Crazyredcoat's Crazy Compendium of Collected Creativity
"Not all those who wander are lost...except the Lieutenant; he's lost as sh*t"
Took a bit of a break from the site over christmas, but just beforehand I had finished up a Space Marine Lieutenant for my Ultras. If anyone remembers a very old project about getting my Ultras painted that I did, then you’ll know the general methods, but I’ll briefly go over some details here. Also, if anyone is wondering, that title is a reference to a comic I saw many moons ago.
It's actually a modification of an original comic where 'Lt' is replaced with 'Tim'. The original authour and the chap who modified it have their tags in the bottom left.And this is why Sergeants exist! Back to minis, though, he’s painted in traditional Ultra colours with plenty of flashes of red for two reasons; he’s 3rd Company, and I like red. The blue is a system I came up with to speed up painting the army and while I haven’t painted a ‘unit’ in a while the method works quite nicely.
I start with a spray prime of Macragge Blue, though to be honest I do this for speed and economy. You could prime another colour and paint over the top with Macragged Blue. If you are going to do this, then a black primer will give a darker tone and a white may give something close to a 2nd edition colour (I haven't tried that, though). Over the blue I all-over shade with Nuln Oil (I use that a lot...) then heavy drybrush with Macragge Blue to lighten up (you could layer this, but that take time) then a lighter drybrush of Calgar Blue to highlight (again, you could brush highlight...but time...).
Traditionally, a lot of the decoration on these minis is done as gold decoration, but I decided to break that up a bit with the laurels. I think it's a nice chance for a splash of colour here and there and is the same reason why I like to add a bit of yellow to stray pipes here and there on these minis. The laurels are a very simple basecoat of Waagh Flesh followed by a highlight of the individual leaves with Warboss Green. You could shade them, but at this scale just the two steps does the trick.While it’s not so much the case with this chap (I didn’t add a tilting(?) shield to this chap), I did try to add some more splashes of semi-heraldic colours. A conversation I had about the Ultras some months ago on the forums brought up a point that Ultras used to be big on Heraldry and I decided to try and bring a bit of that to my army. On this chap, though, I added a red knee pad with the chapter badge rather than the standard blue to switch it up a bit and as I add more and more heraldry to some of my chaps I will add in more than just red and blue. Maybe I’ll paint up a bunch of the shields and stick them to various chaps I already finished.
I've taken to very specifically picking out certain details in other colours, such as the Lieutenant badges on the vambraces, as it gives a bit more character to the model, I think. As I said before, I may revisit this mini with a tilting shield in the near future alongside some other minis that I have done in the past.
And the Lloyd shot! I'm rather pleased with the way the sword came out in these pictures. I used the many 'Painting Power Swords' videos that GW and Duncan Rhodes have done over the years with some differences. Firstly, I never remember the exact blues I used the last time in the gradient, but I also glaze the blade with Guilliman Blue before giving it a coat of gloss varnish. It looks really nice. I also did the rim of the base in Corvus Black...and I actually really like it. I might switch my Ultras from the gloss black rims they currently have. That being said; I'll wait until these lockdowns are done and I have easier access to paints than waiting for GW to send me them in the post...Not sure what plans are up next, but I don’t go back to school until the 11th, so more should be done. Perhaps more Witch Aelves? I still have to finish that Shadespire team and my brother got me a box of them too…so much to paint…so little time. 😛
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