The Finish Line Approaches

I'm so close to getting these Marines done. The Dreadnought just needs the base doing and matt varnish over the decal, that sort of thing. Frustratingly I have run out of Raptors decals! I need one small white Raptor head, and two medium black Raptor heads for this lot, plus - thinking ahead - four medium white and one more medium black for the Outriders and ATV. Grrr. I'll ask in the club discord; I'm sure there's enough 40K players who'll have some kicking around somewhere.

Anyway today I smashed through the following steps:

Step 5 - base coat on all purity seals

Step 6 - all the metallics - mostly guns and backpack vents

Step 7 - all the lenses and highlight on the purity seals

It should be noted that it was at this point I also painted all the grenades. Krak grenades were done in Khorne Red, smoke in Trollslayer Orange, and frag in Warboss Green.

Step 8 - liberal coat of Nuln Oil over everything

Step 9 - parchment on all purity seals painted in what I still think of as Snakebite Leather, but is now known as XV-88

Step 10 - gloss varnish over all lenses, and anywhere a decal needs to go

Step 11 - highlight all purity seals with Ushabti Bone (again, I still think of this as Bleached Bone)

Step 12 - using a black (I actually used Contrast Black Legion this time), paint on any markings you like, such as Squad, Company, and Chapter badges, not forgetting to put text squiggles on the purity seals

After that last step, because I'm using decals, I applied some. At this point, it all looks a bit like this:

Things not covered by the step-by-step guide include the smoke from the smoke grenade (white, followed by a coat of Contrast Asurmen Blue), the wrist panel screens (Caliban Green with Yriel Yellow details finished with a coat of Gloss Varnish) and base clutter, which has been done on the fly. There's also a couple of bits of bone, which were painted with a coat of white, a wash of Flesh Wash, and some detailing with Ushabti Bone. Oh, and the skin is Rhinox Hide with highlights in Mournfang Brown.

A quick aside! Almost all my Space Marines (of all types) who have bare heads have dark skintones, because of the Melanchromic Organ, which controls the amount of melanin in their skin and protects against some radiation. This means that the brighter the sunlight they're exposed to, the darker their skin... and honestly some of them are just dark skinned in the first place. 

Anyway, the finish line is in sight for this lot so I hope to have them done tomorrow and, if I'm lucky, to have the remaining decals for them as well.