Back in early July Darren Latham (Miniature Designer and former Senior ‘Eavy Metal painter for Games Workshop) announced he wanted to run an event to celebrate reaching 90,000 Instagram followers.
For the event he wanted everyone interested in participating to paint this monopose Space Marine from 1993:
This was as good an excuse as any for some of us here at Goonhammer to paint up this 30(!!!) year old marine. Check out #90smarinefinished on Instagram to see all the entries.
Skails
My Chapter
I went with the Excoriators Chapter to paint this little guy. Excoriators are a successor chapter to the Imperial Fists. They are featured in the Black Library novel Legion of the Damned by Rob Sanders, where the 5th company is left with a single survivor after the Chaos Cholercaust Blood Crusade descends upon the cemetery world of Certus Minor. Their most notable feature is merely repairing armor to a functional state then inscribing the date, place, and type of weapon that caused the battle damage next to it.
Process
I started off with Stynylrez Ebony Flesh primer, which is a medium brown color. Next was an airbrushed coat of Citadel Air Zandri Dust. From here I did broad highlights of Citadel Ushabti Bone over most of the Zandri Dust. Then a highlight of Citadel Screaming Skull on the more upward facing surfaces.
Vallejo Mecha Color Pure Black was used for gun casing and trim. This was highlighted with a few greys.
The battle damage started with Vallejo Model Color Burnt Umber for the general shape. A black line along the top edge and a white line along the edges makes damage pop and gives it some dimensionality. You can check out my older tutorials for this kind of thing here. I was using tube acrylics at the time but the process is the same.
Rocco Gest
My Chapter
Despite the fact that I knew I was going to paint something with a Goblin Green base, I made the awesome decision to paint a Mantis Warriors marine. I had a lot of interest in the chapter’s style when I first started my Space Marine army, but decided on my own custom scheme instead. This was the perfect opportunity for me to paint these green jerks.
Process
I first had to procure a 2nd edition marine. Having started at the tail end of 8th, I simply didn’t have a dork sitting in my collection. Thankfully MasterSlowPoke came through for me and sent me a new friend.
I primed the guy with a black to white zenithal and then went to town doing a 2:1 mixture of Yriel Yellow and Caliban Green to get the base coat. I took my mixture and progressively added White Scar to the mix to get my highlights. The face of the helmet and shoulder pads were easier as I base coated those with Averland Sunset and highlighted from there. For the base I took a mixture of Nocturne Green, Yriel Yellow, and White Scar to get what I was told was close to the right hue. Considering the marine was already green, I skipped the classic green flock in favor of Stirland Mud just to break up the green. The hardest part for me was free handing the Mantis Warrior insignia. Free handing is not a skill I’ve honed, so this was a great trial by fire. I think I did pretty well If I do say so myself.
I had a lot of fun painting this marine in about two sessions (first base coating, then highlighting and free handing) and I am going to sit him on my desk at work with my other one-off miniatures.
Sam “togepi” Barrows
My Chapter
I always identified with the Alpha Legion, the guys who think they’re smarter than everyone but only ever end up outsmarting themselves. I have played Warhammer in some form since 2003 and yet it took until 2022 for me to collect a Space Marine army of any sort, and even then it was Horus Heresy Alpha Legion. And I still haven’t played a game with them. They look sweet on my office shelf, though.
Process
I used the same process here that I used to paint 70 tactical marines of various sorts, plus 15 terminators, three dreadnoughts, three jetbikes and a half-dozen characters, all without wanting to kill myself. It’s all airbrush, baby. Prime, basecoat army painter Plate Mail Metal, zenithal coat army painter Shining Silver. All-over coat an 80/20 mix of Tamiya Clear Blue and Tamiya Clear Green, then do a zoot of pure Clear Blue from below and a zoot of pure Clear Green from above. Often I do a tiny dash of mixed shining silver/clear blue from directly above to pick out some highlights, but I forgot this time. Then it’s a clear blue glaze, then picking out details in Ironbreaker (well, Sir Coates Silver, the Two Thin Coats equivalent), eyes in red, some Balthasar Gold on the bronze details, wash the metal Nuln Oil and Agrax Earthshade respectively, and paint any other details you want (here, I did a holster in Mournfang Brown and Skrag Brown). I also picked out a little freehand hydra to be cheeky.
The only challenging part was the base because I normally don’t attach my models until they’re fully painted but this time my marine was shipped to me fully assembled. I did my best to make a little brown dirt field but definitely didn’t get as clean a drybrush as I would have liked. And some got on his legs, too. I guess he’s been tramping through the mud, so I left it on.
There’s my guy. He’s gonna hang out with all his big brothers, like a little mascot. Hydra Dominatus, baby.
Momma Negan
My Chapter
So for this one I wanted to be extra, I wanted to try and paint a chapter that had not been or barely painted before and while I’m sure someone else has painted them, searching for them didn’t give me any results. So I proudly present: The Ice River Guard! A chapter mentioned in the old Challenge Magazines, for which the Paint Scheme always seemed a little unusual to me, So I did my best to put it I to a practical scheme
Process
The main part is the Blue, Green and Brown armor, first I did the entire thing in an Ultramarine color scheme, only doing surface level highlights. After that I added wavy, river-like stripes in a medium green tone on the pauldrons, kneepads, shins and feet, for the arms and hands I did a simple stripe as the area was a little small for wavy design. After that I’ve added a dark brown stripe in roughly the same shape but smaller into the middle of the green stripe. For the helmet I chose to do a wavy rounded stripe going along the temples and part of the face plate. From here on it’s mainly highlighting the three colors, seeing how they interact with light and each other. I apologize if you expected a more thorough explanation but it is currently quarter past four in the morning and I really just want to finish this and get to bed.
MasterSlowPoke
My Chapter
The Dawn of War videogame was my first entry into the Warhammer universe. I actually remember the first time I heard of it, reading a review of the Winter Assault expansion. I must have gotten a few wires crossed, as I thought the Imperial Guard it was talking about were huge, armored warriors wielding spear and shield to defend humanity. I did love the guard when I finally learned what they actually were, and I loved the army painter it included even more. The Hot Dog Regiment clad in bright red and dirty mustard terrorized the digital battlefields. When I played Space Marines though, my eye was drawn to one of the presets – the Brazen Claws.
The Brazen Claws are Iron Hand successors, and they are striking in a Blue and Red quartered scheme. I think I was always destined to be drawn to bad or silly armies – my first marine army was Lamenters, who are known for being a drag to be around, and the Brazen Claws seethed so hard after losing their home planet, they drove their entire chapter into the Eye of Terror for no reason and nearly lost it. A few captains managed to get out, and they’ve survived into the Primaris era.
Process
I always thought I would end up doing a quartered scheme for my marines – it’s incredibly eye catching and a classic Space Marine look. The call of rainbows was too much, however. It is actually not as bad to paint a quartered scheme as you would think, it’s just kind of like painting two smaller models. The blue is a 50/50 mix of Kantor Blue and Caledor Sky, highlighted with Hoeth Blue, Lothern Blue, and Blue Horror, while the red is the classic saturated red combo of Mephiston Red, highlighted with Evil Suns Scarlet, Wild Rider Red, and Troll Slayer Orange. This was also my first time painting a Goblin Green style base – kind of fun for the novelty and it actually really frames the model well. It took me about 5 tries to get the freehand on the chapter symbol even close to right, but I think it mostly reads.
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