Space Marine Rapture

OK, pun intended with the title ;). I'm showing you one of my Space Marines armies, the Chapter of the Raptors. Unlike most of the other Chapters, Raptors believe in stealth, camouflage, cover and all this kind of things other Marines just seem to disregard with their garish liveries and tactics. I had long time desired to paint some Space Marines with this 'regular military looking', taking back from the past those times when these armies used to have the 'Chapter colour' and different camouflage patterns.

So I did a colour test:

 

Mk. VIII 'Errant' pattern Armour

 

And I did like it!

So I ended up having the following:

Tactical Squad. Just the one from the Black Reack box, with some work on the Sergeant:

 

Ooops, this photo really sucks

A second Tactical Squad, using minis from here and there. A few really old RT minis here:

 

Mixed up with modern minis

 

A Devastator Squad:

 

I ran out of missile launchers, I had to use one from Space Crusade

 

This is a Veteran Squad ('Sternguard' are they called? 'Vanguard Veterans'? Oh, I'm a mess with new names):

 

Another mix of minis

More Veterans

Two special cases in this Squad:

 

Wait, I have a Power Fist, why am I kicking this guy?

As I didn't know how to make spraying blood, I made that octopus the guts with green stuff

 

These last ones are both old metal minis. I wanted something really different, the kind of mini you don't regularly have. The opponents are Astral Claws Marines, as I raised this Army as part of a Badab War Campaign which sadly never took place.

I purchased the new Command Squad (or whatever its name is) from Forge World. This guy would act as Chapter Master Lias Issodon:

 

Raptors are extreme pale. Genetic issues

And I used the Standard Bearer as a bodyguard. I didn't see Raptors marching into battle with Banners and Standards:

So a sword instead of the Standard

 

The rest of the Command Squad is made up of retails :P:

 

Really oooold mini. Love it

Reasonably old mini

New mini from Black Reach box. Had it totally idle, finally found a place for the guy

 

Well, don't wanna saturate the post. Later this very week I'll show you the rest of the army. Enjoy!

Freeboterz!

I have recently painted some Ork Freeboterz, so I've decided to show you some of my oooold minis too. I painted this unit long time ago. As you can see, I not only painted them, but converted some of the minis too.

 

Ork Pirates in space. Can anything better even exist?

I made some three-cornered hats and longcoats with green stuff, nothing too elaborate. The Nob is from the Black Reach box (it has an eye patch! It necessarily had to be here!) and I sculpted a parrot for his shoulder :P

Absolute sea dogs. Whatever.

 

But, as I was telling you, I have recently painted some new guys. Here they are:

 

Trying to innovate with the trousers

Bright colours, this is 2nd Ed., after all

Sing!: A pirate I was meant to be, trim the sails and roam the seas...

 

Now some cheating: These two are not Freeboterz minis. The first one is a Death Skull Clan Ork and the other is a Runtherd. But that was what I had and they suit in here quite reasonably:

 

Oh, c'mon, I even have a hook!

 

The same I can say about this one. I had just a Snakebite Clan torso (from a Boar rider). I sculpted all the bottom part and took advantage of the fact that it had a banner pole, so I made him the leader of this bunch:

 

Of course I made a peg leg!

Arrr! Ya landlubbers!

The complete group:

 

 

Board 'er!!

So that's it, I believe you can see the evolution in my style/technique/whatever. I still have tons of old Ork stuff I haven't shown here, but I'll bring some different things first, just to avoid saturation :)

Old scent of Chaos

Just some few creatures of old, Warhammer demons.

Tzeentch, besides being quite tricky to spell, is the demon god of deception and trickery. The servants of this god show ambition for knowledge, secrets and perpetual motion and change in all its ways.

These Tzeentch demons are probably the most delirious insane design from all the ranges from those ages. Sculpted by Kev Adams, the so called 'Horrors' had some really funny rules.

 

Gollum's Chaos cousins

 

  Pink Horrors march into battle emerging from warp holes in reality. But when a Pink Horror is 'killed' (well, if that's the correct verb), it begins to twist and writhe, suddenly looking to split up into two smaller creatures, two Blue Horrors which take the place of the first demon. So the confident opponent believing to have killed an enemy, suddenly has to face two more!

 

Pink Horror. Yes, it is a horror. And it is pink

Warped Tony Manero

He left a promising future in baseball in favour of scaring children all over the galaxy

The most horrible things here are my photos, as usual. The minis have much more depth and richness in colours.

But let's go for a change. If Tzeentch is the demon god of knowledge and change, Nurgle is the demon god of rotten decay, death and stillness. Patient erosion, illness and plagues are the banners of Nurgle. These Beasts show it perfectly:

 

Gigantic warped putrid slugs

Medusa's pet

Don't even know if there are current rules for this. Don't think so

 

Notice that these are not 25mm bases as in the Horrors, but 40mm ones. These guys are big. I painted the bases not just in plain flat earth, but with dark colours surrounding the Beast, showing that Chaos presence is so strong that even earth itself rottens at its path.

I repeated the idea with these Nurglins, the smallest demons of Nurgle, attacking in nasty packs (Packs? Flocks? Ahh, groups, whatever)

 

Sooo tiny and adorable

 

Here the earth rotting effect is easier to see.

If you remember, when storytelling was part of this game and you were looking for action stories told with minis (not just killer combos to win whatever you win here), Tzeentch and Nurgle couldn't fight in the same side, as they were totally opposed (change/stillness). Only extreme circumstances could make them put their differences aside, and even then they could spend as much time fighting each other as fighting the supposed common enemy!

I have lots of Chaos demons belonging to all different gods, but I have repainted these recently. I'll try to bring here all the other ones.

Hope you enjoyed them!

Archive pics: Eldar Harlequins

Some other things I painted last year.

These Harlequins were made for a friend as a commission; he provided me all the minis and wanted me to make them up in a classic/homogeneous style, trying to mix these two generations of minis and make them looking not too different.

Eldar (a stolen borrowed name GW took from Tolkien, meaning 'people of the stars') are the Space Elves. This race is divided in many branches, scattered through the galaxy, since they were taken to the brink of extinction milennia ago. One of these branches is the 'Harlequins', half warriors, half artists, custodians of the Eldar Knowledge in their Black Library and worshippers of the Laughing God.

I found it particularly difficult finding a proper scheme or colour pattern. They have traditionally been depicted quite similar to what we understand for a 'real' harlequin, with diamond pattern clothes or a jester appearance. My friend didn't want that, he asked specifically to ban the diamond scheme, so I looked for a more alien approach, trying to keep the essence and the 80's looks. How would I make them gaudy and classy at the same time?

Well, easy, making them just gaudy and forgetting about the classy thing :P.

Let's see them:

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

That's it! Let's have some group shots:

 

The Troupe

Yeah, you got it right. Space Elves in tight pyjamas

Warrior dancers who worship a Laughing God

In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only... dance!

 

I toyed a bit with the jester idea (More 'jester', less 'harlequin', it also suited the fluff). I would also had like to explore the Venetian mask idea, but I finally let them the way you have just seen. I did almost nothing to the bases, in order not to draw attention from the minis themselves. Just neutral grey rubble, to make the eye focus on the Harlequin.

This was the flashiest style I was capable of, trying to be consistent with Eldar Harlequins background and being respectful with the 'no-diamonds/not-the-same-that-everyone/not-grim-colours' requirements at the same time.

Imagine, you are a soldier of the Emperor of Mankind, defending your filthy trench. After days of starving and boring shifts, suddenly some colourful dudes attack you dancing and leaping all over. No wonder there is a word for describing fear to clowns. Brrr, shivering!