Ultramarines By The Book - The Only Way They Know How!

[SanJefe]

OK, OK, I know everyone hates the Ultramarines, and I know how they get compared to certain short Belgium characters, but I don't care. I love them!

I've followed the hobby since the late 80's without ever really getting completely immersed, but about 3 or 4 years back I finally decided to take the plunge and paint myself a 40k army. Ultramarines were my first choice as I'd always lusted over their pictures in White Dwarf and the various codices.

I've been painting slowly and in an on and off fashion over the last few years and finally have a force that's probably worth sharing. Still got a lot to add, and I particularly need to bulk up on the vehicles (yes, I know, Smurfs only have short legs!!) but it's getting there!

Here's some pics so far. Highlights for me personally, are the vets (painted recently), the 2nd company banner (I'm not an artist so am quite proud of my effort!), and my Land Speeder and Predator which are fully magnetised to allow all the options. Lowlights are the Scouts which I painted fairly early on and the fact that they're not overly imaginatively painted. But Ultramarines are by the book, which allowed me to practice my painting with a good template to work from, and I can always get some more Scouts to paint up! :-)

Oh, and the only transfers used were on the Scouts...everything else is freehand.

Credit for some of the more "arty" shots goes to my daughter.

Enjoy!

[SanJefe]

And some more....

[Bigred]

Welcome and well done!

I love a nice clean Ultramarine army!

[Darren Richardson]

I like your painting, the army looks well done, and did you say the banner was all freehand, if so that is one very good banner.

My one critisism is with the Pred tank, your OSL for the headlights doesn't stand out very well at all, not like the OSL on the landraider, perhaps touching it up little with some more white will make the Pred's lights look better.

Otherwise welcome to the board, great army and remember it's only my opinion others will disagree with me I'm certain

[euansmith]

Bravo! Particularly nice freehand on the banner and heraldry. Great little bases too.

[Deadlift]

They look really nice and crisp, love the free hand painting too.

Look forward to seeing more of your painting

[Kirk Barklow]

I've always like the Ultramarines also. I play Dark Angels, but I still like them. This all looks really well put together with a lot of love and care. Nice job.

[Calgar33]

Beautiful Ultramarines army!

[confoo22]

That banner is awesome, great paint job

[SanJefe]

Thanks for the great feedback guys! Really appreciated!

Darren, you're spot on about the OSL - the Predator was my first attempt, and I think I got it a bit better with the Land Raider. That said, I'm not particularly happy with either!

I don't like the old Eavy Metal yellow lights, but not convinced by my OSL attempts either. I tried something slightly different on the Land Speeder, if you can make it out from the pic. Kind of a blue wash over white with a couple of highlights. Not convinced by that either!!

Any thoughts from anyone on painting lights? Or has anyone found any decent tutorials on lights?

In terms of the 2nd Company banner, I found a really good guide online that I based my attempt on: [url]http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?163718-Ultramarines-2nd-Company-Banner-Tutorial-(lots-of-images)[/url] (sorry for linking off to another forum!! )