A Warhammer 40k Standard Space Marine
This is a competition motivated project. Initiated by a hobby store coalled Würfelkrieger.
A basic Primaris Intercessor Space Marine, the one that has been used in every Warhammer store that day to teach people the basics of painting, shall be painted. Conversion and basing allowed.
That was a neat idea and I haven’t painted too many marines till that day.
From Games Workshop mini to vision
Where to start with a basic marine? Choose an arbitrary fraction and just go for it was nothing that triggered my paint motivation.
There must be something more epic. Thoroughly analyzing, the basic Primaris Marine has a marching pose. Not really an action pose - more kinda focused with the bolter secured in front of the chest, instead of aiming at something.
He could be guarding something or march to the battle. But I wanted to present action in the scene and show the space Marines as the superior war machines of the 41st millenium. There are some amazing artworks in the 8th or 7th edition 40k rulebooks about that.
I wanted to create exactly that feeling. A Marine that has been dropped in a battlezone under heavy fire but without even really noticing that.
The scene
The standard base does not provide a lot of space. But for a battle scene there is not that much needed. Ruins, Bricks, rubble, crater.
Yes, a crater is good as it creates height, but somehow the scene should put emphasis the relentless marching. So what about something that shows that he is unstoppable - a fence?
I remembered a vacation on a farm where the bull just walked through a wooden fence as if it is not existing, just to visit a cow on another meadow. And that's exactly how I imagine a space marine marching on a battlefield.
Build
The fence was made of plastic card profile and metal mesh intended for protecting cellar windows from unwanted visitors - or spiders.
As the marine has walked through the fence, it must be bend in the proper direction. And on it’s other side, there was the crater this impact should have damages the fence too and proper bending direction must be taken into account to sell the idea.
Additionally, I put a piece of the fence under the Marines foot, to emphasis that the fence might have been intact before the marine walked over it.
The crater was just carved into the base and extended by putty.
The marine received some battledamage by hobby knife and drill plus some 3d printed impacts from Tablehammer via MyMinifactory (originally, intended as nozzle flares - idea from elminiaturista ).
2 light scenes
For the painting I imagined 2 strong lights. One red/orange from the explosion that created the crater and the other bright blue from some drop ship or defense e lighting half of the marine.
The idea has been sketched on the phone with snapseed and the zenithal primed mini. This is something I recently try to do often. It took some time to roughly understand basic concepts of snapseed but threrefore you are not bound to a PC tool and can use it anywhere.
Based on that I started painting and created a - for me - impressive blended spacemarine leg… which didn’t match the concept sketch at all. Yes it was blue like the desired ultramarine, but without the bright light.
However the side of the explosion worked great with some yellow and orange random flame patterns on the marine leg.
Starting from the shoulder pads I increased the strong light and pulled it down to the leg. And it did quite hurt to overpaint my nicest blends ever (-:
Freehand & finishing
After everything has received some more blending and correction, it was time to think about the chapter marking - and the question: "decal or freehand?"
To be honest, it wasn't musch of a question. I only did a few decals in my early painting life as well as on easter eggs, so there was low confidence. And secondly it would be hard to integrate them in the printed shrapnel and the light setting. Also, freehands of such logos are a matter of time to get sufficiently ok. The most tricky part was definitely the light integration. Especially the right shoulderpad was already very bright so the iconography had to be even brigter but still was not good to see.
Final shots
About Competitions and results
The competitions concept was an online Instagram voting - 3 entries per round against each other, most votes win. Not much to explain about that cause I’ve been eliminated in the first round but it didn't really concern me.
First of all, Maddel and Tiziangts made amazing Marines and further I see competitions as fun events that trigger my creativity and bring me to finish a project with deadline. Sure, it's exciting to enter an see what happens. Also there are ambitions and assumptions what could be possible - for example: survive the first round (-: . But if it doesn’t work out as hoped, then it's a matter of respect to accept - for all other artists who create great pieces, invest time and passion.
What stays is to be proud of the little art piece created, the knowledge gained by the process and the new artist met due to that contest.
And that's what stays forever.
Comments
Post a Comment