Ultramarines Lieutenant: Blue Steel [Simon]

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A brief introduction

Hey, thanks for checking out this new painting blog and welcome! Myself and a few buddies have wanted to start a long form blog for a while now. We're avid readers of online blogs, which are sadly rare these days. Instagram is great, but it doesn't really allow you to dive into the subject of miniature painting in the same way a blog does. 

I'd like to give a shout out to David Soper (https://sproketsmallworld.blogspot.com/) and Gareth Nicholas (https://garethnicholasblog.wordpress.com/). These two hobby heroes have been a massive inspiration to me and their blogs have been a source of learning and enjoyment for years. They're really the reason we're starting our own.

And lastly,  my name is Simon (Link to my IG page) and I'd like to share with you my most recent project, an Ultramarines Space Marine Lieutenant. I'll let the other guys introduce themselves with their own blog posts and project updates. Please enjoy!


My painting nook


The Space Marine

I am a BIG Ultramarines fan. I have a decent sized army (3000-4000points) which actually saw a good amount of games, even a competition! (of which I took an unimpressive score of 2 wins, 4 losses). 
I also love the colour blue, it's calming while still being an energetic colour. 

The "traditional" Eavy Metal style Ultramarine is great, especially for your army, but I wanted something special for this guy. My inspiration was the Crimson Fist Captain, painted by Gareth Nicholas (Link to Gareths blog post). Gareth was the first painter I had seen paint a chrome/ultra shiny metal effect on an entire space marine and I've had a few attempts at replicating it. After a few iterations, I've begun to put my own spin on it, with less small reflections and more large, diffuse, softer highlights. 

Below is a front and back photo of my progress so far, and below those I'll explain some of the process of painting and paint choice.



The Painting

As mentioned above, I want to achieve a high contrast scheme, with a somewhat diffused finish and to try and convey the light skipping over the surface. I also want to ensure I'm introducing lots of secondary reflections while maintaining the main light reflection as the highest value. The secondary reflections are positioned almost by instinct and placed where there is space and where I think they will add interest. The trick is ensuring they are lower in value than your main highlight - if you stick to that simple rule, you're pretty safe.

So, the process...I start with a base layer of a dark, desaturated purple (I'll list all the paints used below).
I then layered up through various blue's, starting with a green blue, then moving up through to an intermediate blue through to pastel blues, ending with a final highlight of a greenish pastel blue (for the main light reflection I'll go a step further with a mix of Ice Yellow and white). The process of layering isn't so simple as placing one paint inside the other and working up through the values. Remember, I want that diffused lighting look. For this I choose stippling and glazing. Between each layer I will stipple the transition with the layer beneath, I'll then glaze the transition just to add some depth and tie the stippling together (but not erase it completely). After that I work up to the next value. When all is done, I'll glaze my final highlight colour over the reflection, glazing towards the centre. This creates a slight haze and a natural lighting. 


The Paints

I'm using quite a few paints for this project, lots of blues! I don't usually do this, I tend to pick a dark, mid-tone and highlight and mix between. But, I have the paints, might as well use them!

The blue
  • Tenebrous Grey (AK Interactive) - Darkest Value
  • Dark Prussian Blue - (AK Interactive) This is a wonderfully transparent green blue. It tends to be glossy though.
  • Russian Blue Lights - (AK Interactive) Another greenish blue
  • Medium Blue - (AK Interactive) This is my neutral blue
  • Ducat Blue - (AK Interactive) This is going into the "baby blues" now
  • Deep Sky Blue - (AK Interactive)
  • Sky Blue - (AK Interactive)
  • Pastel Blue - (AK Interactive) But this is pretty much a pastel green.
  • Ice Yellow - (I make my own)
  • White - (Any) - For those final pings of light.
The gold
  • Grim Brown - (AK Interactive)
  • British Uniform Base - (AK Interactive)
  • Japanese Uniform - (AK Interactive)
  • Ice Yellow - (I make my own)
  • White - (Any) - For those final pings of light.

I could go on about painting endlessly, so being conscious of that I'll stop here. I intend to follow up this post in a few weeks with an update on progress so please come back and thanks for reading!













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