TheArmorOfContempt's Ultramarines - The Road to Adepticon 2017 and Beyondddd!

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**TheArmorOfContempt**

So, I haven't been on DakkaDakka very long, but I figured I would start my own painting blog. I've attempted this before on a few other forums, but their low traffic kind of fails to keep me motivated to post, and hopefully this more vibrant community will give me a little extra push. Not to mention site hosted imaging is pretty nice.

Before I begin, a little back story. I've been a pretty big Warhammer 40k fan since I heard about the setting back in the late 90s. As a teen I even had a brief flirtation with the game, but due to being poor and not have the time or skill to invest it never caught on. That being said I've been an avid Black Library reader since those early days, so the details of the setting are well known to me. Flash forward to approximately Late 2014 early 2015. I find myself in a situation where I have a good detail or spare time and money, and I think myself "Hey! I always wanted to learn to play this game...maybe I can even learn to paint". Over 2 years have passed I have become utterly hooked, with Adepticon 2016 being the final straw in cementing my addiction to this hobby.

Since this hobby has started I've become a family man, and my painting time has dropped off significantly, but that being said I still manage to find some time. My first trip to Adepticon was an absolute blast. I even signed by burgeoning Ultramarines force up for the Championship, where I got crushed. My non-competitive list being smashed in almost every game. Despite this I knew what I would be doing next year, and immediately set out a painting schedule for the army I desired to have ready come March 2017.

Since I made my initial plans my goals have changed a little as I found myself signing up for even more events that originally planned including: Championship, 40k Friendly, Combat Patrol, Kill Team, and Zone Mortalis. I want to play 40k until my eyes bleed and my feet and back hurt.

With that said my primary paint goal remains my Championship and Zone Mortalis lists, which I will track and update in this OP.

HQ
Captain - Bike, Power Sword (Khan proxy)- FINISHED
Chaplain - Bike - Finished
3x Librarian - Bikes, 2x Force Axe, 1x Force Sword - Finished

Elites:
Command Squad - Bikes and Apothecary, Drop Pod - Finished
Troops:
5x Tactical - Drop Pod, Meltagun, Combi-Melta - Finished!
5x Tactical - Drop Pod, Meltagun, Combi-Melta - Finished!
5x Tactical - Razorback - Finished!
5x Tactical - Razorback - Finished!
5x Tactical - Razorback - Finished!
5x Tactical - Razorback - Finished
5x Scouts - Finished!
5x Scouts -Finished!
5x Scouts - Finished

Fast Attack:
5x Assault Squad - Drop Pod, 2xFlamer - Finished!
5x Assault Squad - Drop Pod, 2xFlamer - Finished!

Heavy Support
5x Devastator Squad - Rhino, 2x Grav-Cannon Finished
5x Devastator Squad - Rhino, 2x Grav-Cannon - Finished

Zone Mortalis - 750 Points

Librarian - Terminator Armor - Finished!
5x Assault Terminators - 3x Thunderhammers, and 2x Claws - Finished
5x Terminators - Heavy Flamer and Chainfist - 2 finished 3 unfinished.
5x Scout Marines - Teleport Homer - Finished
5x Scout Marines - Teleport Homer - Finished!
1x Dreadnaught - FINISHED

Rather than bore you with an entire list of everything I've painted. I will merely begin by sharing some of my latest.

**Reanimator**

Love the deep blue version of ultramarine you went with. Nice smooth highlights as well- very nice!

**Nevelon**

Very nice looking batch of Ultras. Looking forward to seeing your force come together.

**Asmodai_00**

Very very nice! What did you use for the bases?

**evildrcheese**

Really cool. Loving the bike chapter master!

EDC

**TheArmorOfContempt**

Asmodai_00 wrote:
Very very nice! What did you use for the bases?

A site called Dragonforge Studios. I assume it is a single man operation, but early on I wanted to give my bases a marble theme, and this was the closest I could find at the time, although it looks more like white stone-work. I also bought some 6x6 tiles, and laid them down for my display board. The idea is to have the bases match with the display board, which I will show some picture of soon. The big issue is the gaps between each tile, which I attempt to fill with green stuff, which only makes the gaps slightly less noticeable. I am thinking of adding columns and debris along these lines to kind of hide them. Once an entire army is covering the board they will likely become less noticeable.

Anyone. I took this picture about two weeks ago. My final paint queue for Adepticon.
5x Scouts
5x Scouts
1x Bike Chaplain
2x Bike Librarian
5x Assault Marines
5x Tacticals

Tacticals are last priority simply because I actually have more than enough tacticals to build a Battle Company, but I am OCD and want them to be their own unique squad, instead of a squad cut in half.

Magnetized as well. All scouts are magnetized. On the Marines both sergeants are magnetized along with 2 Marines out of each squad.

**TheArmorOfContempt**

Finished some Scouts. Tried to make them diverse, have had trouble getting dark skin tones to look good.

**Paradigm**

Nice clean work, keep it coming! Always nice to see some Ultras done well!

**TheArmorOfContempt**

Started my next 5 Assault Marines, still undecided on what Company to make them. A majority of my guys are 2nd Company like most Ultramarine players, but I like to make at least a third of them from the others. So far I have representatives from 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 9th. I was thinking with going for the Reserve Assault Company for these guys.

Sorry for the poor photos, but in the second one you can see the first Edge Highlighting step with Calgar blue, I've become pretty adept at doing this, which is largely gives them the "clean" look that seems to be the most common word people use to describe my guys. It is also the most tedious and time consuming.

Maccrage Blue Base + Nuln Shade + Maccrage blue clean up -> Calgar blue edging -> Fenrisian Grey thin edging.

Sometimes on heroes I even go with another step of Blue Horror(or a Fenrisian Grey/White Scar mix) on the most extreme edges, but usually it isn't worth the time.

**CREEEEEEEEED**

Can you give any tips for highlighting, you do it really well, and I'm kinda tired of slapping agrax earthshade on my models to make up for my lack of ability.

**TheArmorOfContempt**

CREEEEEEEEED wrote:
Can you give any tips for highlighting, you do it really well, and I'm kinda tired of slapping agrax earthshade on my models to make up for my lack of ability.

I started painting shortly before GW started having Duncan put his stuff online, but basically I am doing exactly what he says. For those edge highlights I use either a small layer or detail brush. I get a little paint on the tip and use the roll technique. I think there are two basic techniques you need to keep in mind. 1) Painting actual edges and 2) Painting notional edges or curved surfaces.

1) For Example: A clean edge is something like the Pauldron or anything that basically has a 45-90 degree angle on it. This can be done by essentially dry brushing, and is super easy. You don't need a lot of paint on your brush for this, in fact less in better, but you essentially are using the edge of the bristles to do this. Don't try to follow the edge with the tip of your brush, you will just feth it up, and likely get more paint that what you desire.

2) For Example: This is more difficult. Good examples of this are either edges of gauntlets, which are pretty rounded, or the small grooves in the power armor that run along the course of the arms and legs. Once again use the roll technique on this, but even more so. The difference I have found here is that you usually need your paint to be pretty wet but have zero excess on the bristles primarily because you will need to use the tip of your brush to pull these off. Apply to much pressure and you will get paint into the actual recesses, not enough, and nothing will come off. The reason you need to use the tip of your brush is because with more round surfaces or ones that have very little depth, it is super easy to get excessive paint on them resulting in a line that is way thicker than you want, or paint bleeds into the gap.

A final thing is that in this case I am using a minimum of two highlights. It is ok for the Calgar blue one to be bigger, because you want the lighter(Fenrisian Grey) one to be slightly smaller. The consistency of paints will also effect your speed. I have revisit by pot for Calgar blue what feels like every 30 seconds or so, and I constantly wash the brush. With the Fenrisian Grey since I need less paint I can go about twice as long before visiting the pot, and I can get away with very light brushing.

I can't recommend the how-to-paint guides enough. I own the following:

1: Sons of Ultramar - How to paint Ultramarines, the most useful.
2: Masterclass: How to paint a Space Marine Librarian, the most detailed. Has a lot of extra steps. Shows to paint an Ultramarine librarian but a lot of it is transferable. I like this guide the most because it has a great section at the start that really goes into detail on the various brushing techniques. It is one thing to hear the word "edge highlighting" but when you see it broken down step by step it helps a ton.
3: How to Paint GW Miniatures - The least important, but has a ton of the same info as the first two books but shows them used across a board range of miniatures.

**CREEEEEEEEED**

Thanks, that's really helpful. I have the 2008 How to paint Citadel Miniatures book, and it basically just says that highlighting is a thing and you should do it (it does at least have useful information about other things). I'll look into the guides you recommended. Thanks again.

**brushcommando**

Gorgeous minis! Also, always good to see another Ultra- Painter out there. Look forward to seeing more!

**TheArmorOfContempt**

Fenrisian Grey added. Once again, most time consuming step. Takes me a good 3 hours per dude to do both Calgar and Fenrisian.

**Nevelon**

You can tell it’s time well spent. Very tidy highlighting on a super smooth base there.

**TheArmorOfContempt**

Slowly going along.

Added black areas with grey highlights, and now base coating the metal areas.

Also, please vote on my completed models.

**brushcommando**

Looking good! Noticed your ground assault guys have the jump harnesses on -- did you magnetize the backpacks?

**TheArmorOfContempt**

brushcommando wrote:
Looking good! Noticed your ground assault guys have the jump harnesses on -- did you magnetize the backpacks?

Yup. I magnetize most my models in some way, really adds to the paint time to paint extra jump packs and arms, but hopefully saves me time in the long run. When I have just regular guys with no extras to paint, I feel kind of relieved.

**TheArmorOfContempt**

Decided to do another squad in 3rd Company colors. When I first started painting with this method my first squad was from the 3rd Company, while I did a decent job the older models are noticeably from over a year ago.

**brushcommando**

Looks really nice. I think the new models wear the 3rd company's colors very well and your painting certainly does them justice.

**Nevelon**

3rd company, always a good choice! Nice to see them getting more love. The 2nd is always hogging the glory.

**JustaerinAtTheWall**

Some excellent work here on this blog, never can get enough space marines. I almost did 3rd company ultras myself, before I realized that i'm following 5 different UM blogs and that DD has had it's share of the boys in blue.

**Nevelon**

JustaerinAtTheWall wrote:
Some excellent work here on this blog, never can get enough space marines. I almost did 3rd company ultras myself, before I realized that i'm following 5 different UM blogs and that DD has had it's share of the boys in blue.

It’s not that Dakka has a disproportionate amount of Ultramarines, it’s just that our natural skill, talent, modesty, and rugged good looks tends to draw the eye. So it just seems like there are a lot of us.

**CREEEEEEEEED**

Nevelon wrote:
JustaerinAtTheWall wrote:
Some excellent work here on this blog, never can get enough space marines. I almost did 3rd company ultras myself, before I realized that i'm following 5 different UM blogs and that DD has had it's share of the boys in blue.

It’s not that Dakka has a disproportionate amount of Ultramarines, it’s just that our natural skill, talent, modesty, and rugged good looks tends to draw the eye. So it just seems like there are a lot of us.

No Ultraboners to be found here. None at all.

**TheArmorOfContempt**

Keeping the Imperium together for 10,000 years, you're welcome everyone.

But thanks, I tend to get excited when models are this close to being finished. Hopefully, my MacroMat will come in by the weekend, so I can give these guys proper pictures when they are done. I will begin working on my Bike Chaplain next. Caught wind of a 1650 event mid-Feb that I can bring my full BC to if I manage the Chaplain and another 5 scouts.

**brushcommando**

JustaerinAtTheWall wrote:
Some excellent work here on this blog, never can get enough space marines. I almost did 3rd company ultras myself, before I realized that i'm following 5 different UM blogs and that DD has had it's share of the boys in blue.

Join usssssss.... seriously though. We have courage and honour and easier access to waterslide transfers than most.

Also, not to hijack the blog as a propaganda tool -- I'm excited to see what you do with the bike chaplain. Black is one of those colors that benefits from the sharp highlights that are hallmarks of your style.

**JustaerinAtTheWall**

brushcommando wrote:
JustaerinAtTheWall wrote:
Some excellent work here on this blog, never can get enough space marines. I almost did 3rd company ultras myself, before I realized that i'm following 5 different UM blogs and that DD has had it's share of the boys in blue.

Join usssssss.... seriously though. We have courage and honour and easier access to waterslide transfers than most.

Also, not to hijack the blog as a propaganda tool -- I'm excited to see what you do with the bike chaplain. Black is one of those colors that benefits from the sharp highlights that are hallmarks of your style.

Nevelon wrote:
JustaerinAtTheWall wrote:
Some excellent work here on this blog, never can get enough space marines. I almost did 3rd company ultras myself, before I realized that i'm following 5 different UM blogs and that DD has had it's share of the boys in blue.

It’s not that Dakka has a disproportionate amount of Ultramarines, it’s just that our natural skill, talent, modesty, and rugged good looks tends to draw the eye. So it just seems like there are a lot of us.

Maybe one day you two. a HH Ultra army isn't a bad idea, and I could use some modesty and looks

. But for now, I have a IF successor chapter to paint.

**TheArmorOfContempt**

Last post before they are complete. Sergeant's flesh and transfers then some clean up and protective spray, done.

**CREEEEEEEEED**

Very nice job.

**brushcommando**

Agreed. Very slick.