Rogue Trader - RT01 Space Marines - Flesh Tearers Part 7

Hello! I'm back with another Oldhammer Space Marine post, I am still managing to keep this Flesh Tearer project ticking over in between all the other paint jobs I have going on. My Flesh Tearers are starting to look like a proper Rogue Trader era chapter now with 60+ marines finished now, I have plenty of tactical marines and a growing number of support but I had to start addressing the lack of assault marines, here's my latest work and mumblings.

Assault Marines with jump packs

Space Marines

We'll start with the Assault Squad Marines, all of these came in the late 1980's Assault Squad clamshell blister which contained:

1 x Brother Kitt

1 x Captain Crabb

4 x Captain Romero

3 x Brother Dimshade

1 x Capt. Huron Grimm

10 x metal standard backpacks

These clamshell blisters were aligned to the new space marine army list at the time, where acquiring 8 marines with chainswords from standard blister packs to meet the list requirements would of been a challenge.

If you have never seen a clamshell blister they looked like this:

(not mine, image off eBay)

There were a couple of Space Marine armies that featured this assault squad in White Dwarf magazines (I can't remember all), although in this image the painters have slipped Brother Basehart in their squad and later plastic backpacks which never appeared in any of my clamshells.

White Dwarf 142 Ultramarine Assault Squad

I purchased 3 of these sets back in the day and as a result have a lot of duplicate marines, not sure if I have the appetite to recreate the squad as packaged. For the first 4 assault Marines I have added a Rogue Trader era Jump Pack (the cool one).

First up we have Space Marine Brother Kitt armed with a Power Axe and Bolter, featured in the 1988 White Dwarf 99 advert and design attributed to Aly Morrison and Mark Copplestone.

As usual I added a 3d printed Flesh Tear icon to the shoulder pad.  I love this design of Power Axe it really feels like a sci-fi polearm or halberd rather than an axe, inspired by chaosthug I had a go at electrical energy on the axe, still working on the technique, each attempt gets better.

   

Space Marine Brother Kitt - front

Space Marine Brother Kitt - back

Next we have Space Marine Captain Romero armed with Chainsword and Bolter (1988 White Dwarf 99).  This marine has loads of character and really looks like a grizzled veteran with his bionic eye and tough features, the giant skull on his shoulder pad. I painted in a gauge and some graffiti on his chainsword . 

Space Marine Captain Romero - front

Space Marine Captain Romero - side

Space Marine Captain Romero - back

Next we have Space Marine Captain Crabb armed with Bolt Pistol and Hand Flamer (1988 White Dwarf 99), One of my all time favourite Space Marine miniatures, I think its the dynamic pose and the nicely sculpted imperial eagle of the shoulder pad that does it for me, I have painted this miniature loads of times, I recall as Crimson Fists, Mentors and Iron Hands, the latter one is still lying around in a box in my loft. 

Space Marine Captain Crabb - front

Space Marine Captain Crabb - side

Space Marine Captain Crabb - back

Following on we have Space Marine Capt. Huron Grimm armed with Chainsword and Bolter design by Bob Naismith and released in 1987, Capt. Huron appears to have the same head as RT502 Mercenaries Hacker Harris, Bob's done one of his head swaps and added the goatie beard, I had some fun with this one as the chainsword reminded me of an 80's electric carving knife and received a paint job to reflect this, I hope this was in bob's mind when he sculpted it.

1980's electric carving knife 

Space Marine Capt. Huron Grimm - front

Space Marine Capt. Huron Grimm - side

Space Marine Capt. Huron Grimm - back

Moving on from the start of my assault marine squad we have a Space Marine Officer, advertised in White Dwarf 120 (December 1989) as Space Marine Officers 070145/3 - Lieutenant with Power Sword and Bolt Pistol although its clearly a Bolter. Mark Copplestone has nicely sculpted on rank markings, terminator honours and detail on the power sword, this miniature fits in with the space marine look and feel of the 1989 Space Marine paint set where personal heraldry, ranking markings and bespoke weaponry came to the fore. I finished him off with a metal backpack with banner pole.

Space Marine Lieutenant - front

Space Marine Lieutenant - side

Space Marine Lieutenant - side

Space Marine Lieutenant - back

Next up we have Space Marine Brother Basehart armed with Power Axe and Bolt Pistol (White Dwarf 99 1988), a different feel to this sculpt compared to Brother Kitt, this marine feels much more barbaric with all his scars, the fur draped over his shoulder pad and a tassel nailed to his shoulder pad, he would make a nice White Scar marine. The Power Axe looks like it may have be cannibalised for the Space Ork command group or the other way round, who knows!!!

Space Marine Brother Basehart - front

Space Marine Brother Basehart - back

Time for a heavy hitter, Space Marine Brother Angst carrying a Multi-Melta, 1988 sculpted by Bob Naismith, interesting big gauntlets on this guy and the unwieldy forward hand grip on the multi-melta, not much more to say really.

Space Marine Brother Angst - front

Space Marine Brother Angst - side

Space Marine Brother Angst - back

And lastly we have Space Marine Librarians 070145/2 - Librarian with Force Sword and Book, again advertised in White Dwarf 120 (December 1989), a interesting sculpt, he has the Librarian icon on his shoulder pad (not to be confused with the female Warriors icon) and a scroll with arcane scripts on the other, a demonic looking belt buckle, force sword, scrolls, a book and purity seals,  not sure what is going on with his enlarged forehead, all that psychic power ready to burst out?  I have seen people paint this like a metal augmentation but I went with flesh as he has service studs embedded in his head.  

I used the metal backpack with dual banner pole, initially I added fuse wire coming off the banner poles and painted it like psychic lightening but it looked a bit rubbish. I finally went and added some blue holographic glitter for a psychic energy effect, it looks a lot better in person as true effect of the glitter can be seen making it look very otherworldly. I will see how the glitter holds in the long run and if it drops I'll have rethink.

I also add that the librarian and the officer came with the grey plastic 3x backpack and 1x banner sprue which I stay away from the backpacks as I feel never really fit well or looked good, I find the banner pole excellent though.

Space Marine Librarian - front

Space Marine Librarian - side

Space Marine Librarian - side

Space Marine Librarian - back

The back of the Librarian before the backpack went on

If you want to read previous posts on this project follow the links below:

Flesh Tearers part 1
Flesh Tearers part 2
Flesh Tearers part 3

Flesh Tearers part 4

Flesh Tearers part 5

Flesh Tearers Part 6

Flesh Tearer Medic Marine

Flesh Tearer Jet Bike

Terminators

Thanks for dropping in, I think I may finish off a fantasy draft for the next post, stay tuned.

cheers

J

Rogue Trader - The First Terminator Marine and Fan Sculpt Tribute

Hello! Today’s short post features a real Oldhammer gem, the first Imperial Space Marine clad in Terminator Armour, designed by Jes Goodwin and released in December 1988. It originally appeared in White Dwarf 108 on catalogue page 28, coded as 410609 with the rules following in White Dwarf 109 and 112.

This miniature has been sitting on my painting desk, prepped but untouched, for at least two years. The gathering dust was starting to bug me, so I finally decided to tackle it. I wanted it to tie in with my Flesh Tearers project, so I used my red scheme without the black helm and pauldrons to represent a First Company veteran or something like that.

It was a fun miniature to paint, with lots of line work to bring it to life. I’m pleased with the results, and I’ve decided to complement this little mini-project with a fan sculpt tribute based on Jes Goodwin’s original concept artwork, a beautiful miniature to paint but the most exciting thing was it's weight, it really reminded me of the good old days where you could break a toe if you dropped the miniature.

Not made my mind up on banners yet, they may come in the future.

Fan sculpt terminator along side the first Terminator marine

First up the original 1988 Citadel Miniatures Terminator Marine.

White Dwarf 109 page 32 Terminator Marine art

First Terminator Marine - front

First Terminator Marine - back

Next up the Terminator Marine fan sculpt, see how faithful this miniature is to the original concept art.

Jes Goodwin's Terminator Concept Art

Fan sculpt Terminator Marine - front

First Terminator Marine - back

Terminators Rogue Trader style

This Terminator armour design made a comeback in the Horus Heresy with the Saturnine Terminators, where the resemblance to the original source is clearly visible.

Horus Heresy Saturnine Terminator

A couple of notable images of painted Terminator Marines that appeared in various Games Workshop publications, the painters creativity is out of this world!

More Imperial Space Marines to come in the near future.

Thanks for dropping in,

J

The Emperor and Horus diorama Fan Sculpt Tribute

Hello, today's post features a Emperor and Horus diorama fan sculpt tribute. 'The Emperor and Horus' diorama by Mike McVey 1993 which was based on artist Adrian Smith and writer Bill King's illustration and description of this pivotal moment in the Horus Heresy.

Mike Mcvey's stunning piece appeared in various White Dwarf's on the years but the most memorable to me was the March 1995 White Dwarf 183 'The Emperor and Horus' 'Eavy Metal article on page 40 where Mike gives breakdown on how he built the diorama.

I have seen the diorama a couple of times on my visits to Warhammer World, I took many photos of it which can be seen here.

Note: This fan sculpt was not commercially available and was converted from the original citadel miniatures.

This project was a lot of fun, and I could have easily disappeared into it, expanding it into a much larger setting. However, after spending a couple of weeks painting Horus, I realised I needed to stay focused on what it truly was, not a direct replica of the original piece, but rather a small snippet of the diorama. Keeping that in mind made it feel much more achievable.

The miniatures stay very true to Mike’s original converted pieces. Most of the original conversion parts were sourced to recreate them, with only a few minor deviations that are barely noticeable. For Horus, I aimed to match the original paint job as closely as possible, using a chaos decal as a base to make the freehand work on his shoulder pad easier.

By the time I got to the Emperor, I was running out of steam and didn’t want to invest too much time in all the intricate patterns on his armour. Still, I remained faithful to the original colour scheme, free-handed the shoulder pad which from the original piece is really hard to interpret, and again used a decal cut to fit around the purity seal on the power glove.

Neither miniature was glued to the 3D-printed base; they were only pinned since I created a separate base for Horus and have plans for one for the Emperor in case I ever want to game with them. To complete the tribute piece, I quickly painted a backdrop of Earth from space on a piece of stiff card. I was tempted to add a plastic Marine’s upper half in the void beneath Horus, with a fallen Khorne Berserker outside but in the end, I had to decide how long I really wanted to keep going with it.

The Emperor and Horus 1

The Emperor and Horus - a bit closer

The Emperor - another perspective

A few shots of the miniatures without the base

The Emperor - front

The Emperor - side

The Emperor - side

The Emperor - back

Horus - front

Horus - side

Horus - side

Horus - back

Now for the base and backdrop without miniatures

Base and backdrop

Another fan sculpt which landed on my desk is the female Gunfighter, this exciting miniature is based on Pete Knifton's illustration in June 1988's White Dwarf issue 102 Illuminations article, page 6, I don't remember if the artwork was done for Rogue Trader or Dark Future and if it ended up anywhere, she looks like the scum type right at home in Helsreach.  

Sculpted as limited run by Bigmrtong and it came in 54mm scale too, the sculpt is a great rendition of the image, the power armoured arm is just lovely.

As for the paint job I tried to pay homage to the illustration giving her all black clothing and equipment, I am still tempted to get busy with the gloss varnish to give the clothing that black PVC feeling. I added a couple of 3d printed beer bottles and tuffs to the base for effect.

Female Gunfighter - front

Female Gunfighter - back

I hope you enjoyed this projects output, thanks for dropping in,

Cheers

J