Category: Space Marines

Brother Furian, Flesh Eaters Terminator

On By Chris B.In Flesh Eaters, LEDs, Leviathan, Painting Recipe, Space Marines, War of the False Primarch, Warhammer 40,0007 Comments

More Warhammer 40,000 ‘Leviathan’ Terminator action this week with Brother Furian, a Flesh Eaters Terminator with storm bolter and chainfist.

Modelling

As this model wasn’t in a dynamic firing pose or carrying any special weapons, I decided to keep the LEDs simple and just illuminate the helmet eye lenses. I used the techniques detailed in my LED Eye Lens Tutorial, the only difference being that I used a TruOpto OSPG7331A-KL 1.8mm Green LED. As I mentioned in my post about Brother Lazarus, I found it easier to insert the helmet LED from the rear of the Terminator helmet, rather than underneath as I normally do.

As a last minute addition, just to give this model a bit more interest, I decided to turn his power fist into a chainfist – a weapon option that is not in the Leviathan box. The chain blade component came from an old Forge World Tartaros Terminator upgrade kit, but there’s an equivalent on the modern plastic Legion Tartaros sprue. It fitted neatly over the bottom of the power fist with only some minor gap filling required.

Painting

I don’t have many additional things to say about the paint scheme for this miniature. I’ve previously talked about painting Flesh Eaters armour in others posts, and described how I paint Terminator iconography here. However, after posting Brother Lazarus, I had a few positive comments and questions about the freehand checks, so I thought I’d share my method here.

‘Iterative’ Freehand Check Technique

I’ve decided to call this the ‘iterative’ technique, as it’s based on making small iterations to the neatness of the squares. The two Citadel paints I used for the checks on this Terminator were Corax White and Waaagh Flesh.

  1. Start with a solid background colour, using the lighter of the two colours. Apply this as several thin coats if necessary to ensure a smooth surface.
  2. Lightly “sketch” roughly where you think the squares should be. Use a thinned down version of the darker colour.
  1. Go back over the dark squares with an additional coat of the darker colour, making the squares more solid.
  2. Correct any mistakes by applying the lighter colour along the edges of the light squares to ensure they are straight. Remember that there should not be any overlaps – squares should only be touching other squares of the same colour at the very corners.
  3. Apply a final correction of the darker colour along the edges of the darkers squares, again to ensure they are straight. You can repeat steps 4 and 5 as many times are needed, making finer and finer corrections until you are happy with the result.

So there we have it, that’s the ‘iterative’ freehand technique. I prefer this over sketching a grid and then filling in the gaps. Drawing a grid tends to mean that the darker squares are larger than the lighter squares, since they incorporate the grid itself into their colour area, which leads to overlapping corners. If you’d like to see the iterative technique applied elsewhere, I also used it on my Lamenters.

Image © Games Workshop

When looking for ideas on how to paint the chain blade on the chain fist, I consulted the Rogue Trader-era Terminator heraldry shown above. I thought the whole thing would be quite confusing on the eye if I tried to reproduce exactly, but I quite liked the idea of a shark-like face, especially as I had used that imagery elsewhere with the Flesh Eaters. However, I wondered if painting teeth on the blade would look strange when it already has its own ‘teeth’. In the end I just settled for painting the eye as a nod to the original heraldry, which then hopefully gives the impression the whole chain blade is a shark-like head, with the chain teeth standing in for the teeth of the creature.

That’s it for today, but I’ll be back again very soon with more Terminators. I’m determined to power through the whole squad before moving on to other projects! As always, thanks very much for reading, and please don’t forget you can also follow my work on social media at Instagram, Threads, Twitter/X and Mastodon.

Brother Lazarus, Flesh Eaters Terminator

On By Chris B.In Flesh Eaters, LEDs, Leviathan, Space Marines, War of the False Primarch, Warhammer 40,0007 Comments

My work on the Warhammer 40,000 ‘Leviathan’ box continues this week with Brother Lazarus, a Flesh Eaters Terminator with storm bolter and power fist.

Modelling

I decided to start with this particular Terminator as he was in a good firing pose, which made it easy to add some LED muzzle flares. I used the techniques detailed in my LED Muzzle Flare Tutorial, the only difference being that there are two muzzles on a storm bolter! This meant two Yellow/Amber 0805 Chip LED (3V) connected in parallel. For the helmet eye lenses I used a TruOpto OSPG7331A-KL 1.8mm Green LED. Due to the position of the Terminator’s head in respect to its body, I found it easier to insert the helmet LED from the rear of the helmet, rather than underneath as I normally do.

Thankfully there was little else to do in terms of conversion work on this model. Regular readers will know that my Flesh Eaters army is based on the War of the False Primarch setting, which takes place in M33. This means that the Primaris models I’ve used in MkX power armour have been converted to give them a more MkVI appearance. However this wasn’t necessary with the Leviathan Terminators, as Indomitus pattern Terminator armour is perfectly in keeping with the time period and ‘Rogue Trader’ aesthetic that I’m aiming for with this army.

Painting

I spent a lot of time thinking about how to paint this model. Although the colour scheme is well established for this army, there are two things I’ve not had to paint elsewhere in the Flesh Eaters – a Crux Terminatus and winged skull on a chest plate. I was certain that I didn’t want to introduce any additional colours into my army’s colour palette if I could avoid it, so I initially decided to paint all of them Corax White. However that much white turned out to be a little visually overpowering, so I changed the winged skull to Leadbelcher instead. This meant that it no longer drew the eye away from more visually interesting areas.

I’ve listed my Crux Terminatus recipe below, primarily as a reminder to myself for when I come to paint the rest of the squad.

Crux Terminatus

  • Administratum Grey basecoat
  • Contrast Apothecary White shade
  • Nuln Oil shade in deepest recesses
  • Corax White layer
  • Skull White highlight

The other aspect of the paint scheme that caused me a lot of thought was how to pattern the power fist. Other power fists in this army have so far only been carried by sergeants, and I’ve opted for rank insignia as decoration. But Brother Lazarus is not a sergeant, and I wanted to include some traditional Terminator power fist markings. At first, I thought I might paint the classic black and yellow stripes, but I was reluctant to introduce the additional yellow into my army palette as it is not used elsewhere. I also worried that it might make the model read visually as a Blood Angel. I did also consider black and white stripes but wasn’t sure it would have the same visual ‘pop’ – plus it might look like zebra skin!

In the end I settled for green and white checks. This checkerboard pattern is a traditional Terminator decoration, and I’ve used green elsewhere in the army as a spot colour for items like targeting lenses and purity seals. I’m pleased with the results and think I made the right call in the end. I also continued the custom of including the marine’s name under the chapter symbol on their pauldron. I grabbed my old Space Hulk Campaigns book off the shelf and had a skim through for a suitable and storied name for a Terminator, eventually settling on Brother Lazarus.

That’s it for today, but hopefully I’ll be back again soon with more Terminators! As ever, thanks very much for reading, and please don’t forget you can also follow my work on social media at Twitter, Mastodon, Threads and Instagram.

Terminator Teleport Homer

On By Chris B.In Flesh Eaters, LEDs, Leviathan, Space Marines, War of the False Primarch, Warhammer 40,0005 Comments

Just a short blog post today as I’m still working on the Terminators from the Leviathan box. But in the meantime, here’s the teleport homer that comes in the set, with added flashing LED beacon.

Modelling & Painting

Although I could have easily added a normal LED to the teleport homer (especially given ‘Rule 4′), I decided a flashing LED was the best choice here. The homing beacon is seen flashing in the Leviathan trailer, and I think it helps to give a cinematic sense of urgency and imminent threat.

To create the beacon I just followed the principles of my LED Eye Lense Tutorial, although in this case I made a resin recast of the light bulb rather than a helmet. I had to change the base of the teleport homer to a 32mm from a 25mm to accommodate the required battery holder. If you don’t fancy making a resin recast of the bulb, then I have an alternative method of making LED bulbs in my Ork Comms Boy post.

The LED used is a 1.8mm 3V 1.5 Hz green LED from Small Scale Lights. The “1.5 Hz” or 1.5 hertz refers to the frequency with which it flashes – in this case, 1.5 times every second. The circuitry which allows the LED to flash is built into the LED itself, so no extra electronics were required. The wires from the LED run down through the body of the teleport homer and connect to the battery and switch in the base.

As you can see in the pictures below, I cut off the stabiliser wings to make drilling the hole for the LED easier. I then reattached them once it was successfully installed.

For the paint scheme, I simply followed my standard Flesh Eaters painting recipes that you can see in this post.

That’s it for today – I said it was a short one! But I hope you found that interesting. Please check back for some actual Terminators teleporting onto this beacon soon! As always, thanks very much for reading, and please don’t forget you can also follow my work on social media at Twitter, Mastodon, Threads and Instagram.

Brother Byrne, Flesh Eaters Sergeant

On By Chris B.In Flesh Eaters, LEDs, Space Marines, Technical, True Scale, War of the False Primarch, Warhammer 40,0001 Comment

It’s back to the Flesh Eaters project this week with Brother Byrne, a plasma pistol and power fist equipped Assault Intercessor Sergeant. Brother Byrne will be leading my second Assault Intercessor squad – henceforth known as Squad Byrne!

Modelling & Painting

This model has had the LED helmet eye lens and plasma weapon treatment, as detailed in my LED Plasma Weapon tutorial. As this model was fairly straightforward to make, I took the opportunity to document the process and refresh my LED Plasma Weapon tutorial. It is essentially the same, with a few minor improvements and clarifications, as well as new, clearer photos.

I know from my website stats that LED plasma weapons this is one of my most popular tutorials. It’s a few years old now so I thought it was worth bringing up-to-date. I haven’t deleted the original August 2018 version though, that is now archived here in case anyone still wanted to reference it.

As I’ve described previously for other Flesh Eaters miniatures, the base model is a Primaris Assault Intercessor that I have modified to wear MkVI armour, in keeping with the War of the False Primarch theme for my Flesh Eaters army.

Brother Byrne takes his name from a classic Rogue Trader miniature with plasma gun. Unlike Brother Levers, who was directly inspired by his 1980s namesake, I’ve just borrowed the name from Brother Byrne and not tried to recreate the original miniature.

For those that are interested, my painting recipe for the red Flesh Eaters armour can be found in this previous post. One aspect of this model that I painted differently was the minor battle damage around the lower leg area. The damage was applied using the sponge method and Rhinox Hide, which I then highlighted along the lower edge with Evil Sunz Scarlet and Wild Rider Red to give a sense of depth.

I haven’t added much battle damage or weathering to the Flesh Eaters in this project so far, but Sergeant Bryne’s squad mate Brother Oram has some, so I thought I might introduce a bit more battle damage for this unit. I may even go back and add it to some other completed units!

That’s it for today, but if you’d like to read more about my Flesh Eaters then you can view all posts tagged with Flesh Eaters. As always, thanks very much for reading, and please don’t forget you can also follow my work on social media at Twitter, Mastodon and Instagram.

Flesh Eaters 500 Point Patrol

On By Chris B.In Flesh Eaters, LEDs, Space Marines, True Scale, War of the False Primarch, Warhammer 40,000Leave a comment

It’s finally happened, I’ve officially reached the 500 point milestone with the Flesh Eaters, and it’s only taken me a year and a half to get this far! I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to share some group photos.

So what’s in this 500 point ‘Patrol’ list?

Also pictured in the image above is Ancient Harlon. There weren’t quite enough points spare to fit him into the Patrol, but he will be included in future larger games.

There is of course the small matter of all the points values changing in a few weeks as 10th edition Warhammer 40,000 is released, so this force may not be quite 500 points by then. But I’m sure it won’t be drastically different…

Long time readers will know that this army is themed around Apologist’s ‘War of the False Primarch’ community project. This little-known piece of Imperial history takes place in the 34th Millennium, and is described in very few official sources.

The War of the False Primarch was a dark and bloody episode of the Imperium’s history, now largely lost to myth and purged from all records, that plunged the Segmentum Pacificus into anarchy from 780.M33 to 860.M33. The conflict was finally ended when the High Lords of Terra convened the Pentarchy of Blood and tasked five loyal Chapters to destroy eleven others that had been declared Traitoris Perdita for their actions during the war.

IMPERIAL ARMOUR VOLUME TWO – SECOND EDITION PG. 17

The Flesh Eaters are members of the so-called ‘Pentarchy of Blood’, those chapters who enacted the will of the High Lords of Terra on the wayward Partisan chapters. The patronage of the High Lords means that they are equipped with a mixture of the latest technology the 34th millenium has to offer, plus the best of what’s left in the vaults from the Heresy. I’ve tried to give this force a retro ‘Rogue Trader’ and ‘2nd edition’ Warhammer 40,000 vibe, and I hope that comes across in the model design and paint schemes.

The army in its current form represents Task Force Grimm as it appeared during the during the so-called “Sorrowful Years”, the period during the War of the False Primarch that saw mainly retrenchment and small scale skirmishes between Orthodox and Partisan forces. Uriah Grimm spent this time leading his forces in small-scale raids into Partisan border worlds, looking for any clues to the whereabouts of the False Primarch.

So where do the Flesh Eaters go from here? Well we have the Space Marine half of the Leviathan box just over the horizon, plus plans for some more, larger vehicles. So plenty more to come back for!

That’s all for today, I hope you’ve enjoyed this summary of the project so far. If you’d like to read more about my Flesh Eaters then you can read all posts tagged with Flesh Eaters. As ever, thanks very much for reading, and please don’t forget you can also follow my work on social media at Twitter, Mastodon and Instagram.