Brother Christopher's Purple Marines Project

[space wolf]

It go with purple trim for the shoulder pads, it will further meld the gold into the whole scheme, IMHO.

Edited October 27 by space wolf

[Firedrake Cordova]

The Eliminators came out great - definitely worth all the work you put into them

Edited October 28 by Firedrake Cordova

[W.A.Rorie]

Coming along nicely!

[The Pounder]

Great collection you’re building here!

 

Can I suggest the black for the shoulder pads? I just think it’ll look cool!

[gaurdian31]

Maybe go with white for the pads to indicate their veteran status like you did with the very first marines to signify their status?

[Brother Christopher]

Thanks for the feedback! The bottom line is this: use a different colour for the pad, got it.

 

I think I'll either go with a black or a white. I tried the purple but somehow it felt off.

 

22 hours ago, gaurdian31 said:

Maybe go with white for the pads to indicate their veteran status like you did with the very first marines to signify their status?

 

That's a good approach for sure. The only quibble is that I'm still debating (myself) how I want to fit Veterans and Bladeguards in my chapter organisation.

[gaurdian31]

1 hour ago, Brother Christopher said:

That's a good approach for sure. The only quibble is that I'm still debating (myself) how I want to fit Veterans and Bladeguards in my chapter organisation.

For your chapter, what role are the Bladeguards playing? Are they there to bodyguard important chapter figures or are they there to show off martial prowess? If bodyguards then maybe go with black as that's what most of your HQs are sporting, if they are to show off martial prowess then white to show they are veterans and the best of the chapter. 

Edited October 29 by gaurdian31
Edited out some mistakes in grammar

[Brother Christopher]

23 minutes ago, gaurdian31 said:

For your chapter, what role are the Bladeguards playing? Are they there to bodyguard important chapter figures or are they there to show off martial prowess? If bodyguards then maybe go with black as that's what most of your HQs are sporting, if they are to show off martial prowess then white to show they are veterans and the best of the chapter. 

 

That's the million dollar question! I'm in the process of figuring out. It's a bit silly, to be honest, how much time I'm devoting to allocating models to roles that are, after all, insignificant.

 

At the moment, I'm debating either treating them as bodyguards (and actually using black, as you suggested) or disregarding the new GW nomenclature and treating them as First Company Veterans (Vanguard, if you will) and using the Veteran Scheme (white arms and helmets).

 

The decision will probably boil down to how I'll use two 'extra' models with Bladeguard (Artificer?) Armour. I have the regular box of 3 BGs, as well as two 'spare' models: one Champion from the new Command Squad Box and the Indomitus Captain (that I might sell).

 

 

[gaurdian31]

The champion would make a good Sergeant for the normal Bladeguard or a Lieutenant and then do the oppisite with one of the normal Bladeguard? The captain is a captain in my eyes. I don't see him being anything else other than that.

[Brother Christopher]

On 10/29/2025 at 7:37 PM, gaurdian31 said:

The champion would make a good Sergeant for the normal Bladeguard or a Lieutenant and then do the oppisite with one of the normal Bladeguard? The captain is a captain in my eyes. I don't see him being anything else other than that.

 

Thank you! That's actually very helpful - what you wrote somehow made things way easier - something appears to have clicked into place.

 

***

 

Since I went to the mountains and failed to get the fourth model finished by the end of October for the 12th Months Challenge, I figured that I can be lazy this time and skip the grass and bushes. For once. I'll glue some one with the next batch of miniatures. But apart from the greenery, the model is ready:

 

Unlike the case with the Phobos marines, the Company Champion didn't feel like a chore to paint. I'd even say that painting him was a blast. Don't know why. And to be honest: I will take it for what it is and enjoy the feeling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My thoughts and comments:

- It seems I've given up trying to be a "better painted." And I'm growing more and more content with this. I've given up trying to refine the edge highlights and put more work into blending the colours on the armour partly because I feel liek improving this is a bit too time-consuming and partly because I think (ESPECIALLY WITH THIS MODEL) I found a great time-to-results balance. Furthermore, I quite like the chonkier highlights: while they don't look great in close-ups, they make the model better-defined when looking at it with the naked eye. Also, I bought a new purple paint - it wasn't what I hoped for but I've found a great use for it to get (more) reliable colours for the highlights. 

- I missed a splash of purple on the elbow pad - I'll have to revisit this part.

- The chequered patter on the tassets is a bit rubbish with close up, but you've got to believe me that it looks great in person. I'm very happy with it - a small bit, but very cool.

- I'm a tiny-bit annoyed that I failed to mask the line resulting from reducing the size of the shield properly. But I'm not annoyed enough to revisit this part.

- I'm still not entirely sure about the gold and if whether I want to continue using it for commanders in the future. I think I'll keep it for Champions and go with something more restrained for other HQs.

 

Next up: I'll try to equip some Infernus Marines with some Melta Guns (Rifles?) instead. I'm quite apprehensive about this since the weapons are resin and I expect that they'll put up a fight. Depending on how forgiving resin is, I intend to make a squad of 5 (including a Multi Melta) or a squad of 3 'tankbusters.' 

[Firedrake Cordova]

It's really easy to be hyper-critical of models when looking at photos of them on a monitor with them 2-5 times bigger than they are in real life. I'm sure he looks great "in hand"

[gaurdian31]

2 hours ago, Brother Christopher said:

 

Thank you! That's actually very helpful - what you wrote somehow made things way easier - something appears to have clicked into place.

 

***

 

Since I went to the mountains and failed to get the fourth model finished by the end of October for the 12th Months Challenge, I figured that I can be lazy this time and skip the grass and bushes. For once. I'll glue some one with the next batch of miniatures. But apart from the greenery, the model is ready:

 

Unlike the case with the Phobos marines, the Company Champion didn't feel like a chore to paint. I'd even say that painting him was a blast. Don't know why. And to be honest: I will take it for what it is and enjoy the feeling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My thoughts and comments:

- It seems I've given up trying to be a "better painted." And I'm growing more and more content with this. I've given up trying to refine the edge highlights and put more work into blending the colours on the armour partly because I feel liek improving this is a bit too time-consuming and partly because I think (ESPECIALLY WITH THIS MODEL) I found a great time-to-results balance. Furthermore, I quite like the chonkier highlights: while they don't look great in close-ups, they make the model better-defined when looking at it with the naked eye. Also, I bought a new purple paint - it wasn't what I hoped for but I've found a great use for it to get (more) reliable colours for the highlights. 

- I missed a splash of purple on the elbow pad - I'll have to revisit this part.

- The chequered patter on the tassets is a bit rubbish with close up, but you've got to believe me that it looks great in person. I'm very happy with it - a small bit, but very cool.

- I'm a tiny-bit annoyed that I failed to mask the line resulting from reducing the size of the shield properly. But I'm not annoyed enough to revisit this part.

- I'm still not entirely sure about the gold and if whether I want to continue using it for commanders in the future. I think I'll keep it for Champions and go with something more restrained for other HQs.

 

Next up: I'll try to equip some Infernus Marines with some Melta Guns (Rifles?) instead. I'm quite apprehensive about this since the weapons are resin and I expect that they'll put up a fight. Depending on how forgiving resin is, I intend to make a squad of 5 (including a Multi Melta) or a squad of 3 'tankbusters.' 

Glad to have helped! Also, as long as you end up happy with what you paint, that is being a "better painter" to me at least. The whole point of this is to relax and have a good time and reading this post it sounds like that is what you are doing so keep it up. The champion came out really well and I will be honest, I didn't even notice the line on the shield until you mentioned it. I am sure that when not zoomed in on you probably won't see it. The green cloth came out nicely. Great work all around! For the Infernus Marines are you planning on just cutting off the flamer nozzle and adding the melta nozzle on or something more involved? Either way, excited to see what you do with them.

[Brother Christopher]

6 hours ago, Firedrake Cordova said:

It's really easy to be hyper-critical of models when looking at photos of them on a monitor with them 2-5 times bigger than they are in real life. I'm sure he looks great "in hand"

 

You're absolutely right. I'm mentioning the minor things because I feel it's important not to be complacent. As such, I like to notice flaws to either improve them immediately or to take note and hope to improve the painting process in the future. 

 

However, as a general rule with me, me being critical doesn't mena I'm unhappy.

 

And I'm quite happy with how the model looks, even in the photos (which is quite unusual of me!).

 

 

3 hours ago, gaurdian31 said:

Glad to have helped! Also, as long as you end up happy with what you paint, that is being a "better painter" to me at least. The whole point of this is to relax and have a good time and reading this post it sounds like that is what you are doing so keep it up.

 

This time I'm definitely finding the painting process therapeutical. It was relaxing and hassle-free. I think a large part of it probably was that I knew what I wanted to do. It turns out that decision-making, even when it comes to tiny spacemen, unconsciously stresses me out. If I were to apply some amateur-grade psychological self-assessment, I think in real life, due to the nature of my work, I have to deal with A LOT of responsibility and decision-making on my own. And it probably fills my decision-making buffer up resulting in it being unconsciously difficult to make decisions in the hobby: that's why I'm so hesitant when it comes to colour schemes, and colour choices and squad compositions (and making use of limited bits) difficult. I want to get things right the first time but it doesn't work that way because ideas keep on evolving and getting replaced by new/better ones.

 

And of course this is where this community is of immense help: you guys, being passionate and experienced hobbyists, provide invaluable feedback and help be get my purple guys sorted out.

 

3 hours ago, gaurdian31 said:

For the Infernus Marines are you planning on just cutting off the flamer nozzle and adding the melta nozzle on or something more involved? Either way, excited to see what you do with them.

 

Actually, I'm planning to replace the whole guns. I know it would have been extremely easy with the way old models were made (it used to be a simple hand swap); I know it would be quite easy with plastic bits (I have a good sense of how plastic behaves) but I'm worried how removing bits of resin will turn out. My limited experience with resin is that it's extremely brittle and 'erratic' - I while I'm quite confident where the limit of plastic is and when and how it'll snap, resin tends to crack in unexpected ways - probably due to how it absorbed and distributes force. Further, I'm worried that it'll take a lot of work to adapt the multi-melta to a non-gravis bearer.

 

Incidentally, originally I planned on using old, firstborn melta guns and fit them onto the Primaris Flamers. However, I decided not to mix Firstborn bits/aesthetics with the upgraded Primaris designs at all. This is an attempt to 'future-proof' the army.

 

Based on my (admittedly) limited experience, the 'new' kits (i.e. Primaris), are randy dandy as long as long as you don't want to modify them. That's why I decided to limit my conversions and go with a relatively vanilla project. I couldn't justify the time and work investment to readjust the tiniest of parts to effectively 'damage' models. All the more respect to awesome converters such as @space wolf and @Knightsword.

 

My ambitions for this army project were initially big. Now, the changes are limited to changing knee pads on some models. 

Edited Tuesday at 05:55 PM by Brother Christopher

[gaurdian31]

What you say about decision making does make quite a bit of sense to me. There is actually quite a lot of choices to make when building and painting minis so if you have already reached your limit on work then making decisions during hobby time could absolutely be stressful. 

 

I haven't worked with too much resin myself and the kits I have worked with the only real cutting I've done is to remove from sprue or to clean mold lines. Maybe trying applying a small amount of heat? I know that I used hot water baths to help straighten out a resin sword, maybe with that little bit of extra elasticity from the heat they would be easier to cut? What melta guns are you using? 

[space wolf]

Bro he looks great. And the highlighting is good too! I have no doubt he looks great standing next to his friends on the table. So much about this hobby has become involved with photography, where great painting can look bad due to bad photography and visa versa (Not to say your photography or your paint job is bad). I wouldnt worry about it. Take it from a guy who also intentionally doesnt blend his paints, this dude is RAD!

[Brother Christopher]

1 hour ago, gaurdian31 said:

What you say about decision making does make quite a bit of sense to me. There is actually quite a lot of choices to make when building and painting minis so if you have already reached your limit on work then making decisions during hobby time could absolutely be stressful. 

 

That's great to hear :D This gives me a sense of sanity, haha.

 

1 hour ago, gaurdian31 said:

I haven't worked with too much resin myself and the kits I have worked with the only real cutting I've done is to remove from sprue or to clean mold lines. Maybe trying applying a small amount of heat? I know that I used hot water baths to help straighten out a resin sword, maybe with that little bit of extra elasticity from the heat they would be easier to cut? What melta guns are you using? 

 

I believe these are melta rifles - the smaller gun variants from Gravis Eradicators (with the magazine instead of cables connected to the backpack). Actually, all my fears came true! The guns snapped in unexpected places but I managed to sort them out. I also think I've managed to fit them onto Infernus bodies but I'm only doing three of these. Too much of a hassle.

 

I'm waiting for green stuff to cure (I don't want to damage the GS work I did on the knees) to make absolutely sure. And to think that I wanted to replace most of the weapons on my Primaris with 'Firstborn' equivalents... Man, the shift in design philosophy is killing the converter in me.

 

Later I'll also have to decide whether to put them on small bases or on 40mm ones and call them count-as Eradicators. I think I'll keep them on 32 mm, though.

 

 

[gaurdian31]

For the bases you should see if there are converter rings you can put on them to make them 40 mm, that way if you decide to play with them and you have a more let us say uncooperative opponent you can just slap the converter ring on. Sorry to hear that the meltas were so brittle, but I am glad it sounds like you found a solution. Can't wait to see them!

[Brother Christopher]

16 hours ago, space wolf said:

Bro he looks great. And the highlighting is good too! I have no doubt he looks great standing next to his friends on the table. So much about this hobby has become involved with photography, where great painting can look bad due to bad photography and visa versa (Not to say your photography or your paint job is bad). I wouldnt worry about it. Take it from a guy who also intentionally doesnt blend his paints, this dude is RAD!

 

Thanks. I'm not worrying about that, too. My life has taken me to a place where painting models is a very private thing - I do it for myself and by myself (well, and B&C here!). This probably is with a detriment to my hobby skills that could have improved better were I more involved in the broader community (or if I were to watch more tutorials or go to painting classes) but I can live with that: I have other activities that take up my hobby and social time. Same goes for equipment: I expect that I'd up my game considerably were I invest in an airbrush but it seems like such a chore to use with all the cleaning and maintenance, not to mention it being another thing sitting in my room. 

 

I mean, I want to grow but I let the growth happen organically, at my amateurish pace. And with these purple guys, I feel I'm reaching a sweet spot. 

 

13 hours ago, gaurdian31 said:

For the bases you should see if there are converter rings you can put on them to make them 40 mm, that way if you decide to play with them and you have a more let us say uncooperative opponent you can just slap the converter ring on.

 

That's one idea. Or I'll just 'model' them on 32mm bases and for gaming purpose magnetise them on top of 40mm bases - that might also help game-wise to account for the added height of Gravis marines. But the prospect of gaming is a distant one. I hope this changes with the new edition but in a way, I doubt it. 

 

13 hours ago, gaurdian31 said:

Sorry to hear that the meltas were so brittle, but I am glad it sounds like you found a solution. Can't wait to see them!

 

The resin split very neatly so I didn't have much trouble gluing it back together. The seam might be slightly visible when painted but I don't intend to worry about that given the other hand-made changes that affect GW's perfect quality.

 

I'm quite happy with how they turned out. The things I don't like is 1. the fact that there is no gap between the end of the armour plate on the arms and the melta guns; 2. the fact that the angle the marine in the middle holds the vertical grip (I'd prefer it parallel to the gun barrel when viewed from the top), and 3. the fact that I damaged the 'mounting point' for the vertical grip on the marine in the middle (I tried to replace it with a bit of white plasticard and hope to cover it up with paint). I hope that you'll agree that all of these are minor complaints.

 

All in all, 4/5 conversion project. I'm happy with it but have hoped for it to be better. It seems that even the simplest gun swaps are too difficult when it comes to Primaris.

 

 

 

 

 

I'm happy however with the knee pads and riveted shinguard on one of the guys.

[Firedrake Cordova]

Ultimately, it's your hobby and as long as you're getting enjoyment from it, then you're doing it right.  

 

1 hour ago, Brother Christopher said:

invest in an airbrush but it seems like such a chore to use with all the cleaning and maintenance, not to mention it being another thing sitting in my room. 

I have a Harder & Steenbeck Evolution (the old version), and it's really easy to disassemble - you can strip and clean it in under 5 minutes. It's definitely a useful tool (if only for priming or base coating large areas), but they can be finicky (usually paint drying on the needle or inside the nozzle), and you really want an air tank which tends to take up a fair amount of space.

Edited Wednesday at 11:34 AM by Firedrake Cordova

[gaurdian31]

The conversions came out really well and I love the riveted leg on the first marine. The kneepads on the last marine look good too. For the things you listed as not liking 1 I think I see what you are saying but they look great either way, 2 I understand what you are saying but I see it as part of the lean of the model so it doesn't look off to me and 3 I am sure when you get some paint on them it won't be noticeable, I barely noticed it as it is now. The idea of just magnetizing them to a 40mm I think works because as you stated the normal eradicators are in the gravis armor so that will give them some height. 

[Grotsmasha]

Going back a little to Resins, older Resins (5yrs+ ago) were very brittle and would shatter if you tried to clip or cut them, even drilling them was a risk, they seemed to handle carving and sawing ok.

These days they have hobby Resins especially for wargaming that have mostly eliminatedt these issues (Siriya-Tech is my go to), and are significantly more conversion-friendly.

[Brother Carpenter]

OOOOHH been away fore some time and what beauty has arisen in this thread.

 

Loving your tech marine, I think I see what you mean with the knee cross, but I think it looks ace anayway.

Really digging the gys with swords and shields (even though they're not black )

 

Nice progress. Keep it up.