First post of 2020: Beakies update

Here we are in 2020.   I thought I'd share the progress on my RTB-01 Beakies project.

One thing I really need to do - and failed to accomplish over the winter break - is to clear space on a work table so I can do some "battle posed" photos with minis in terrain.   Not sure if that's in the cards for the next few months, as I need to prepare to move house later this spring.

Repainting this RT era dreadnought was my first project completed in 2020.

The new base certainly has a lot more "leg room" than his old 40mm square base.

Anyway, here is the mass photo of the RT era beakies I have painted up so far.  These include  plastic RTB-01 minis as well as RT era metal miniatures (although I stuck with either bareheaded, or beakies for this project).

A whole tray of beaky goodness!

There is a bit of variety in how the basic color scheme is painted on these minis.   The current, Contrast Paints based, color scheme is "Grey Seer" primer, then a coat of "Basilicum Grey" for weapons and equipment, and a coat of "Black Templar"  for the body, with "Flesh Tearer Red" shoulder pad/s (at least one), and  lower leg armor (usually on the left leg), along with gold ("Retributor Armour") accents (on more "modern" SMs, this means the raised rim of the shoulder pads), and "Iron Hands Steel" for bladed weapons (with a blue ink wash for power weapons).  Faces are done with a variety of contrast flesh tones over different undercoats (more on this in an upcoming post).  This is a painting scheme designed for "table ready" - so if you are looking for Golden Demon level painting, you'll need to find another blog.  ;)

Mixed in this lot are touched up/repainted minis from my old "solid color" standard of black (or sometimes dark blue) bodies with red shoulder pads and lower legs, one squad of touched up/repainted maroon bodied SMs, and a half squad of touched up "camo" SMs.   I'm guessing these must be veterans, troops on loan from another Legion/Chapter (or another company of my own Legion), non-conformists, or some other kind of special squads.

Here are a few special characters:

Techamarine (wonderful and creative sculpt) with toolbox, Standard Bearer (standard is a photocopy from -iirc - Chapter Approved Book of the Astronomican) and Medic.    The mini I used for the Standard Bearer was one of my favorite metal minis from that era, and I will have three included in this project when it is complete. 

Here are some cleaned up work in progress pictures taken of these minis last year.

Fresh builds (and rebuilds of stripped minis) to add new recruits to the project.  The dark blue plastic minis are from the '80s, while the tan ones are from the early '90s.

This squad was originally maroon, with a blue left shoulder pad.   There is one "non-beaky" in the squad, a 1990s era metal SM with melta gun.  I decided to leave him in, since he has been part of this squad since they were first painted in 1993/4.

Tac Squad, flamer, missile launcher, Vet Sgt with combi-weapon (bolter/plasma).

Tac Squad, flamer, heavy bolter, Vet Sgt with power fist.

Tac squad (reduced), flamer, heavy bolter, Vet Sgt with power fist.

Assault Squad, one marine is delivering the "universal one fingered peace salute" to humanity's enemies.

Special weapons in reserve, including flamers, melta gun, and grenade launchers (remember when SMs could take grenade launchers?).

Heavy weapons in reserve, including a heavy bolter and a variety of missile launchers.

I also painted up some RT era scouts - including one metal mini, and others from (IIRC) Advanced Space Crusade.  The size of the plastic scouts is interesting, as the scouts themselves were noticeably smaller than the Scout Sgts  that they came with - because regular scouts are not yet fully bioengineerd into SMs.  The metal scout fits in with other metal SMs from the same era.

Each of the Scout Sgts has some kind of minor conversion work.   The mini on the far right of the front row is a metal SM Scout with Shuriken Catapult.

One of the oddities of the era was how huge the Heavy Bolter for the scouts was, when the plastic heavy bolter sold at the time for other minis (from the lasgun & heavy bolter sprue that came with the Squat box set) was much more modest in size.

Diminutive scout gets issued bulkier, heavier model of heavy bolter than full-on marine.   Typical of military supply systems galaxy-wide.  ;)

As always, I hope you find something cool and/or enjoyable in the post, and hope it inspires you.

Happy 2020!