Urban War Shock Marine

Those who have been following what I do for a while might remember that quite some time ago I re-worked and added to my Urban War Viridian strike team. I painted a couple of shock marines at the time, started a third, a sergeant and then left him to gather dust. A familiar story I'm sure. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I dusted him off and cracked on with getting him done.

I should point out that this is a very minor conversion of the original model. I replaced the head with a Hasslefree Miniatures one from one of their head sprues. Also, the shield is from one of the later shock marine sculpts. They have a little extra detail on them, mainly on the back which I prefer over the original plain ones. Same deal pretty much with the other two shock marines except I swapped their heads for the later version shock marine sculpts.

A fair bit of freehand on this guy which is something I usually try and avoid although in this case it came together surprisingly easily. I guess I must have had plenty of practice on the previous two models. I did the 'V' wing insignia, sergeants stripes and of course the shield. For those interested I took a few WIP pics as I painted the shield just to show the process. I'll lazily copy and paste my write up from Facebook here too.

1. The green used a base mix of VMC Russian Uniform WW2 and VMC Olive Brown (used to be called US Olive Drab). This was highlighted with more Russian Uniform and then had some VGC Desert Yellow added. This was highlighted more on the right side as the shield was going to be mounted sideways on the model. When dry it was given a wash mix of GW Agrax Earthshade and GW Nuln Oil. I lightly painted in the outlines of the stripe and numbers with VMC German Camo Beige WW2.

2. With the markings roughly in place I filled them in and neatened them up with Camo Beige.

3. The markings were highlighted by adding VMC Stone Grey to give them a bit of depth. Like the shield highlights these were weighted to the right side of the shield.

4. With the green mix I painted chips and scratches onto the markings.

5. Reinforced corners and vision slit got a base coat mix of VMA Steel and VMC Olive Brown and quickly highlighted up with more Steel. Eagle had a base mix of VMC Old Gold and Olive Brown highlighted with more Gold and then some Steel. I applied a paint wash mix of VGC Charred Brown and VGC Imperial Blue over the metals and the shield face. Rust was built up by adding VGC Parasite Brown to the wash mix and used on the metals and in the recesses. Dirt was built up on the bottom of the shield with the washes but also by stippling Olive Brown paint. Finally steel was used to create chipping on all the edges and a few small chips on the shield face.

Of course, to round things off there's the obligatory group shot of all three marines ready to face the cold dead void of my measly display unit.