Ultramar PDF Project - Roman Imperial Guard (updated 6/2)

[Cruor Vault]

When 8th released I got back into 40K and finally started that Ultramarines army I've always wanted to do!  Over the last year I've accumulated a frankly embarrassing number of little blue dudes and been enjoying the hell out of playing them.

 

That being said, my local environment is getting a bit more competitive and my marines are starting to lag behind.  To that end I decided I needed some reinforcements! 

 

Enter the Ultramar PDF!

 

I've decided to run them using the Catachan regimental doctrine for the moment.  Mostly because I think it's the best one out right now, but also because I LOVE special characters, and I think Harker and Straken are awesome.

 

I really wanted to keep the "Glory that was Rome" theme that the 30K Ultramarines have.  Most of my collection is based off the MkIII and MkIV plastic kits, with a dash of Primaris and Forgeworld thrown in.

 

I saw this image on Reddit a while back in a worldbuilding thread and told myself if I ever did another Imperial Guard army I would try to recreate that look!

 

 

 

To that end I found the awesome Anvil industries "Gladiator Brodie Helmet" heads (still waiting on them to arrive).

 

http://anvilindustry.co.uk/image/cache/catalog/Regiments/Heads/brodie-gladiator-sprue-400x400.jpg

 

I worked out a test model after a LOT of painful (both literally and figuratively) test versions.

 

 

Creating the Laurica Segmetata armor look was huge hassle.  Everything I tried attaching to the model looked awful.  Eventually I accepted that it was necessary for me to carve up the existing shoulder pads to get the look I wanted.  It's not easy to see in this photo, but I carved the shoulders down to create 3 layers of armor plates.  I used .5mm plasticard to make straps along the carapace armor, then another layer of .5mm plasticard with the corners cut to make the shoulder pads.  Right now he's got a placeholder head so I could gauge the overall look of the model.

 

Once I got the torso and arms figured out, it became apparent I would need to modify the legs as well.  Leaving them as-is made it look like I was being lazy. 

 

I took more of my trusty .5mm plasticard, cut out strips the same size as the shoulder pads (about .5cm by 1cm), and put three slits down most of the length.  This gave me 3 squared tassel looking strips held together at one end.  I trimmed the opposite ends to give them the triangular look and then briefly heated the plasticard with a lighter to twist the tassels apart and give them a more organic appearance.  I carved a small bit off the front of the legs and glued the tassels into place.  The join is pretty ugly, but its well hidden by the belt on the torso.

 

Once I got the test model figured out, it was time to build up the rest of the platoon.  I'm shooting for 3 infantry squads with mortars, a mortar heavy weapon squad and 2 company commanders by the 26th.

 

 

Basic assembly is complete, I've been working through the shoulder pads roughly 10 models a night.  Hopefully by the end of the week I will have everyone ready to start painting.

 

I wanted the officers to stand out from the rest of the infantry, so I put them on 32mm bases.  I also used the sculpted plastic straps from the MkIII and MkIV Space Marine kits for the officers.  Finally, I made capes using a cough drop wrapper painted in white glue.

 

 

 

Hopefully my gladiator helmets will come in this week!

[WarriorFish]

Very cool idea, and excellent implementation - looking forward to seeing more :tu:

[Inso]

Yep, very cool indeed :) . I look forward to seeing the heads on them :) .

 

In case you are interested/need a bit of variety, have you seen these?:

 

http://anvilindustry.co.uk/Exo-Lords/Cloaks-and-Loincloths/Centurion-Leather-Strap

 

http://anvilindustry.co.uk/Exo-Lords/Cloaks-and-Loincloths/Fur-Cloak

 

http://anvilindustry.co.uk/Exo-Lords/Cloaks-and-Loincloths/Regal-Cloaks

 

They are for the exo-lord range but should be usable with minimum effort :) .

[Astartes Consul]

Really cool looking project/start

[duz_]

Looms great love the effort!

 

Are there does Anvil or someone not do arms which you can attach custom shoulder pads to? Although would appear a bit late now if they did ;)

[Harrowmaster]

Anvil also do cloaks scaled for guard.

 

http://anvilindustry.co.uk/patrician-cloaks-28mm

[CoffeeGrunt]

Fantastic! I love the effort put in reproducing the lorica. Would love to see ballistae style Heavy Weapons in this.

[MrZakalwe]

Have you had a look at the puppetswar roman style sci-fi helmets? Look pretty good to me and even have different crest options for officers.

 

https://puppetswar.eu/product.php?id_product=556

 

https://puppetswar.eu/product.php?id_product=555

 

https://puppetswar.eu/product.php?id_product=553

[Cruor Vault]

Thanks for all the positivity!  It really helps me keep going when it's late and i've glued my fingers to a model for the umpteenth time that night!

 

@Inso - The capes were kind of a spur of the moment thing.  I was talking with a buddy of mine and he mentioned them as something to help the officers stand out and keep the vaguely historical theme I have going.  It honestly didn't even occur to me to try to find some online, the paper ones only took about 5 minutes to shape.  I only need to do a couple more officers in the long run, so I will probably stick to my paper versions for consistencies sake.

 

@duz_ - Anvil does sell some should pads you can apply over the current Cadian arms, but I wanted to avoid bulking out my models horizontally.  I also couldn't find a shoulder pad that was close enough to the Lorica Segmetata for my tastes.

 

@CoffeeGrunt - I actually hadn't considered that before...  Something to think about!

 

@MrZakalwe - I considered those heads when I was doing research for the project.  I went with the Anvil versions for 3 reasons.  1) They most closely match the concept art I was inspired by.  2) There's practically zero flesh on the Anvil versions (a bonus!)  3) The Puppetswar ones all look like different poses of Thanos to me!

 

Last night I got the straps done on all the remaining models.  I wanted to get more done, but I got distracted by Destiny 2.

 

So not much of an update for today, so here's an Ultramarine.

 

[grailkeeper]

This looks great!

[Cruor Vault]

Big update today!

 

My heads came in from Anvil Industries just barely in time for me to put them to use.  I think shipping time was less than 14 days from the time I placed the order to the time I had them in had, not bad for coming across the pond!

 

I got the last of the arms trimmed down for the platoon, and stuck the heads on and I'm pretty happy with the final result.  I'm still unsure how I want to paint them.  Initially I was thinking light tan uniforms with blue armor, but lately I've been thinking about blue fatigues and silver armor.

 

One of my Sergeants.

 

 

The two Company Commanders.  I used Secret Weapon Miniatures' Centurion Crests on these guys.  I placed the crest laterally to differentiate them from the sergeants.

 

 

Group shot of the entire platoon.

 

 

Lastly, I added some a trio of Custodes Bike Captains to the army.  They've been increasingly popular in my meta, and I want to give them a shot before they get rebalanced!  I wanted a Horsemen of the Apocalypse vibe with these guys, so I used Riever heads instead of the normal helmets.

 

[duz_]

Can't wait to see all these painted up! :D :tu:

[WarriorFish]

Lovely work, I'm with duz in that I'm keen to see them painted up! :D

[Inso]

Those PDF look brilliant :) .

 

Can't wait to see all these painted up :) .

[Cruor Vault]

More updates tonight!

 

I got first couple of stages of the blue done on the whole platoon.  I airbrushed Imperial Blue, followed by a highlight of Enchanted Blue, an extreme highlight of Lightning Blue, and then a misting of Ultramarine Blue (all Vallejo Air paints).  It's hard to tell in the photos after the Ultramarines misting, but this method generates some really gorgeous transitions on the miniatures once the shades and varnishes have been applied.

 

 

Normally I would gloss coat the models next to prepare for the panel line wash and decals.  These PDF have a lot of blue, but the bulk of any given model is going to be beige fatigues.  I decided I want to block in the base color of the fatigues beforehand so it would get the benefits of the gloss varnish when I shade it.  I didn't have time to do the whole platoon, but I decided to block out some (extremely) rough base colors on one of them to get an idea of what things will look like in the long run.

 

[Kinstryfe]

I love how these guys look. Unique looking guard are my weakness. It would be kind of a pain painting it, but have you considered white for the cloths instead of beige, to match traditional Ultramarines colors? Though I'm sure they'll look awesome with the beige as it is.

[CoffeeGrunt]

A unit of Crusaders with Scuta would really work with these guys. Loving the troopers!

[Bjorn Firewalker]

The models look promising. Do the officers' murmillo-like helmets incorporate preysight, auspex, and other sensors, meaning the helmets don't actually obstruct the wearers' peripheral vision, despite their appearance?

[Cruor Vault]

@Bjorn Firewalker - Lol, It's the Grim Darkness of the 41st Millennium ...  Rule of cool is way more important than practicality, even in the lofty realms of Ultramar!  Their faith in the Emperor and the Primarch reborn is all they need!

 

@CoffeeGrunt - I actually almost made Scuta for the officers to represent their Refractor fields.  If I ever do any Tempestus Scions I might convert some boarding shields for them.

 

@Kinstryfe - I spent a LOOONNNG time debating on the color of the fatigues.  I went with beige instead of white because white is traditionally the color of veterans in Ultramarines regalia.  (Also because white is a pain in the ass to paint).  That being said, maybe I'll mock one up with Ulthuan Grey and see how he looks.  I avoided doing blue fatigues because I wanted to keep the main color on the infantry the same as on the tanks I will inevitably add to the army, and I wanted those to not be another horde of blue tanks (I've got enough of those already).  

 

I was really inspired by this Baneblade I saw a while back by GuardianOfAsgaard

 

[duz_]

In M41 practicality and realism is irrelevant if you have faith in the Emperor! :D :tu: ;)

[Orar13]

Hey looks good for mine I use old Space wolf grey (light/greyblue) or vallejo wolf grey

[Bjorn Firewalker]

In M41 practicality and realism is irrelevant if you have faith in the Emperor!

Practicality and realism can and will make you a BETTER servant of the Emperor. I doubt His Divine Majesty approves of waste. If practical equipment lets you kill an enemy with one shot instead of two, you can use the boltshell you saved to kill another enemy, preserving the Imperium He built with greater speed and efficiency.

[Ryltar Thamior]

Oooh! Very nice! I've been doing my own mortal auxilia for Astartes realm bits and pieces, and the work people have come up with for Ultramar PDF forces has been a significant source of inspiration on that front. Will be following this log with interest! 

[Cruor Vault]

I spent a lot of my down time at work yesterday discussing my color choices with a few buddies.  The general concensus was that the beige wasn't cutting it.  I got a bunch of votes for white/grey fatigues, but the common theme in my critiques was that the blue helmets looked "weird".

 

So I played around with it for a while and found this photo of a miniature done up with blue instead of red.

 

 

Seeing that and after the discussions both here and with my friends I needed to hit the airbrush.  Luckily it was a simple task to touch up the bits of the fatigues that I hadn't already over sprayed by accident while working on the armor.  After that I spent a while using Vallejo air game color's Aluminum silver to block in the armor.  Initially I was a little skeptical of using such a bright silver color, but after looking back through a bunch of my other WIP pictures I realized I had used that silver on the main cannon barrels of my Relic Sicaran and it looked awesome.

 

 

Bolstered by my earlier success on the Sicaran I went ahead and blocked in the armor on all the infantry.

 

 

Next step will be to gloss coat the models and wash the blue with a Blue/black and panel line wash the armor with Nuln Oil.  But before I can do that I need to get some work done on the Custodes bikers as I want to do all the Varnishing in one go.  It's a major pain to get the airbrush clean after spraying varnish.

 

I went with gold armor on the officers to make them stand out more and also add some variety.

 

 

The whole platoon with armor blocked in waiting for their gloss varnish.

 

[WarriorFish]

Given the strength of the theme, I think going with a more closer match with the scheme is a good idea. It's already looking good :tu: Will you be doing the cheek parts of the helmets the metallic too?