Hey there, since I’ve finished Sicarius I brought another of my older Ultramarines squads up to scratch. This time, a bike squad. Check out all the pictures after the jump.
The bike squad was one of my more recent Ultramarines paint jobs, so painting-wise I didn’t feel the need to replace all the highlights and just changed a couple of details, like changing the plasma coils from green to turquoise as seen on recent Ultramarine models painted by the ‘Eavy Metal team.
I removed the hand-painted chipping and replaced it with sponge-weathering like on my Blood Angels collection. Check out the insignia on the shoulder pads, with a variant of the fast attack symbol inspired by the various alternate designs presented in Insignium Astartes.
Probably most notable is the change to large cavalry oval bases, like they come with the Deathwatch Bike Squad and Jetek Suberei from Deathwatch Overkill. The old bike bases were fine when Marines used to come on the smaller 25mm bases, but the new and larger oval ones look better along 32mm bases.
Last but not least, I changed a couple of other details that bugged me on hindsight. For example, the Marine with the beakie helmet got upgraded to a full suit of MkVI armour by smoothing and resculpting his lower arm and lower leg greaves and by adding a new torso and backpack. I also drilled out all barrels and exhaust pipes.
Here is a picture of the bike squad before reworking (the colours appear a bit different because I had a different camera and lights back then). You can check out more pictures in this showcase post from 2013. As the time goes by…
How do you like my revamped Bike Squad? Leave a comment below…
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Because of this post I just might rebase my 16 World Eaters bikers Stahly… Do you have any conscience whatsoever? Love the crispiness of your paintjobs and the attention to detail like the sergeant and beakie marine.
This was me – multiple google accounts are a pain in the butthole to navigate…
Since 2013, I always wonder what arm did you use for the left handed plasma gunner? And did you do any modification on the gun itself?
As far as I remember, it's just a regular Bolter holding left arm from the Tactical Squad kit, but I cut off the hand at the wrist to reposition it slightly. Mystery solved 😉
Excellent work.
What’s your technique to fill the gaps between the two halves of the bike? Yours look seamless.
I use a bit more plastic glue so it will spill out a little bit when pressing both halves together. Once dry, you can scrape the excess away. If that's not enough, I use Liquid Green Stuff and very fine sand paper (1200 grit). You might need to repeat the green stuffing and sanding a few times to get a perfectly smooth seam.