My first Space Marine

So what do u when you're bored of painting lizardmen. Paint something else i suppose.

So i painted what i had on me. A space marine tactical squad box. I decided to do away with my usual way of painting which is to airbrush the main colors then paint the details from there. This time i tried the conventional way of building from black base up. And because this will be a one off project i just painted one space marine. It's nice to paint just for the sake of it and not have the pressure of finishing it quickly to complete than one unit for the army. So i really took my time on this.
This is the first time i tried building up colors by painting thin layers until i got a nice finish. I must say that it's quite ....for want of a better word...fun. Compared to airbrushing several coats of the primary color, by building up i could leave the the areas i wanted to remain black. Its a lot easier then painting lines after but totally time consuming.

Also i decided to finish one part before going on to the next. Started with the head as my usual preference. Not master-class level but a lot better than my previous models. Kaizen one step at a time. Again it was nice to be able to take my time and spend more effort on a single model.


One area i really had a problem with was getting the decals on. Funny how i never had this problem with my eldars. But i guess it's because i didn't have to conform gw decals to extremely rounded surface like space marine shoulder pads. Suffice to say, it wasn't fun. Space marine GW decals are nowhere near as good as aircraft decals that i'm used to. My humbrol setting solution wasn't much help with the thick gw decals. Plus i didn't bring any future polish with me to bangkok and couldn't find one here. Had to settle for kiwi kleen. No nice smelling apple scent and i don't think it works as well.

Another problem i had was getting my varnishes to work well. Had to redo several decals for the left shoulder pad because the matt and gloss finishes started to frost on me. They practically went all white around the areas and nothing i tried could remove the frosting. But managed to get a reasonable finish after the 3rd decal. Am so used to humbrol finishes. Wonder where i can still them?


There's a few, i mean a lot of things that i wish i wish i could've done better. First on the list is the aquila on the breastplate. Didn't come out nice after the applying matt finish. Second was the boltgun. Initially i wanted to repair both areas but decided not to. This is my first space marine after all. So it'll be a history of my painting efforts.