Heresy Era Tacticals and Praetor Done!

I've painted some Heresy era Ultramarines, aiming for a Zone Mortalis (1500pt) sized force someday.

They're based in the very early heresy, I was thinking even Great Crusade era. So lots of Mark II armor, and Mark III would be reserved to the elites, as it's cutting edge. But I'm not 100% committed to that theme narratively, I just think it'll look good.

I started with 2x10 tacticals to develop the painting recipe on. The recipe is involved, I got it down to ~4 hours per miniature. This is a lot for armypainting, but I'm not painting a large army and they look really good. As in, most of these could be pushed to competition standard with another many hours, but they wouldn't look all that different, just cleaner and with more detail picked out.

Here's the recipe that I settled on, at least with the last 5 tacticals I painted:

• Prime black.
• Paint the blue.
• The paints are all Proacryl: Dark Grey Blue, Sky Blue, Grey Blue, and White Blue.
• I airbrush Dark Grey Blue from the sides and Sky Blue from the top, zenithal-like.
• Stipple Grey Blue on all exposed parts. Or just dump a bunch and wipe with your finger to spread around. Don't focus on smoothness, but focus on placement: this goes on top of the parts that were covered by Sky Blue.
• Parts that are mostly Dark Grey Blue could get a chippy edge highlight either in Grey Blue or a Grey Blue/Dark Grey Blue mix to be more desaturated than Sky Blue.
• More chipping in White Blue, the same recipe, just even higher. Focus only on the top of the head the shoulderpads and the backpack.
• At this point the upwards facing things will look rich and nice, but the darks will look plain. Maybe stipple a bit of Dark Grey Blue or Sky Blue here and there, but don't worry about it too much.
• Finally, if you lost the midtone with all the stippling, which happened to me multiple times, bring it back up by glazing Asurmen Blue contrast just in the midtone areas. This is a beautiful and saturated paint that fits the theme well so include it, but don't overdo it, don't lose the highlight areas.
• Paint the metals
• For gold, a coat of Proacryl Rich Gold, washed in Wyldwood in the deepest shadows and Agrax on more upwards facing parts.
• For silver, wetblend Vallejo Metal Color Jet Exhaust into Steel into Chrome, then wash in Basilicanum Grey wherever it's needed.
• Apply transfers.
• Blackline everything
• Edge highlight the gold in Proacryl Heavy Warm White. I edge highlighted most steels in Chrome, but I used Bold Titanium White here and there too. Both can work, and they look slightly different. A matte edge highlight results in a more readable model from all angles, and for gaming that is important.
• For the eye lenses I just used Nova Orange from Proacryl. It's just that, I was lazy, and mk2 eye slits don't need much more. I edge highlighted the glow by mixing in some Heavy Warm White into the orange.
• For the gun lenses and whatnot, I used the same orange, with Wyldwood to darken it where the lens goes really dark.
• The white parts are just Heavy Warm White mixed with black to produce the darker values.
• The red, only on the captain, I used Bold Pyrrole Red mixed down to black.
• Everything else I improvised, grabbing whatever paints I had near me, and painting them mostly to a slapchop standard.
• Finally, to after basing them, I do one more pass of darkening by airbrush, straight black, and paint in some reflections using the colors I used for the base.

Speaking of:

• These are Gamer's Grass bases, the Deserts of Maahl line.
• I sanded the rims of the base down and reprimed them black.
• On top, I washed a random wetblend of Gore Grunta Fur, Aggaros Dunes, and Agrax. The tufts get a wash in Agrax, esp towards the bottom. Cactuses get a wash of Creed Camo.
• Once that was dry, lightly drybrush Proacryl Golden Brown, then varnish matte, as the washes from the previous step can dry a bit glossy.
• Place the mini on the base at this point.
• Wyldwood goes under the miniature to create a shadow, very heavily around the feet.
• Paint on some Light Umber, Golden Brown, and/or Heavy Warm White on top of the base, esp closer to the rim, just to punch it up.
• Paint the rim black, edge highlight the rim in Golden Brown, leaning a bit into Heavy Warm White on the brighter parts.
• Add some more tufts if some parts of the base still look boring or bad
• Edge highlight the tufts in Golden Brown, and maybe Heavy Warm White too.

I think that's it? It's a lot. But it goes fast as, other than blacklining, very little of this requires precision. Even edge highlights are chipped. Being mindful of the volumes, and blacklining cleanly, produces a clean a readable look in spite of the rough technique.

Now I'm looking forward to painting something else for a bit. Thanks for looking.