Crimson Fists

The Crimson Fists are an Imperial Fists successor Chapter. In the old days though (Rogue Trader era) they were one of the original Space Marine Legions. These guys have a history of bad luck, shifted from founding legion to successor chapter, their chapter monastery was blown up and most of the Crimson Fists were killed. They've also been near to extinction on several other occasions. Poor guys **sniff, sniff**. Then I had to go and paint them didn't I? Oh the genetically engineered super-humanity!

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Crimson Fists Tactical Marine

This guy was rescued from ignominy (read I bought him 2nd hand with a poor paintjob) by a dip in brake fluid, however he didn't come out unscathed, much of his armour was pitted and scoured so I decided to use him as an experiment in GS use. I smoothed as much of the armour out as I could, the right arm could've used a little more work though, it's still a little rough. Oh well, too late. The right hand is from the Devastator box set just attached to a bolt pistol arm so it's pointing forward rather than off to one side. The left arm is another boltpistol arm with the pistol removed and a bolter added. After trying to put 2 decals on and not getting them in the right spot I decided to GS a Tac squad symbol and Roman 1 instead. Not too bad for a first go I thought. As for painting this guy I'm still learning about blending, the one new thing I tried this time was to spray the model with a coat of Dullcote after layered highlights have been applied. The Dullcote helps, in some way unknown to me, to smooth the blended colours into one another, however it also takes the edge off final highlights, so after I Dullcoted I re-applied the final highlights. Then I finished the rest of the figure and sealed it with Humbrol's Matt Varnish. It's an interesting technique I read about on the Fine Scale Modeller website and one that I might continue to experiment with.

Painting Recipe

Um, I'm guessing at this one, I painted him a while ago and didn't take any notes on his colours...

Blue: Regal Blue over a Black undercoat, I remember that much. Couple of thinned out layers for nice, smooth coverage. I'm pretty sure I highlighted this guy with Ultramarines Blue and a little Enchanted Blue towards the end. I think I started with Regal Blue/UM Blue at about 70/30, then added Um blue twice more, so I guess 50/50 then 25/75. I then added tiny amounts of Enchanted Blue to get a more lively look to the highlight, don't know how much, but not a lot...Finally I washed the whole thing with Sky Blue Ink to tie it all together.

Red: Scab Red over the black undercoat, the Red Gore then a mix of 60/40 Red Gore/Blood Red. That was was washed (10:1 water:ink) with Red Ink and when that was dry I highlighted with 25/75 RG/BR and then a final touch of Blood Red. Washed with the Red Ink wash again to soften the highlights.

If you'd like more detail on how I mix my paints and things like that then please read my Sons of Guilliman Recipe or if that doesn't answer your question, then please email me at the address below.