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150mm Space Marine

By Anthony Karl Erdelji

A quick note before we get started for those of you not familiar with painting larger scale models. Let me explain something about painting in scale. When your painting a regular 28mm space marine, the reason for adding shade and highlight is to force the appearance of depth. The larger the miniature, the less you have to force it. For instance, if you were painting a life-size space marine, there would be no need to shade or highlight, because light hitting it would cause natural shading and highlighting. Knowing that, I don't want to shade or highlight this project as much as a 28mm marine. I am also painting him red, which means I don't want to over-highlight or I'll wind up turning him orange.

The space marine is made of solid pewter and very heavy. The cast was also pit marked and it took a lot of sanding and grinding to get a smooth surface before primering with Citadel white primer. I decided to use my Vallejo paints on this project. I started by airbrushing the basecoat with a mix of 957 Flat Red and 956 Light Orange. Highlights were painted on by hand be adding a bit more 956 Light Orange to the mix. The shading is 926 Dark Red. The black areas are Ral Partha Black, highlighted with a RP Drow Flesh and Dark Gray mix. The edges were again highlighted with Dark Gray.

He was starting to look a bit plain, so I decided to base the paint job roughly on the box cover of Warhammer 40k second edition for a bit more flavor. I painted the eagles, flames and left shoulder pad with a mix of 952 Lemon Yellow with a drop of 956 Light Orange. More Lemon Yellow was added for the highlights. The entire piece was then assembled and sealed with Testors Dullcoat. Decals were applied wherever I felt they looked good and I again sealed with Dullcoat.

He was starting to look a bit plain, so I decided to base the paint job roughly on the box cover of Warhammer 40k second edition for a bit more flavor. I painted the eagles, flames and left shoulder pad with a mix of 952 Lemon Yellow with a drop of 956 Light Orange. More Lemon Yellow was added for the highlights. The entire piece was then assembled and sealed with Testors Dullcoat. Decals were applied wherever I felt they looked good and I again sealed with Dullcoat.

The base was the final step. I found a cheap pine base that looked somewhat like a large slotta-base. I sealed the base with a wood sealer before painting to prevent warping. The base was then primered, sprayed gloss black, and several coats of Testors Glosscoat were applied. The ground texture is Celuclay and white glue applied with a small spatula. While it was still wet I pressed in some kitty litter for rocks. The bones are from a 150mm Verlinden skeleton warrior resin kit.

I painted the base with RP Dark Brown, drybrushed with RP Dunkel Braun, then again with RP leather. The bones are painted with Polly S Khaki and highlighted by adding white. Coat hangers were used to pin the marine to the bases along with a good amount of epoxy glue. Static grass and some Hudson & Allen Forest litter was glued down in various areas. The static grass was drybrushed with RP Dun. Some ground up dark brown pastel chalk was brushed on to the bones and the marines legs to visually "attach" him to the base.