My very first Space Marine

I suppose I can admit it now… I bought the Armageddon starter set for Warhammer 40K on release day. Outrageous, I know! You can get it much cheaper these days, and 40K just distracts me from The Lord of the Rings and Warhammer Fantasy.

But, I really must say, I was – and still am – absolutely thrilled with this starter set. The miniatures are so incredibly well sculpted and presented, the poses are just brilliant… I really couldn’t resist. And on top of that, you learn a lot about modern design for plastic miniatures, which isn’t a bad thing either.

A few months ago (actually almost a year ago, now that I think about it), I did a first little test, painting a Space Marine yellow and then weathering him with oil paints. It was quite fun, but I never finished painting him and only worked on him for testing purposes.

So this is my very first, fully painted and based Space Marine, a Blood Angel. I’ll, of course, be trying to copy the box art from the Armageddon box, which is why I’ve tried to replicate the colour scheme on the one hand, and also adopted the base as closely as possible on the other. This website was very helpful for that, with some wonderful recipes:
https://eavy-archive.com/40k/orks/?modal=wazdakka&block=ash-wastes-base

Of all the Space Marine Chapters, I’ve actually always liked the Blood Angels best – probably ever since White Dwarf 357 from 2009, when the new edition of Space Hulk was released.
Anja Wettergren from the `Eavy Metal Team had written a brilliant tutorial for one of the Terminators in that issue, which I found really impressive back then as a child. And it's still very impressive I think.

 

In the end, though, I went for this armour recipe from Matt’s Hobby Hour:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ag0QOpu6No&t=74s

It actually worked quite well and I’m mostly happy with it, but my photos didn’t turn out too well. I’ve noticed that, particularly with the Space Marines, a satin finish works a bit better than my usual ‘ultra-matt’ approach; I think I’ll get hold of some satin varnish for my next figures. Also, the figure looks a lot better on my painting desk than in the light box, that's probably killing a lot of contrast. 

I also had a bit of trouble with the decals, but I’ll get hold of a decal softener for future use.

The figure itself wasn’t from the starter box, but from a magazine I bought for the bargain price of a few euros back in about 2019 at the train station in Würzburg! So it’s been sitting in my cupboard for a solid seven years now. It’s great that it’s finally been given a coat of paint! 

 

And here he is again with the first Steel Legion figure I painted a few months ago. I redid the base of this figure to the new "original" Armageddon recipe, and I think it works a lot better than before.

 

All in all, painting the Space Marine was a very satisfying process, but I’m not quite happy yet. Firstly, it takes ages to paint them this way, and secondly, my edge highlights aren’t quite neat enough yet… And the pictures are not really what the figure looks like on my desk. 

I also get the feeling that the Mephiston Red from the spray can looks much better than the one from the pot. I don’t know why, but the difference is huge. 
Well, we’ll see! For now, I think I’ll carry on with the Wood Elves, but who knows where my motivation will take me. I already have a few more Steel Legion guys basecoated, so maybe they will join the fight soon!