My Space Marine Dreadnought and Terminator captain converted from plastic bits. Unfortunately, I ran out of Vallejo Matt Varnish at some point during the last couple of years, and somehow never got around to ordering more from The Warstore. So they’re still in their protective Future glosscoat for now. 😛

The important thing, though, is that I actually painted something!

I wasn’t feeling particularly adventurous, so the paint jobs are simple and basic, no fancy techniques used whatsoever. I liked the idea of having a bright ceremonial dress and a subdued campaign dress, so I painted them in the subdued campaign scheme of Vallejo Game Color Yellow Olive with the bling in the delightfully redundantly named Vallejo Game Color Gunmetal Metal. Centurion Crassus’s left arm heraldry plate retains the deep red ceremonial armor color, which I used Vallejo Game Color Gory Red for. In the ceremonial scheme, the bling is gold and the cloth bits would be linen white.

If I were still playing Warhammer 40,000, I’d probably never have gotten around to painting anything because the sheer quantities of stuff you have to paint makes me want 3 aspirins and a lay-down. Guncrawl isn’t enough to motivate me either because I wrote the thing, so playing it still feels like I’m working…and when I take a day off, the last thing I want is to be anywhere near work stuff. So, my stuff just kind of sat in the closet doing nothing for a pretty long while.

I discovered Flying Lead by Ganesha Games last week, and it awakened my inner gamer big time. I really like the system–it’s the first one in a very long time that actually excites me enough to grab some figures and start playing. It’s also what drove me to start painting my figures again, because you DON’T need a lot of stuff to play, just a squad for each side. Matter of fact, you don’t even need that much, you can play with fewer figures if that’s all you have on hand. That’s a much more attainable threshold for me than having to buy and paint 40-50 figures per army, not to mention a heck of a lot more affordable. 

I’m gonna paint 3 more Terminators with storm bolters and powerfists to round out my little Flying Lead squad. After that comes the even easier stuff–mostly Tyranids of various flavors.

-Mel

UPDATE: I still have nearly full bottles of Vallejo Satin Varnish and Gloss Varnish. The Satin Varnish worked great for knocking down the Future hardcoat’s gloss to a nearly matte finish, and doesn’t overly dull the metallic bits like the Flat does.