Heresy & Heroes

Mortifactors Techmarine

Well, after a long (and decidedly pink) break from the Mortifactors project, I have returned to the sombre Space Marines and I can now present to you my Mortifactors Techmarine. Shame the camera I was using wasn’t as good as last time…

The keen-eyed amongst you will recognise this as the Techmarine that comes with the Thunderfire Cannon kit. Yes, the big, quad-barrelled gun is awaiting assembly and painting and is currently resting on my desk. I’ll get it set up in the near future and post that up here separately, but in the meantime, I thought I’d show off this chap.

Techmarines wear red right? Well, I wanted to change this up a bit for the Mortifactors. Mars is known as the ‘red planet’ but it’s actually a rusty brown colour. Given that this chapter venerates the soil of their home world, Posul, I thought it only made sense that those trained in part by the Mechanicum would feel the same about the soil of Mars. I’m really happy with what this lends to the look of this character and it sits so much better with the bone and black – the red would be a little too full on for this most sombre colour-scheme. To that end, the Mechanicum symbol uses ‘Posul bronze’ rather than the traditional monochrome look – a further nod to their tribal traditions.

The servo harness was fun to work with, though it’s fiddly as heck. That being said, of all the finecast kits i’ve ever worked with, this was by far the best quality and though it felt flimsy while painting, there were no bubbles or holes anywhere, which was very nice. I’ve given a glow to the plasma weapon as well as slight glowing effects to the eyes and auspex but I’ve tried not to go overboard with any of them – subtlety is the key. The harness was painted separately to allow both easy reach to all of the body, and it allowed me to really slap on some leadbelcher and nuln oil without fear of getting it all over the shoulders, helmet and back of the Space Marine.

The skull on his shoulder, as per my writings on the heraldry of this peculiar chapter, is a relief in rusty, muddy colours too. I wasn’t thrilled with the skull itself to start with – the dimensions went wrong at some point, but I’ve grown to enjoy it. It’s almost as if it’s taken from a different angle, or is a different take on the design. It works well enough for me, so that’s excellent – not the best skull I’ve painted, but then I’m sure there’ll be plenty more.

It was really good to get back to these guys, even in this small way, and I’m really learning to use the variations in my various projects to keep my interest up as well. Onto the next piece now. I’m sorry the photos of this guy aren’t as good. I’m going to work on some reshoots for a lot of my work but I only have intermittent access to the big camera from my work so these were taken using just a basic digital and the lighting wasn’t great. It’ll probably be the aforementioned Thunderfire Cannon, but who knows… Onwards!