Oh yes, my marine Captain is finally finished! With that, I’ve finished what roughly equates to a Start Collecting! box plus some extras, giving me a game legal army (at least what was legal back in 4th..). I’m not planning on playing any time soon, of course, but that’s neither here or there..
This model was converted way back in November last year, and as those who were in the hobby in the 3rd ed. era might recognize, he’s based on the old metal Captain model that came in the Command Squad box. I planned the kitbash/conversion for a long time, but basically I noticed that you could get the plastic Captain to look pretty close to the old metal one just by finding an appropriate head. I think the one I used is from some Primaris kit. I also did a small alteration to the armor: I added the collar and the studs in it to get a closer resemblance to the original. There are some differences, of course, like the backpack which I like more than the basic design.
As this was a special model, I wanted to do something different with the painting. I’d seen Ben Komets’ tutorial on a 2 hour “tabletop” Ultramarine, and inspired by it I thought I’d try to do some panel modulation on the armor. Nothing like proper NMM, but maybe something shinier than the regular grunts. I also wanted to do something with the cloak, and decided to try freehanding the chapter badge in there. Needless to say, painting this guy took quite a bit more than 2 hours to finish, but I’m pretty pleased with myself anyway. Painting the armor was actually quite fun, and while I suspect it took longer than my previous marines, it didn’t feel like it. One cool thing is that I didn’t use any washes on the gray armor!
I got the freehand on the cloak done without too much issues. I did have to repaint the small triangular rays, as I initially their position was off, but that was pretty much it. White design on black had me worried in the beginning, but starting with Celestra Grey and working up from there seemed to work well. The face was fun to paint once again, and I tried some new things there as well. I tried doing the “eye liner” to define the eyes better, and used dark brown and off-white instead of black and white. I think the result is nice, although in the close-up the eyes look maybe a bit too wide. Good enough, I say!
Above you can see the Captain with his Veteran Sergeant (write-up pending), another plastic tribute to the 3rd ed. Command Squad box. And as I mentioned in a comment on a previous post, I took a photo of my fledgling Space Marine army. They’re starting to look respectable! In addition to the Captain, there’s a Tactical Squad, an Ironclad, a Devastator Squad, the Veteran Sergeant mentioned above and the Sergeant from Battle for Macragge starter set (again, write-up pending).
And last but not least, another square claimed in the bingo card! The Captain was a new version of one of my old character models (see the old version in the post about my Ultramarine army). With his power armor he also counts for Azazel’s Mechanismo May challenge.
mcmattilaminis 