Primaris Ultramarines - A Retrospective.

The release of the Primaris Marines, along side what appears to be a soft squatting of the current line of Space Marines was an entirely welcome event. I wanted Space Marines to look like the superhuman warriors that they are in the fiction, in comparison to a humble guardsmen. The Primaris range has fixed this scale issue to a respectable degree, and along with the releases of the Triumvirate boxed sets, I knew I was definitely going to pick some up and do them up as Ultramarines to go with Gulliman. So far I've finished up the entirety of the Dark Imperium starter box (with the Death Guard being moved along to a good home), and some additional Reivers both for skull marks and short pants power armour. As of right now they are sitting completed in my display case with Gulliman on the bench and the first few stages of paint already on plastic for him. This is a retrospective of the new line of Primaris Marines in general, both from an assembly and painting perspective.


Assembly
As usual, this part was not particularly hard. Like all contemporary Games Workshop plastics, they go together well, the instructions are clear, and the sprues well marked. I thought about leaving the arms off so I could have an easier time getting at the chest plates, but I ultimately got lazy and decided to ignore what couldn't be conveniently reach anyway.
After the assembly was done I based them in the usual way, as ultimately I'd intended the force to neatly slot in as allies for my other Imperium 40k armies.






Planning
For my basic palette, I opted to follow the Games Workshop painting guide as closely as I could. However, rather than use the Games workshop metallics, I subbed in my Vallejo Metal colour equivalents. Later on in the project I opted to bring in some more Vallejo colours.
The Captain in Gravis Armour served as my base colour template and method for the most part, you can find it on the Games Workshop Youtube channel.

Painting - Early Stages
My first major mistake of the project was in the priming stage. Like a total newbie, I opted to do my first layers of primer during a fairly hot part of the day. The result of this was a slight rough texture on a few select spots of the models. While the primer ultimately is meant to be slightly rough to the touch, you know you've screwed up when the texture is visible to the naked eye. To make matters worse I also opted to use a rattle can of GW Macragge Blue for my main base coat. While this was a major time saver I suspect that it did contribute to a few patches of rough texture on the model.
After that I put a base coat down of the other major colours. The Abaddon Black went down well enough, however the Celestra Gray / Ulthuran Grey for the standard bearer's helmet and the knee badge turned out rough, so I will be discontinuing these particular paints indefinitely, instead using Vallejo equivalents. I also laid down Metal Colour Gunmetal for all of the base metallic colours.

Middle Stages
As always, this is the part where the entire process really became a chore. Since I was doing them as a single batch, it meant days at a time of repeating the same process until completion. The very first process was a pin wash of Nuln Oil for the armour and a regular wash for the metallic components. I found my commitment sorely tested at this point, and took frequent breaks and made a start on two other projects to try and break up the monotony.

I had, far more than usual, a great deal of frosting problems in the deepest recesses with my Nuln Oil. I suspect that with my impatience I was overdoing it. Fortunately, it was easily fixed by watering down some airbrush version of the Abbadon Black and covering the worst of it up with a thin and precise layer of colour.
I also opted to do all the final metallics work at this stage as well, mostly to avoid having to change out my water when switching between colours. In doing so I ran into the limitations of the particular metallic colours that I was using. The first major problem was the shade on the Metal Air Gunmetal ended up with a finish that was essentially black

I didn't bother to fix it by redoing it, instead I applied my highlight of Pale Burnt Metal, again Vallejo Metal Colour, and moved on with my life, as my patience with the entire project was wearing thin.

The longest stage in terms of working time was probably the first highlight of the armour. Again, I made the mistake of tackling this as one huge batch, witch was in a word, demoralizing.

Towards the end of this stage I painted the bases using my usual technique for temperate grassland. Only at this point did the entire army start to transition from looking like garbage, to the point where at a distance it looks quite decent for a tabletop standard.

Late Stage
First I applied highlights on all of the secondary colours, which amounted to the blacks on the guns and body suites, and the red and gray colours. I also applied the golds at this stage, which I did using Vallejo Metal as usual. I started with a coat of Copper to act as an undertone, then layered Gold over it for the actual mid tone. Following that, a layer of Riekland Fleshshade for the depth, and some spot highlights of silver here and there for highlight. After that, all that was left were the assorted details, which came down to purity seals and other incidental details on the models. I painted the eyes in my usual manner, a flat layer of Vallejo Offwhite and glazed over with Bloodletter. To this day I have yet to find a technique that works equally well to this simple method. My final paint step at this stage was to apply a second stage highlight to all of the main colours.

It was around this point that I painted the Ancient's Standard, my major mistake with this was using a gray for the text that was too light to be effective. At this point I was a bit nervous  about going back and redoing it, especially because I wanted to move on to other projects.

The transfers are probably the best work I've done with getting them applied, set, and dressed to date. The key I've found seems to be working on a flat gloss surface and then repeatedly applying the Micro Sol solution until the transfer is completely flat, letting it dry thoroughly between coats. Once I was satisfied with the transfer, a coat of gloss to seal it in, then a coat of satin to dull it down. The end result was nothing short of smooth, and I'm very proud of the result.

I also opted to paint the Captain separately from the main production line once every other model was complete. This was due to some early cock-ups with painting the cloak and the need to strip my first attempts and start again. The one thing I would've done differently is paint the captain with his backpack off, because that cloak was annoying to get to once the model was assembled and based.

Final Thoughts
To be honest I'm not going to say that I enjoyed this project. It was a slog to get through at the best of times, and I broke my rule about painting a squad at a time which contributed to the usual mid-project malaise. In terms of quality I'd judge them at middling tabletop standard, which is par for the course for all my projects as of late. To be honest I'm looking at my upcoming project roster and I'm beginning to feel a bit of dread. I've got a final expansion for my Astra Militarum, which means a lot of infantry, and an entire Dark Eldar army to paint from scratch. I think for both of them I'm going to try to break the project up by squad and do something else in between. Anyway, catch you all next time, once I think of something else worth writing.