB paint kit. I was young, excited, and rearing to go. I spent about 2 solid weeks in my basement that summer, carefully (or so I thought) assembling my newly purchased SM and DE units. Deciding that I wanted to paint the SM first, I did a real hack up job of base coating them white, and dove headlong into painting my SMs in Black Templar colours. Unfortunately, my ADHD kicked in, and after painting about 7 models, I was bored. I packed up the box, and shoved it into my closet, forgetting about it for a period of time.


Flash forward 4 or 5 years, and I find myself in a mall with a GW store. Being the sci-fi nut I am, I decide to head in and take a look. 15 minutes later, and I've decided that I'm really going to stick to it this time! I strut out of the store armed with my brand new AoBR box, 4 or 5 new paints, and boundless enthusiasm. Two weeks later, my newly assembled, but unpainted units find themselves gathering dust alongside my 3rd Edition box in my closet. As fate would have it, my minis would not be damned to eternally gathering dust in my closet. Earlier this year, I was browsing Steam and found that Dawn of War II: Golden Edition (I think that's what it's called) was on sale for the meager price of $19.99. WH:40K having the soft spot in my heart it does, I decided I'd pick it up and try it out. After completing the DoW campaign, I knew I I was yet again hooked. I found myself looking longingly at the kits in my room, and decided to break them out. This time, I told myself, it is going to be different. I once again dove headlong into WH:40K.


I gave myself the goal of stripping down all my minis and painting each and every one of them to a standard I would be proud of, before purchasing any new units. I spent a great deal of time researching what to use to strip them down, and what techniques were best to achieve high quality results. The fruit of my research was that Simple Green was the generally agreed upon best substance to strip paint from miniatures. To this, I can attest. After 7 days soaking in a jar, and with the assistance of a battery operated toothbrush, I've stripped 90% of my old force; some of the models have suffered rather harsh damage, having taken an acetone bath years ago, but for the most part, the results have been excellent. I was most impressed with the results on the metal Terminator: I was able to literally peel the paint off of the model, revealing a brand new model, fresh for painting.


I have been following the guide posted here, and while not following it exactly, I have been very very pleased with the results (pics to follow). The paint pattern is simple, and while I do find myself obsessing over small details, the final results are very pleasing. In order to ensure that I complete the task I've set out for myself, I've created this blog. I will set goals for each week, and focus on meeting these goals in order to get my entire army painted.

At this time, my Space Marine force consists of:

1 Space Marine Captain
3 Tactical Squads
2 Terminator Squads
1 Dreadnaught
1 Landspeeder

I generally work in a 7 step process.
Step 1: Chaos Black prime coat
Step 2: Mithril Silver drybrush
Step 3, 4: Asurmen Blue wash (2 coats)
Step 5: Imperial Blue on all armour
Step 6: Silver/Gold trim
Step 7: Small details (highlights, purity seals, faces)

An IRC friend who has a great deal of experience painting has suggested I paint the arms/weapons/bodies/backpacks separately, and I have thus far done so. I find it easier to work in the fine detail with the unit not completely assembled. To date, I have 1 model completed up to Step 7, and 7 at Step 6. I plan to assembly line paint 1 group a week to stage 6. I am undecided about the highlights I want to use on my Marines, as I have not yet acquired the finesse required to highlight extremely thin lines of Space Wolves Grey. Until I do, I am holding off on highlights, for fear of ruining my units.

My Goal: I will post a goal on Sunday of every week, and update progress throughout the week. Obviously this week will be different.

My goal for the week of Dec 4 - Dec 10 is to complete 8 Tactical Marines and their arms to the end of Step 6.

Cheers,
Sprak


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Any tips for improving my photography and painting skills are welcome!

3 Marines at the different stages of painting!


My assemblage of partially painted minis! I've since painted the chest eagle on these.


My metal Terminator. I was unhappy with the way this turned out, so he's taking an extended Simple Green bath at the moment. He'll be repainted. I like the highlight around his head (nice and thin!) but the others I really didn't like. I then retouched them with a mix of 2:1 Dead White/Imperial Blue, and really really didn't like the result (too blotchy) so I decided he'd get redone. Also, turns out eyes are really really difficult! Something new to work on!

Looks great so far, keep up the good work

looking pretty good man! (even for the ultrasmurfs)

JohnnoM wrote: (even for the ultrasmurfs)

Does every Ultramarine thread have to have this stupidity in it?

That lame joke stopped being funny ages ago...

CT GAMER wrote:

JohnnoM wrote: (even for the ultrasmurfs)

Does every Ultramarine thread have to have this stupidity in it?

That lame joke stopped being funny ages ago...

I don't think he meant anything by it

@ JohnnoM and Death Gear

Thanks for the encouragement! Going to try and get two more finished before I head to bed. I have a short day at work tomorrow, so I'm looking forward to having 3 uninterrupted hours of painting ahead of me!

Interesting story Sprak. Will be looking forward to seeing your progress. I'd suggest getting some HQ's and elites so you can space out the amount of repetitive units you have to paint. I find that it helps me avoid some of the burnout. Good luck.

Eggroll wrote:Interesting story Sprak. Will be looking forward to seeing your progress. I'd suggest getting some HQ's and elites so you can space out the amount of repetitive units you have to paint. I find that it helps me avoid some of the burnout. Good luck.

Thanks. I have a dread, landspeeder, and two squads of Termis that will hopefully break up the monotony. However, while painting the terminator posted in the picture above I discovered terminators have a lot of fine details, and as such take a fairly extensive amount of time to paint. I figure I'll be able to paint 1 squad a week without going crazy. Even that might be pushing it but we'll see.


Anyhow, progress update: completed the armour on 1, and about 1/2 finished another before the last of my paint dried out. I figured that was a good time to stop for the evening.

So I broke down and bought a unit this morning - the Web Edition Sergeant with power fist and bolter, seen here. Only set me back $20, and I really really like the look of this model, so that's the big news of the day. My work day has ended earlier than usual, and I shall be using this time to put a dent in my goal for the week! Hopefully I can get 4 space marines painted today, as well as the litany of arms and backpacks I have sitting on my desk.

Stay tuned.

I have that model, and I really like it

He's one of my favorite sergeants.

Painting done for the day. I completed four space marines, as well as 10 arms and 2 backpacks. My last session of painting was just under an hour, and was a real grind. However, overall, a successful day. The section of minis I had set aside for this week is down to 3 marines, a Terminator, and 6 backpacks. I have another shortened day tomorrow, so I'm hoping to get the rest of this completed. Things might change, and I may not paint much at all tomorrow. Either way, I'm pretty happy with the overall progress for the week, and my end goal is within reach.

On the plus side, I have an order of 30/0, 20/0 and 10/0 brushes en route from a FLGS that will hopefully arrive tomorrow. I'm finding that the 10/0 I have now simply isn't fine enough to get the level of detail that I want. It also appears as though it may be on its last legs - it's starting to fray a little, and the point is turning into more of a hook. Hopefully the 30 and 20 will allow me to get the precision I'm after. I'm happy with the increasing steadiness I find I have while painting the fine details - I'm able to hold a miniature in one hand, and paint straight lines with the other! Progress!

I absolutely love these WIP's! It's interesting to watch someones style progress and see them improve their work! I look at my two units of Firewarriors and I'm shocked by the level of difference between them in the space of a month!

Your painting looks good and I'll be following this! Keep up the good work!

Also, if you find it's becoming a grind, try some conversions or just sprucing the models up - maybe take a few teeth from one of the orks and create some kind of trophy for SM Captain? I find little things like that really mix up and make painting a lot of fun!

Done another day. I finished the rest of the backpacks, and one of the marines. My burgeoning army is slowly increasing in size. Tomorrow's goal will be to finish the last 2 marines. If I'm ambitious, I'll get started on the silver and gold trim, as it doesn't take very long. With 2 days left in the week, I'm happy with the progress I've made, and barring anything crazy happening, will get finished on time. I'll post pictures at the end of the week.

As stated in the initial post

My goal for the week of Dec 4 - Dec 10 is to complete 8 Tactical Marines and their arms to the end of Step 6.

At present, I have painted the armour of all the backpacks, arms, and 6 of my 8 tactical marines. Time for the home stretch.

Interesting to see // know how you undercoat with a drybrush of mithril silver! What effect does that give to the overall model?

Eiríkr wrote:Interesting to see // know how you undercoat with a drybrush of mithril silver! What effect does that give to the overall model?

Sorry, I stand corrected, it's chain mail, not mithril.


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Done for the day, end of the work week, and I'm am exhausted. I didn't get the 2 marines painted today that I had intended to, for two reasons! First, I got distracted by Dawn of War II. In my random rotation of games, and partly because of my frustration with Space Marine's multiplayer, I decided to bust out DoW II again last week. I'm at the point where I'm equipping my units with Terminator armour, and being invulnerable is such fun! That killed 3 or 4 hours of my day, which could've been spent painting those darn marines! Secondly, in the process of painting the silver/gold trim, I squeezed my bottle too hard, and got waaaay more silver than I wanted. Rather than let it go to waste, I decided to drybrush 3 marines instead. So, I didn't do what I had intended to do entirely, but progress was made!

I did manage to get all of the silver and gold trim done (though I've actually just noticed that I did miss one arm >:{ how did that happen!), ammo pouches given a first coat of leather brown, and chest eagles painted gold, and once dried, a badab black wash. My paint brushes didn't arrive this week, which is very disappointed - damn you Canada Post - so there are some fine details that will have to wait. Everything else is nearly finished. With a fairly open schedule tomorrow, I'll buckle down, get those last two marines finished, and end this first week on a positive note.

Been a while since I updated this, so I'll do a quick post. First, no I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. My stated goal last week was to get 8 marines to my stage 6. I finished 6 of the 8, and got a whole pile of arms and backpacks finished, but nearly burnt myself out in the process. As a result, I've spent a few days doing other things (playing Space Marine!), and just enjoying my time again. If I keep pushing myself to get more done, I'll burnout quickly, and this isn't something I want to do.

I received my brushes in the mail yesterday, but have yet to try them out! I'm thinking that tomorrow I'll probably sit down and get a solid session of painting in. Today, I finished stripping the last of the Space Marines that were sitting in Simple Green; of the ones that had been previously stripped (10 marines and 1 termi), I managed to get all of them primed, and ready for painting! I was set on priming the rest of the arms and guns in my bits bag, but unfortunately, I ran out of primer before I could finish. Do many of you have experience using primer other than GW's primer? Will regular spray paint from the local hardware store work as a replacement? I'd rather not ruin any minis, so your prior experiences and knowledge would be appreciated. Anyhow, I'll try and get some pics up, so you can see how my work is progressing.

Ciao for now!

Time for the thing everyone really wants: pictures!

I finally sat down and did some highlitghting. On the advice of a fellow 40Ker, I did this one with a 1:1 mix of White:Magic Blue.




This one was done in Space Wolves Grey, as a manner of comparing them to see what looks better.



So anyway, I'm happy with the way the 1:1 mix turned out. It turns out that looking at the minis up close makes you really notice the mistakes. However, given that these are going for tabletop quality only, I'm happy with the way they look, and I don't suspect I'll do much further work to them.

On the rest of the army front, I'm satistfied with what I've accomplished thus far this week. Aside from the highlighting, I managed to get the last of my marines stripped, and ready for priming. I primed a further 10 marines, and have since drybrushed and inked them. They're ready for painting! We'll see what I manage to get accomplished on the weekend!