Prepare to (be) Board...

Hello and welcome to the inaugural post on my new blog. The main purpose of this blog will be to share pictures of models I've painted. I'll also be briefly explaining the background of the models - most (if not all) of which are from Citadel Miniatures' Warhammer 40,000 range - to give an idea of what drew me to them; and letting you know about any special conversions or assembly/painting challenges I encountered along the way to finishing them. As I use many of these models for gaming, I'll also no doubt be doing a few posts letting you know of my exploits on that front.

So these first pics are of models from Games Workshop's surprise 2009 release, Space Hulk. Above is Sergeant Lorenzo, to the right is Brother Scipio, and below is Brother Zael: Terminators of the Blood Angels Space Marine Chapter. These guys have been tasked with cleansing the eponymous Space Hulk (a huge interstellar craft) of the xenos scourge known as the Genestealers; pitting mighty armour, ranged weaponry and righteous faith against the ferocity and numbers of an alien infestation. Games of Space Hulk are fast paced, tense affairs and represent desperate close-quarter combats within the claustrophobic confines of the Space Hulk's labyrinthine corridors.

For the paint job I took a lot of pointers from White Dwarf 357's 'Eavy Metal Masterclass by Anja Wettergren, as this was a first for me in that I'd never painted Space Marines and also in that I'd never actively sought to recreate an aspect of the Warhammer 40,000 universe verbatim before. With these guys I felt the sculpts were so evocative of the characters described in the game that I felt I'd be doing them an injustice in not trying to reinforce this with the paintjob. Points I'm particularly pleased with here are the deep red hue of the armour, the parchments and lettering on Zael & Scipio's armour. Feel free to let me know what you think!