First Batch of 30K Space Marines

Well, after last week's test figure, it was time to dive into the Calth 30K project. These models are time-intensive. I'm spending over 2 hours per figure, when you factor in parts cleaning, assembly, and the many stages of painting. Is it worth it? Well, after having played several games of Betrayal at Calth, I'd have to honestly say, yes. The game is very fun, and it's certainly enhanced with a good set of figures.

So, here are the steps I took to get game-ready.

1) Parts cleaning and assembly. A few of the sprues in the box have mould lines, but the pieces clean up pretty quick. Assembly is easy enough as well, however, each figure comes in a LOT of parts (10+). So this does get tedious. After the figures are cemented, they're tacked onto the infamous painting stick.

2) Priming. I prime white to get brighter end colors.

3) Pre-shading. I don't think this is necessary...but habit forces my hand here. I'm using Model Air Dark Sea Blue.

4) Base color. I lay down an even coat of Game Air Ultramarine, and then highlight spray some Model Air Light Sea Blue.

5) Block out the black. All equipment, hoses, and metal areas get an even coat of black.

6) Silver. For the metal areas, I've used Vallejo airbrush metal surface primer.

7) Gloss coat and black wash/black lining. Black lining is a big part of the GW painting style. To facilitate putting this down, I gloss coated each figure and then used a black wash to hit the panel lines and do all the shading. I also hit all the metal areas with the black wash as well to shade them.

8) Shoulder pads. Shoulder pads are to space marines as shields are to ancients. They get their own special treatment. I painted the pads on the sprue, since they are small and fussy. After the base coats were down, they got a gloss spray and decals. The gold trim was also picked out at this time, then given that black wash.

9) Finishing passes. The gloss figures were then sprayed flat with Dullcoat. Details and final painting came next. This was a very time consuming step...about 40 minutes per figure. Black equipment got a highlighting drybrush of grey, and the bolted gun cases were given specular highlights. All the panel lines on the armor got highlighted with mixes of Ultramarine and Light Sea Blue. The red-yellow eyes were painted in. The metal was given a highlighting drybrush with GW Chainmail. Finally, specular highlights of White/Light Sea Blue were added to the armor, and the finished shoulder pads were glued on.

As a final touch, the gold rims of the shoulder pads were highlighted with P3 Radiant Platinum, and light blue highlights were drawn into the inner upward-pointing curves of the pads.

I've ordered in some custom bases for the entire Calth set...just waiting for them to come in before gluing these figures to their final bases.

Update: Now with bases from CoolMiniOrNot.

I'm going to move over to the Terminators next. Got a game on Tuesday, and want to get them at least partially painted first!

'Til next time.