True-scale Black Templar Space Marine

No Fear! No Pity! No Remorse!

Despite the release of the new Primaris Space Marines, which we think would be an excellent foundation to create “true-scale” Space Marines, we have not given up on our efforts to create more anatomically correct Space Marines. We created silicone molds to cast our most recent attempt at a true-scale Space Marine, and as a proof of concept built a Black Templar Space Marine. I am pleased to say that this Black Templar is finally complete! With this post I want to talk a little about the painting process and show the completed model.

A wonderful John Blanche piece that helped define the Black Templar Space Marine Chapter.

When deciding that I wanted to paint the marine as a Black Templar, John Blanche’s classic painting for the cover of the 3rd edition of 40k came to mind immediately. His gritty and restricted color palette perfectly matches the somber tone of the 41st millennium, and seemed a good place to start determining the specifics of the Templar’s scheme. There were two things in the painting really stood out to me, 1) the Templars’ white eyes and 2) the sparing use of red to accent some of the marines’ armor. White is not a typical choice for the eye lens for power armor, but think it really imparts a sinister quality to the Black Templar marines. The touches of red on the armor help to add some vitality to what is largely all black.

The first fully painted cast of my “true-scale” Space Marine!

I took many cues from Blanche’s painting, including the inclusion of red and yellow into the predominately black color scheme.

Painting black can be a difficult thing. With most colors you can use blending to create subtle transitions, but doing this with black often just results in grey. This necessitates fine edge highlighting that is difficult to implement. For the Templar, I decided to restrict the colors that I used and limit myself to only a few highlights, both to save time keep the edges crisp and distinct. For the base coat, I used Vallejo Model Air Black. From there I did 3 successive highlights mixing in more and more GW Ushabti bone to get lighter and lighter greys. Finally, I added a highlight of Vallejo Pale greyblue to finish the black.

The shoulder pads gave me a chance to practice free-hand painting, and I decided to try two variants of the Templars’ Maltese Cross (and include some checkers!).

For this model I also wanted to try do more with weathering than I have done in the past. Shiny and polished armor is not something a crusading Chapter like the Black Templar is likely to have. Although I could simply use acrylic paints to achieve weathering effects, I have long been intrigued by the prospect of using oil paints to enhance my painting, and decided to try to use some to help with adding dirt and grime to the Templar. The oil paints that I ended up using are from AMMO by Mig Jimenez, a company the specializes in weathering products, called Oilbrushers. They are line of oil paints that, rather than being in large cumbersome tubes, are in little plastic vials that have a small brush attached to the lid. This allows you to simply take off the cap (after shaking it) and apply the paint directly with the provided brush, before closing it back up when you are done. This dramatically simplifies the process of using oil paints, largely eliminating clean-up, in addition to preventing you from wasting paint. I primarily used these to add mud and dirt around the Templar’s boots as well as a little on his white shoulder pads. The process was pretty simple, using the Oilbrusher’s built in brush to apply the paint to the general area I wanted it, before lightly wetting another brush with some odorless thinner and carefully blending the paint to how I wanted it. Since it is an oil-based paint, it dries very slowly, so you have quite a lot of time to get the effect how you want it. Ultimately, I am pretty happy with how it turned out, and would strongly suggest anyone to look into Oilbrushers if you want to experiment with oils in your miniature painting.

I wanted the base to be simple and grimy, to complement but not distract from the Templar.

I used oil paints to help achieve some of the dirt effects around his boots and on his shoulder pads.

Although it has been a long process of sculpting, casting, building, and finally painting, I am really pleased to have finally finished one of these “True-scale” Space Marines. In the future I hope to build a few more of these large Space Marines, but before that I need to get back to finishing the original sculpt and turning it into an Elder One for Iron Sleet’s Thorn Moons project. Let me know what you think of how the model turned out!

- Adam Wier