Hey everyone. I promised you some personal nerdery here on the ICRT blog, so here you go!

This is a brief look at a model I painted for my Warhammer 40,000 Space Marines army. This particular Marine is based off one of my high school friends, Michelle, and this is the backstory for him:

Mikkael was a member of a tactical squad assigned to the Ice Claws’ Third Company. Equipped with the squad’s meltagun, Mikkael was adept at reducing enemy infantry and vehicles alike to slag with the powerful blasts the weapon generated. As Third Company was a battle company sent to help Imperial forces in battles away from the Narisa system, Mikkael and his melta were instrumental in fights against all manner of xenos and heretics. Tau, Eldar, and even Necron warriors and vehicles were incinerated by his chosen weapon. To his enhanced senses, the scent of vaporized enemies was keenly detectable, and Mikkael became addicted to the odor of scorched bone and metal. The nuances of atomized human flesh compared to the various xenos races became intoxicating to Mikkael, who took to fighting without a helmet so he could better savor the scents. His will snapped during a months-long Warp trip from a far-flung battlefield back to Hibernatus. Deprived of the smells that he craved, Mikkael went mad, turning his melta gun on the ship’s crewmembers, and even his brother marines. Caught by surprise, many Ice Claws warriors and thralls were vaporized as Mikkael drank in the scents of their remains. With the power of Slaanesh now keenly felt throughout the ship, the survivors quickly fell under the Chaos god’s sway. With a ship at his command, Mikkael and his new warband travel the galaxy indiscriminately, searching for new prey to vaporize and new sensations to revel in, to the greater glory of Slaanesh.

I began by clipping off the bits I wanted for this model from the sprue, cleaned up the moldlines a bit (I didn’t manage to get them all), and glued some of them together. Others I left unglued for ease of painting. Based on this character’s back-story, I obviously chose the meltagun, and I went for a helmet-less head, so he can breath in the delicious scents directly through his inbuilt rebreather. I used a chestplate without the standard Imperial Eagle, make it easier to see that this particular Marine no longer fights for the Imperium of Man. Here’s a shot of the bits all primed white:

As this character has fallen to Slaanesh, I had to get some paints to better reflect that. Behold, the purple and pink! A far cry from my normal white and blue!

I painted the meltagun first, partially because it’s the smallest piece, and also because it has pretty clearly-defined areas for easy painting. I think the painting came out pretty well overall on the weapon.

 

 

 

 

Next came the body and backpack. I will admit this is not my best work. Normally, my Space Marines have a simple blue on white paint scheme, so I wasn’t quite able to get the entire armor with an even coat with these colors. I’m not used yet to thinning paints and doing multiple coats, so that’s also part of the problem. Not terribly clean painting on this model.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And finally, the arms. Similar problems with the rest of the body, but the freehand chapter symbol and squad designation came out pretty well, I think. I’m horrible at applying decals, and a white tactical arrow would have looked out of place anyway, so I decided to paint a black one instead. Worked out pretty well, methinks.

 

 

 

 

 

And finally, here’s the overall product, with all the pieces glued together, and the final finishing touches in place:

So there you have it: Mikkael, renegade Ice Claw Space Marine now fallen into Slaanesh’s clutches. Hefting his meltagun, and ready to chuck a grenade, and with slightly crazy eyes.