Ahh, Wormtongue, wormtongue... There's your head. Since this blog was originally about middle earth stuff, I thought I better finish one. So here is another hours work tonight. This looks way better in real life and light than the picture, and I'm really pleased with how it turned out. Had to re-do his fur collar, as I had done it grey originally, and wasted about a gallon of paint mixing his 'palid' face colour as per BGIME instructions. Just got to gravel and grass the base then this one is done..

For a while now I have been concerned with the difference in 'feel' of metal miniatures verses plastic ones. Picking up a metal miniature gives a nice, quality feel, but then picking up a plastic one is jsut not the same. When the plastic space marines first came out they were supplied with bases that did not have a slot in them, so I used to glue a penny in them to get a bit more weight. But now all is different, because most of them are supplied with slot bases. So I came up with an idea to make the bases look better, while giving them a bit more weight. So here it is:

Enjoy!

Finished! Well, sort of nearly... I inked and drybrushed the sand on the bases this evening, and found a matt varnish to try and de-shine the decals - It was a revel varnish, that the first time I tested it (on a spare blood angel that has been a test piece for me..) dried shiny - but then I realised that there was a thin layer at the bottom of the pot - so stirred it in with a match stick and tried again. This has put a slight sheen on the figures, but reduced the glossyness of the decals... So I ended up painting all of them - I am going to use these for gaming with Roo so they need something to protect from greasy sticky fingers :/ Finally I bestial brown-ed the edge of the bases. Once all of this has dried properly I'm going to just add a bit of static grass to the bases and that will be it. Finally I've finished the Macragge set.. Will take some pictures tomorrow.

Well here they are.. Another evening of fluoro-painting got me to nearly finished. I applied the ultramarine decals - but I dont like the way they dont lie flat and are shiney - I'll have to matt- varnish them I suppose.

So on the other side - I painted on the white arrows and the IV emblem onto their shoulder pads - much happier with that. Also I finelined around all the grooves with black ink, and used the same ink with a fine detail brush to paint some 'words' on the seals.. (see other photo)
Even got around to applying the sand to the base - so all that is left is to bestial brown around the edge of the base, ink the sand and drybrush it. These have taken me ages but at least I get to buy a rhino finally now! And get to play a game with these properly...

Well, I said yesterday that I hoped to get my marines finished on Friday, well now its Saturday evening and I still dont have much to show for it. I forgot just how blummin fiddly these marines were, not to mention all these new 'Seals of Purity' which have appeared since I last did this...
So this picture is how I stand this evening, after about a 3 hour session under fluoresent lighting. All of the marines had been base coated, and some of them I had lined using black ink on holiday. First of all I did Sgt Octavian (with the saw) in the middle, and applied the gold to his chest and around the shoulder pads, quite easy but my shining gold is going off. THEN I try to do it on the others - the problem is the bolt gun covers the chest on most of the other figures, and of course I've glued them, so its right fiddly to paint the crest. Anyway I've attempted this and then done the shoulder lining on all the other figures. Not ideal - as I was painting the gold straight onto the blue base coat - so it needs a couple of coats to brighten it up. Then I watered down flesh wash a bit and painted it on all of the crests to bring out the detail - it made the gold look much deeper.
You might be able to make out the backpack in the picture - I really dont like these, and some of my early models didnt have them on - I dont like them that much - but I'm trying to be acurate with these so I paroused the Macragge intructions and found finally a picture that showed a marine from behind.
I was startled to realise that the skull on the back was a metal colour, so I used boltgun (my favorite metal colour) on the skull. I also detailed all of the vents on all of the backpacks.
So..... All thats left is to base these (watch out for an exiting 'tutorial' on my basing in a later post!!) and clean up some of the basecoat blue where I have slipped with the metalic, finish the seals (bahhh!) and finish lining the other ones with black ink. Finally I have to do the brown belts and utility packs and add a little highlight to the blue basecoats... Not much huh? Oh and then the decals... But I might just paint them on...

Might get this finished by the end of this year.

This is the sum total result of all the painting stuff that I took with me on my recent holiday in scotland. I only got around to painting in the evening, and the light was pants. So in the end I only did Denethor (finished) and wormtougue (with no head). I was quite pleased with Denethor, when I looked at him in the light of day. I did, however, spend quite a while highlighing the black cloak, as hopefully you can see from the other picture, and am happy with the flesh tones on his face. Need to find some reference about finishing wormtongues head, but decided to do the cloak the same way. Thanks to my mate Fil for lending me his Nikon for a play which I used to take these photos. Planning to finish all of my marines this weekend (or even this evening)