Minotaurs Space Marines Part 8: An Inside Look

Astronomi-con is in less than a week and I've hit the critical point where I had to decide what to do in terms of armies.

Right now I could finish this army if I pull a lot of late nights and force it, but I've decided I'm not going to force it because I'm never happy when I do, and then I'll be grumpy going into the tournament, and I just want to enjoy the experience.

So, while I didn't get the army done for this year's Astronomi-con Toronto, it's well on its way, and it will be done this year, which was my ultimate goal anyway!

I'll keep posting updates here, but for now I'm focussing on getting my backup plan into action. I have a few things to do for that, like make the army list, make a new display board, fix some damaged minis and finish off some work that I've put off on one or two units.

In the meantime, here are some progress shots of the Stormraven interior.

Here's a pile of interior bits for the Stormraven and two Rhinos.

Here they've been primed with Vallejo Surface Primer - Light Grey, then preshaded using Vallejo Surface Primer - Black. Over this I did a lot of light coats of Minitaire - Light Grey. These are thin coats so that the preshading shows through, to create the feel of depth on the panel lines and the corners and other details of the model. I added several layers of this colour, then finally did a very light layer of Minitaire - White to give it a little pop. I went with the light blue grey interior as it will create a nice contrast to the warmer golds and reds of the main army, both in colour and brightness. Plus, being brighter will help the interior details actually be more visible inside the unlit vehicles.

Next are a few pictures of some detail added to the Stormraven interior displays and controls. I've gone for a monochromatic green look on the screens, which his a traditional screen colour for 40K. Again this contrasts well with the gold and reds that will be used on the marines, plus it makes for some nice object source lighting on the interior. I've yet to pick out the panel buttons, and will also be adding a couple of other indicator lights here and there. These are still very much works in progress.

 Next up is a Rhino interior.

Of course for consistency I'm using the same control panel colours throughout, adding monochromatic text and graphics on the radar screen as well as the information panels.

You can see here how bright the interior will be with the hatches open, to reveal the detail. If this were a darker colour, it wouldn't pop quite as much, and some of the detail wouldn't be as easily seen.

Both Rhinos are effectively the same, with minor variation in the screen details to reflect them being in different active locations, and with different crew, mission parameters, etc.

I'll be cleaning up the stray paint strokes here and there. I'll also be adding more colour with some different signal and button lights.

Also, don't worry about the bright scorpion green splotches... that was due to a dispensing accident where the paint nozzle had dried and, when I squeezed the bottle, it exploded and got all over everything... Annoying, but as you can see, I've already started doing some chipping. Those are areas where the green paint splattered, so I'm starting there first, with focussed chipping, and then going to add more with a more random sponging around the high traffic/use spots.

Links:
Astronomi-Con
Games Workshop