Warhammer 40,000 – Imperial Fists Call to Arms Pt 4

It is time to start some painting. But I still need to paint a tester model, to check if the colour scheme is working, if I need to replace a paint or go a different route.

As mentioned in the first article, it makes sense to do some mock up of the poses, to ensure that all pieces fit together. I really like these heroic poses of the Space Marines. I mean look at this guy: he means business!

To move on, I split the prepared miniatures into two lots - main colour yellow and others. I am going with TITANS HOBBY Imperial Yellow Matt Primer and all those who get a white primer, if the majority of the miniature is not yellow. For White Primer I either use Army Painter or Titans Hobby / MIG.

Among the miniatures primed white, were the scouts and two of the characters. Yes, I saw that mould line that I missed before and I'll take care of it.

Unfortunately, the rubber band of the spray handle didn't hold as tight as I expected and two fell down upon the paved stone in our drive way. And not without taking a toll. But nothing a drill, a bit of wire and some glue couldn't fix. Still happy that I picked up one of those handheld rotary tools.

For the yellow, I did a single tester with just the yellow primer and I came to the conclusion that this will not be enough. The coverage of the yellow is not bright enough on its own.

While TITAN Hobby Imperial Yellow matches Citadel Yriel Yellow (Layer Paint), it certainly needs a white primer first. I touched up the primer with Yriel Yellow and added further paints for the tester.

For the bases I went with IONIC Goblin Green. I don't know if this is vivid enough? Maybe it will get there with the later drybrush.  Or I replace this with Duncan's Goblinoid Green from Two Thin Coats. Beyond that it has an unusual strong smell for an acrylic colour and I strongly recommend thinning it down with water. The red details are AP Pure Red, Blacks are AP Matt Black and the green gem and eyes are Citadel Death World Forest. I gave it a first light wash with Citadel Cassandora Yellow and that is just amazing as a mid-step.

And that was, what I did with the others. White primer first, for the entire batch and those miniatures, where the yellow would be the majority of the model, another coat of the yellow. Touch ups with Yriel Yellow as mentioned above.

Honestly, how vivid is this yellow? And I simply love the pose for the sergeant, he looks to pretty in yellow.

This mould line / slip didn't look as bad prior to priming, but I will have to take care of that.

Other roles within this army do not wear bright yellow power armour, but different colours.

For the Librarian I went with Army Painter Crystal Blue (basically you paint him like an Ultramarine, tons of tutorials online for that), and after initially going with Citadel Mephiston Red for the Techmarine, I replaced that with Army Painter Pure Red (it is closer to the classic Blood Red than AP Dragon Red).

The first squad I really went into were the scouts. This slowed me down, as I had to look up a lot of the proper colours for the different details. And then swap them / translate them into something that works for Imperial Fists. Ultramarines used a lot of Red and Yellow as contrasting colours, this is something that I have to change, as with Yellow for the armour and Red for the company identification would create yellow next to yellow or red next to red, if I don't adapt that accordingly.

I wanted to paint the soft armour / clothes in a mid grey, went with AP Filthy Cape, not properly working and will replace that one with a mid-grey from Vallejo or Citadel. Another thing, I used Game Colour Black for the black parts, but for what ever reason that created a rather shiny finish and I replaced that with Army Painter Matt Black as you can see below. Not everything is fully touched up yet.

As mentioned above, which parts are armour? Are those armour panels that should be yellow and such, slowed me down a bit. But I prepared Colour Cards, that I'll post below for orientation. The "Colour Cards" are like mood boards or collections of images, mostly from the rulebooks and codices to get a better feel for the details and paints used to paint these models.

I really dig the Citadel Colour Spray Stick, as it makes bulk painting quite comfortable. And it has these small adapters for smaller pieces, which gave me the chance to prime quite a lot of back packs in one go. And there was it again, how do I paint these properly? You have only a few pictures of miniatures seen from behind. Would the entire backpack be in armour colour? Would it be partially metal and then which parts? I went with variant #2 of my mock up.

Same for the banner part. I went with yellow for the entire part, but will do the rings and maybe the finials in metal. As for the eagle / aquila, that could be in metal as well. As you can see from the colour card, Games Workshop used do them in black entirely and then give the topper a different colour.

To spend less time on decision while painting, I created some colour cards for myself. The Scouts were the most time consuming. The pictures of the Ultramarines are from the box packaging and not lore accurate Citadel Catalogue (but providing angled views), along with those from the Imperial Fists by MiniScape and from an eBay Lot.

For the regular Tactical Marines I went with the colours shown in the Codex Ultramarines. Yes, they went with blue lenses and gems, but I felt that green would be a good fit as well.

As for the other roles, I extended my research towards the Codex Angels of Death and Codex Space Wolves, for inspiration. In case of the Techmarine I added two pictures of Servitors as well. They will get yellow jump suits. I know, red is the colour of the mechanicum, but I think that yellow will tie them better into the army.

In regards of the Librarians, thankfully these were shown in the Codex Ultramarines. These will be pretty close to the paint job of the studio. Honestly, I like the pose of the Librarian with the sword better, it looks more dynamic, as is the other one shown with the Dark Angel Librarian, but I went with the pose to recreate the Supremacy Force composition.

As you can see, there has been some progress but still a lot of work until April 18th, to get these battle‑ready and at least semi‑decent eye‑candy. Therefore, off I go to the painting table.