Space Marine 1989: Painted Land Raider and Rhino Test Pieces

Despite the combination of Mother's Day lunch and four pints of real ale earlier today, I still found time to finish off my first Space Marine vehicles. Initially I was apprehensive about painting these up as tiny, weeny vehicles are about as far from my comfort zone as it is possible to go. But using the exact same technique as the infantry stands, the two models were quickly complete. 

My method is very straight forwards. Undercoat in white, base coat in Sky Blue B from Foundry, wash over in black ink, drybrush back over with the basecolour and end with two successive highlights mixed with white. I used yellow as a spot colour here and there for the lights.

As of yet, I haven't added any symbols or markings on the vehicles as they don't seem as plain as the infantry models once complete. I probably will though soon, when the beer goggles and Sunday lunch has worn off a little more. A shaking hand is no use when working on such a small scale. 

In addition, I have cleaned up some of my old school epic metal marines and built four support stands using the missile launcher models and two command stands. These await my attentions next time I have a moment or ten to myself. 

The painting is a bit sloppy in places (no doubt my technique will improve as I knock out more vehicles) but they seem suitably eye catching from about two or three feet away. I hope that you like them! Of course, if you have any fine hints and tips for the painting of these epic scale vehicles, please do let me know!

Orlygg

Space Marine 1989: Original Epic Scale Infantry

Hello all, with the change of season I have been very busy sorting out my home. With 400 year old walls covered in render to check, tiles to re-align and wattle and daub walling to patch up, I have been a busy boy indeed. What with the front, rear and kitchen gardens to tidy up and prepare for the warmer, brighter days too, the opportunity to Oldhammer has been restricted of late. 

Thankfully, I have been busy collecting various epic scale pieces from the original Space Marine/Adeptus Titanicus game. Now, if you are anything like me and have spent some time pouring over the old photographic references for SM/AT published in places like White Dwarf, you will know that the original infantry depicted in early promotional material vary starkly from the famous plastic marines that came later. 

Well, these are the very same models. If you look closely you can make out the standard marine (bolter in hand), the commander (bolt pistol and power sword) and the devestator (old school rocket launcher on shoulder). I have a fair few of these models now, thanks to in part to Graham Apperly who traded a couple of Fishmen for a smattering of these tiny fellows. 

I was surprised to learn that some collectors and gamers seem to have missed these models. I was even told by several enthusiasts that they never saw release!! I have a number of these tiny marines bought in an infantry blister in Wonderworld in 1989. The were originally released for Adeptus Titanicus to, presumably, supplement the infantry rules produced in White Dwarf. With the development of the plastic marines, they were superceded by cheaper models, though you could still find them as extras in titan blisters. 

There are a couple of other variants that I don't have yet. The heavy bolter and the running marine, so if you have any of these tiny chaps languishing in you collections please do let me know and I will happily buy/trade with you. 

Right, I better get these cleaned and painted up. 

Orlygg

Space Marine 1st Edition: More Marines

Forgive the sub par photography, but I managed to get a second set of stands completed last night and was keen to share my progress. Painting the entire shoulder pad really made the difference to the 'look' of the tiny models and I adapted my original idea slightly for the Ultramarines with a white background to a red 'U'. The Thousand Sons remain unchanged with just an increase in yellow. 

Instead of repainting my first attempt at the models using my improved method, I decided to merely update the iconography and the difference, though noticeable will probably been acceptable to me when further units are completed. 

Last time we spoke on the issue of painting marines I asked for some advice on how best to approach them. Many thanks to those of you who contributed ideas here, on Facebook and via email.It was very enjoyable working through the different suggestive methods and developing something that works for me. I will share with you the recipe for success I am currently using as I will no doubt forget sometime in the future and returning to this article will help jog the memory banks. There may even be one or two painters out there who may benefit from such a guide... so here goes. 

Step 1: Undercoat the stand in white and then basecoat in chosen colour. For the Ultramarines I chose Foundry's Sky Blue A and for the Thousand Sons GW's Khorne Red.

Step 2: Wash over entire stand with black ink wash. Check coverage of underside, particularly with the centre marine. 

Step 3: Once dry, drybrush over stand with original basecoat colours. 

Step 4: Add first layer of highlights to the model. I used Foundry's Sky Blue B to do this to the Ultras and GW's Mephiston Red for the Thousand Sons. Paint the boltgun with a dark silver metallic paint. 

Step 5: Add an additional layer of highlights to the edges of the marines by mixing increasing amounts of Foundry's Boneyard C to the blue and Foundry's Yellow B to the red. Touch up the helmet, knees, hands and feet of the marines with the final layer of highlight. Paint a lighter shade of silver over the top of the boltgun. 

Step 6: Paint the shoulder pads Boneyard C for the Ultras and Yellow A for the Sons. Highlight with white and yellow C respectively. 

Step 7: Add Ultramarines symbol to shoulder pads in Khorne Red and Thousand Sons in black. Add Tactical Squad markings to other shoulder pad. 

Step 8: Base with darkbrown. Then dry brush with Foundry's Boneyard triad. paint mdf base edge black. 

Looking back, I was having difficulty create the sense of depth on these models. Using black over the top of the original base colour allowed the contrast to develop properly and really helped me pick out the details. Frustratingly, after painting tiny tactical squad markings on all of the pads I found this article in an old WD. 

The Space Marine (1989) rulebook just uses the White Scars illustration to explain the chapter markings and the reflective triangles made perfect symbols to represent tactical squads - so I painted them on all my marines. Know, I will use the Ultramarine red and yellow squares as it will add an additional layer of colour to my tiny warriors. Anyone know of the Thousand Sons had any additional fluff attributed to them back in the 1980s early 90s that I could add? 

Please let me know if you have something in mind. Right, I am going back to the painting table to try and apply my new recipe to some vehicles. 

Speak soon.

Orlygg.

The Return of (my) Space Marine

Forgive the 'look what I've got' style post, I know that they are highly irritating and appear just about everywhere (particularly Facebook) but I just opened up my new copy of this game and I am very excited. 

I was surprised just how many memories came rushing back as I lifted the cardboard lid off the 1989 edition of the game. A whirl of Christmas time, poorly sprayed undercoat and my late grandparents. And as far as I can tell, the box is complete and I spent a happy hour laying out all of the components onto my parlour table and reminiscing to myself. My seven year old was intrigued by the tiny soldiers and the tanks (far more so that with my fantasy stuff at 28mm) and has expressed an interest in trying out the game.

More pressing is the need to paint up the models to a reasonable standard and create a gaming board on which to play. A fine spring project I am sure that you will agree.

Orlygg

How do you paint your EPIC infantry?

My first two infantry stands. They are pdf bases originally cut for 288mm figures. I used blu-tak to even out the surfaces before adding the sand texture. 

Well here's a first! Painted space marines on my blog. And painted EPIC space marines from the 1989 box game to boot. These are just test pieces mind you, and represent me just fiddling around with the concept of painting tiny little plastic men, as opposed to not so tiny little metal men. A few posts back I was waxing not so lyrical about my love for the first edition of Space Marine, and these figures are the symptom of those thoughts. 

However, though I can hold my own when working on 28mm figures, I am a complete amateur with figures of this scale - and I think that that shows! Usually, when approaching something more challenging than normal I would spend a few hours reading through as many forums, blogs and articles as I could unearth on the subject - looking for inspiration. Perhaps it was just me, but I wasn't really able to find much on the subject with the best information coming from the original Space Marine rulebook (thank you for that Steve Casey) so I was left pretty much to my own devices. 

The appalling sight of crushed infantry stands. These days I stick to the rule of NEVER placing models on the floor. 

Having picked up a couple of lots of marines on eBay, and having received a few extras from Ian Wood (see above), one thing that struck me was how generic the stands look when assembled. With every figure positioned in the same X pattern, the forces on display didn't really look like the rushing mass of lethal warriors as the artwork portrays. Rather squads of static monopose troopers lining up on the parade ground. 

Loose marines. Sounds like a dodgy US army amateur rock band.

Having got a number of loose models, I stuck them rather randomly on a selection of pdf bases in an attempt to vary this look. My remaining bases have already been glued down, though snipping them from the original bases won't be particularly demanding if I like the effect. 

These stands were already stuck down when I bought them. If I am going to stick withe pdf idea, I will need to come up with a way of removing them.

Following the advice of Jervis Johnson in the original Space Marine rulebook, I choose to represent the forces of the Ultramarines and the Thousand Sons on the table top, based largely on the fantastic photographs of red and blue epic scale infantry on the original photographs published in White Dwarf. Johnson, if it was he who wrote the painting section, recommended drybrushing to help bring out the detail and I followed the advice to the letter having found nothing else to go on. The finished result was very underwhelming, so I endeavoured to have a second crack at both bases. 

My first attempts at chapter markings.

This time I used my preferred technique of layering and washes and the results are far more pleasing to my eye. The general method I used was simple really. A dark base coat with suitable ink wash. I used blue/black ink for the Ultramarines and black/brown ink for the Thousand Sons. Once dry, I quickly painted over all of the raised services with the original base colour and added a few highlights to the armour, most notably the shoulderpads, helmet and legs. Black ink was then added to the chest and weapon area to create additional depth. Being an amateur working with this scale, I quickly realised that you needed to create far deeper depth effects and brighter highlights to bring out the best of these models. 

Adding yellow to the red and white to the blue, I added additional highlights here and there and used the same method to colour the bolter in each marine's hands. Still, the models looked pretty bland, even with the bases completed. I decided to add further detail and add squad markings as best I could to the figures. The Ultramarines were pretty straightforwards, with me simply painting a white U on each shoulder pad and copying the two, reflecting triangle symbols that represent tactical squads on the other. My freehand painting was a little off the mark here, though I think with practise it will improve. 

The Thousand Sons had the same attention. I added the tactical squad markings (which look better on the second attempt) and added a yellow sun with a black M on the other pad. You can just make these out on the top picture. 

In conclusion, there are several things I will try and rectify on my second attempt. 

1) Stronger highlights on the red Thousand Sons. I shall start with a darker base colour and work up, completing the final highlight in orange. 

2) I shall paint the entire shoulder pad yellow for the Thousand Sons before adding the M in black. This should help define the letter more strongly. 

3) Select a brighter more vibrant blue for the Ultramarine basecoat. My first choice was too pale. 

4) Use black as a base for the white chapter detail on the Ultramarines to give further definition. 

But before I do that, I shall ponder my technique a little more and have a look at what other painters and gamers have done with epic scale infantry over the years. If you know of a blog or other article that you think is worth reading, please share the link in the comments section below. 

If you have your own method or technique for getting to grips with epic scale infantry please comment on that too. I would love to know!! 

Thanks in advance. 

Orylgg. 

Epic Memories

I don't spend much time online now, not like I did a few years ago. Social media, for me at least, has descended into a morass of uneducated, moronic swathes endlessly spouting their 'opinions' as the only obvious truth. And having grown tired of clickbait, sensationalism and pathetically fake news spamming up my feeds, I must confess to having returned to print media and the 'enrichment' educational course. 

As part of this, I brought my impressive stack of old school White Dwarfs out of storage and stashed them in the old cabinet in the parlour room. This has given me easy access to plenty of old school reading materials to go alongside my other interests. 

Flicking through an issue the other day, my eyes fell upon an advert for the original Space Marine game and 'whoosh' a series of memories came flooding back to me. It was 1989, I was sitting in the lounge of my childhood home in Dorset, and I was reading 'Culture Shock' in White Dwarf 114. Underneath the very '80s looking photograph of Paul Green was a snippet of news mentioning the brand new boxed game. This lead me to the competition page further along in the magazine and the exciting realisation that this new game would contain (and I quote); '320 marines, 16 land raiders and 32 rhinos.' 

My interest was most definitely piqued by the number of models (which I assumed to be 28mm in scale) and when I later found out the game would retail at £19.99 I was amazed! For a while, I imagined myself the owner of this gigantic force of models and the envy of the other boys in school. My dreams of 28mm scale dominance would not last of course, when this advert fell into my hands a few months later. 

Epic gaming had arrived in my life.  

                    

I am primarily a '80s fantasy fan. Why? Heaven knows, but my interests back then were largely goblins, elves and chaos and that remains true to this day. Rogue Trader fired my imagination in the things I drew, but I never seriously contemplated collecting any of the models. Space Marine changed that and it became my first sci-fi game. But the tiny models proved to be my undoing. 

My painting skills back then were very limited indeed. I sprayed undercoated a mass of models, painted them a base colour and then washed over with a black wash. While the wash was still wet the effect was magnificent and all of the detail was brought out in striking depth (at least to me) but as the wash dried the effect faded into dusty, drab smudges. Occasionally it worked very well (I was then unfamiliar with the concept of a quality wash) but on the whole, I wrecked more models than I ever finished. 

My dad's brake fluid pot nearly always came to me aid and my abused figures were stripped of their paint and the process continued afresh. I doubt that I ever really finished anything back then, I was trapped in a cycle of endless renewal. The trouble with the models from Space Marine was they were plastic and the brake fluid left them strangely soft and stained. Even though the change in the models was minimal, the loss of detail was an annoyance to me and if truth be told, I wrecked a goodly number of the land raiders before I had even started! 

                 

  

Looking back, Space Marine really fired my imagination and studying the photographic material printed in White Dwarf just deepened my fascination. The hundreds of tiny figures, the long chains of vehicles and of course, the monsterous, towering titans that strode above them became iconic visions to me long before I discovered Tripods or War of the Worlds. When I finally got my hands on the game at Christmas 1989, I devoured the rulebook over and over, absorbing the dystopian world of the Horus Heresy and marvelling at the brilliant illustrations throughout. 

Over the next few months, brake fluid aside, I gradually built up a painted collection of models. I choose the armies of the Blood Angels and the Emperor's Children and unlike my efforts with fantasy, I managed to complete each and everyone of the miniatures, even going as far as attaching all of the associated flags to the tiny poles on the infantry stands. As I type these worlds, I have realised that these two forces were my only finished army until my Khorne Realm of Chaos force from several years back. I was trapped in that cycle of the brake fluid for many, many years. 

I have many happy memories of playing Space Marine. Far more memories than playing Warhammer actually, and through the early 1990s Space Marine saw a great deal of action. After the early years of fighting the Horus Heresy, I learned the hard way that using the floor was not the best option for fighting battles. Casualties were high amongst the infantry stands, with several of them being trodden on and the green plastic figures being snapped from their legs. Eventually, I cannabalised a wooden table my father had constructed for his model railways into a proper gaming table - the trouble was, the only green paint I had was a rather pastel shade my mum had used to paint the walls in the downstairs toilet - but it did the job. I even mixed sand into the table to give in a rough texture. 

As second edition appeared on the scene, I had moved to a different village and had access to new friends who enjoyed Games Workshop games. Robin Tilbury and Adrian Taylor were their names, and for a period of about a year we collected a great many of the new plastic kits that were produced. We had orks, tyranids and even some chaos units - backed up of course with two reaver titans. The battles we fought were, of course, epic and exciting. 

So frequent were we gaming, that my Space Marine set gradually fell apart. The figures and vehicles had been painted and repainted so many times that they resembled blobs of blu-tak. After one final game where were used everything, we boxed the lot up (including the collection of Rob and Adrian) and stored it in my spare room. We moved on the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. 

That epic collection of war damaged models lived in my mother's house until I left university, and during a clear out I sold off the surviving pieces of the game, including those models that once belonged to my gaming friends. I seem to remember that the card and plastic buildings got the highest price, but they were the only things I didn't mangle with my painting skills!

Seeing these old adverts took me right back, as the best nostalgic items always do and I must confess to visiting eBay this morning. Trying to work through the many listings of later epic scale models, I was looking for the original mk6 plastic space marine infantry models I can remember crushing underfoot. They came in dark blue and green plastic if memory serves me right. Anyway, after searching for a while I found a few lots of 'pre-loved' models that look to have once graced the inside of the Space marine game. They didn't cost much and I am strangely excited about restoring them in the near future. 

I think working on them is going to be epic! 

Orlygg