Space Hulk's Sergeant Lorenzo, painted

It's been a while since I posted an update on Space Hulk miniatures. At this rate, it's gonna take a looong while before the whole set is completed, especially since I've barely even started on the Genestealers yet. Anyway, here's Wonderw... Sergeant Lorenzo.

I don't know if it's because of the difference in miniature quality between Space Hulk and normal 40k miniatures, but for some reason, I had a lot of trouble with the face of the model. The colours kept looking weirdly flat. I did finally manage to get it done well enough, though Kislev Flesh does look a little bit unhealthy, in my opinion. Of course, the Astartes spend most of their time on spaceships, in their fortress monastery and wearing helmets, so some pallor is very fitting.

 The model's sword was first painted with a mix of Leadbelcher and Altdorf Guard Blue (IIRC), then highlighted with Runefang Steel. I like the effect that this gives, with the sword being blue enough to give the impression of being powered, yet metallic enough to make it clear it's not supposed to be a lightsabre.

Lorenzo's cloak's highlighting wasn't very successful, and I may have to redo it at a later date. I used too wet a brush, with too much paint on it. In hindsight, it would probably been good to thin the white with some Lahmian Medium first.
I may (and probably should) start to paint the Space Hulk models a little more frequently in the future. I recently relocated the Librarian Calistarius model included in Space Hulk set, which was a relief, as I thought I had lost the model. After all, with no Calistarius, there's no Mephiston, and with no Mephiston, who's going to scare the kids on Baal?

Space Hulk Brother Scipio

Time to get on with my Space Hulk miniatures. There still are a few Terminators left, plus I have to locate the Librarian, whom I have misplaced at the moment. I seem to recall undercoating the miniature before misplacing it. In the meantime, though, Brother Scipio, the one who is actively smashing the place apart (the place being an amalgamation of a whole bunch of ancient spaceships and nearly impervious to damage, so I say let him).

 I have to say I like the pose. It shows the raw power of a Terminator armour with a power fist/glove, the character tearing huge sheets of metal off the floor. That said, I'm not sure what that's supposed to accomplish exactly, since no rules exist for making impromptu barricades (though that would be cool) and though he has every reason to dislike the hulk he's on, it's not the floor's fault he's being attacked by multi-limbed alien monsters.

 I wanted to repeat the bisected pattern of his right pauldron on his power fist's casing, as the way the model is posed makes it visible to the almost completely opposite direction.
Again, the Crux Terminatus stone on the model is less than brilliantly defined, and the shade doesn't work as well as it could.

The various Purity Seals on the model don't really give an uniform sense of movement on the model. Some are flying in one direction, the others another. It's not going to ruin my day, but GW could have done better here.

Space Hulk Brother Leon

I've mentioned time and time again how I like the Terminator armour's look, but one thing I haven't really praised much so far is Assault Cannon's look, and unlike with Dreadnoughts with Assault Cannons, when they are combined with Terminator armour, it looks all the better.

 Brother Leon's simple and effective heraldry was easy to paint, yet manages to look nice. I might personally prefer models with Assault Cannons to have a little more pompous pose, but as a combat pose, this works fine, and is about as credible as the subject matter allows.

 In hindsight, painting the power fist's casing white may have been a mistake. It'd made more sense to repeat Brother Leon's heraldic scheme there instead. On the plus side, I managed to paint the yellow and black stripes on the cord going through the model's Crux Terminatus well enough.

The rear view of the model doesn't really reveal anything too interesting. I painted the armour red, the support struts and power cable casings gunmetal and the decorations gold.

Space Hulk Sergeant Gideon

Out of the two sergeants in the default Space Hulk Blood Angels, I somewhat prefer Gideon, as far as fluff goes. Rules-wise, Space Hulk Terminators would do well to never let Genestealers come close enough to attack them, which puts Gideon in an awkward position as a model with no ranged capability.

 Space Hulk Terminators are a little trickier to paint than their standard multi-part counterparts, as they can't be disassembled into as many little pieces for painting. I would probably have preferred to paint Gideon's head separately, as the high collar on his armour makes it a little more difficult to reach. Not by a huge margin, but everything counts.

 The highly detailed Storm Shield was a challenge by its own right. It took me a while to decide on a scheme, but ultimately decided on a fairly standard gold decoration on a red background, with the edge decoration painted silver.
Again, note how the Crux Terminatus is less sharply defined than on standard Terminators.

I painted the Thunder Hammer in just metallic colours, the grip and the blue glow effect excluded. I use thinned-down Temple Guard Blue for the glow effect, placing it in a few select recesses.

Space Hulk Brother Zael

Time for another Space Hulk miniature. Maybe I'll have finished the whole set by next Christmas, though I wouldn't bet on it, considering I have yet to start on the Genestealers.

 I have to admit that the models in the set are finely detailed and tend to have nice themes to them. Brother Zael has a whole bunch of various purity seals and oaths of the moment stuck to his armour, which gives the model character and adds to the narrative of the squad. It would have been easy to just give the model a heavy flamer and decide that's his thing, leaving the rest generic. Fortunately, that didn't happen.

 That said, the Crux Terminatus stones on the models in particular have pretty inconsistent texture quality to them. The standard plastic Space Marine Terminators and the Wolf Guard terminators have Crux Terminati that always end up getting fine definition from the normal shading and highlighting treatment, while this one ended up being blurry, no matter what I did. May well be that I should have done something differently, but my point is that with most Terminator models, I don't have to.

Brother Zael's right shoulder pad is among my favourites in the squads, with the white flame on the black background, behind a gem in the shape of a gemstone. It captures well both his own as well as his Chapter's iconography.
I used a mix of purple and blue shades and black soot weathering powder on the nozzle of the flamer to get the discolouration effect. It's surprisingly easy and a very effective trick to make the weapon seem like it's seen some use.

Space Hulk Brothe Valencio, painted

Antoher Space Hulk Terminator, this time Brother Valencio with his chainfist. I should point out that I may not yet be completely finished with painting this one, and will definitely at least varnish the model.

 I find that the red and white colour scheme of the model's right shoulder pad catches the eye very well, and meshes nicely with the gold of the decorations. Although I don't necessarily try to paint each model to look exactly as they do in the back of the Missions book, there are relatively few places to depart from that scheme. In this model's case, I did paint his chainfist's fingers and chainblade casing black instead of red. Shocking, I know.

 The devil is in the details, as they say, and I make a point of trying to paint at least something eyecatching in the models. In this case, that job went to the black and yellow cabling connecting the model's helmet to his armour.

Rear view of the model reveals many of the places I find should be touched up a little before varnishing. Back of the model's legs could use some more highlighting, and the metal colour is inconsistent in quite a few places. I may append this entry once I'm really done with the model, depending when that will be.

Brother Goriel of Space Hulk

When Space Hulk was last re-released, it was sold out in Games Workshop webstore within a few hours, and the third party retailer I preordered my copy from sold it out in a day or so, too. I guess I was somewhat lucky to be able to secure a copy. I have to admit, this is a high quality product, with the tokens and board pieces made of thick, heavy-duty cardboard and the models very detailed.

Out of the Blood Angels in the box, Brother Goriel's model has to be my favourite. The deep gouges in his armour make it clear that the close combat victory over the Genestealer didn't come easily, as it shouldn't, if you look at the game's rules.
I generally prefer to not go too much to the orange side of colour spectrum when highlighting reds, even if it leaves the model's overall shade a little dark. My highlight colour was Evil Sunz Scarlet, which doesn't really have any noticeable yellow hue in it.

 After varnishing the model with the standard Purity Seal spray, I used gloss varnish to pick out the Genestealer's remains, to give it a glistening, slimy look.

I took care to check the Terminators' heraldry in the Mission Book, to stick to the established canon. I'm also very happy that the book included those separately, as I sometimes tend to be borderline neurotic with my models fitting in the canon.
I may make a blog post of each of the Terminators in the box, given time. I guess I could also blog about the Genestealers, though those would probably have to be handled in groups, given their large number. This would also motivate me to finish painting them already, as it's been almost a year and a half.