Showcase: Ultramarines Captain Mikael Fabian (inc. painting guide)

In today’s showcase post I’m featuring the limited edition webstore Space Marine Captain, which I’ve added to my Ultramarines collection as Captain Mikael Fabian of the 3rd company. The twist: as a little challenge, I used only old Citadel Colours from the previous paint range.

I had the limited edition Firstborn Space Marine Captain, which was available at the launch of Games Workshop’s current webstore a couple of years, in my drawer for quite a while. When I bought a big lot of old Citadel Colours from the 2000s some time ago, the model was the perfect opportunity to revive my paint recipe of my Middlehammer Ultramarines collection.

It was quite fun to give the old paint range a spin, and I really love the model. Peak Firstborn Space Marine design in my opinion, with a nicely animated cape and a beautiful sculpted banner. Since I already have Captain Sicarius in my collection (both the original Cities of Death version with twin lightning claws, and the more recent version with sword and plasma pistol), I decided to paint this model as Captain Mikael Fabian of the Ultramarines 3rd Company.

Unlike my other models, red trims instead of gold mark him out as a member of the third company, and in the 2nd Edition Ultramarines codex I found the red diagonal stripe, which I freehanded to the banner and the right shoulder armor.

How to paint Ultramarines

As I’ve mentioned above, I only used Citadel Colour paints from the 1998 – 2012 range, plus a few Vallejo Game Colors from that time, just like my original recipe. I even made a video about my experiences with the former paint range, which also includes a fancy 360° shot of Captain Fabian at the end, so make sure to give it a watch:

Here is a list of all the paints I used (all from the OOP Citadel Colour range of the 2000s):

Base
Basecoat: Codex Grey
Drybrush: Fortress Grey
Drybrush: Vallejo Game Color Ghost Grey
Wash: one half Badab Black, other half Devlan Mud, then blend into each other
Drybrush: Fortress Grey
Base trim: Graveyard Earth

Blue power armour
Basecoat: Mordian Blue
Recess shade: Black Ink
Edge highlight: Ultra marines Blue
Edge highlight: VGC Steel Blue
The banner was painted the same way, but with softer highlights and shading

Red trims, cords, and purity seal wax
Basecoat: Mechrite Red
Wash: Badab Black (applied as a recess shade for the armour trims)
Layer: Mechrite Red
Edge highlight: Blood Red
Edge highlight: Blazing Orange (I skipped this step for the purity seals)

Red cape
Basecoat: Mechrite Red
Recess shade: multiple thin coats of Scab Red
Deep shade: thinned Black Ink
Highlight: multiple thin coats of Blood Red
Edge highlight: Blazing Orange

Khaki robes
Basecoat: Khemri Brown
Layer: VGC Khaki
Highlight: multiple thin coats of Dheneb Stone
Edge highlight: VGC Dead White

Purity seal paper
Basecoat: Khemri Brown
Layer: Bleached Bone
Highlight: Bleached Bone with successive amounts of of VGC Dead White added
Edge highlight: VGC Dead White

White details
Basecoat: Codex Grey
Layer: VGC Ghost Grey
Highlight: VGC Dead White

Black details
Basecoat: Chaos Black
Edge highlight: Chaos Black / Codex Grey mix
Edge highlight: Codex Grey

Brown leather
Basecoat: Scorched Brown
Wash: Badab Black
Layer: Scorched Brown
Highlight: Bestial Brown

Gold
Basecoat: Shining Gold
Recess shade: VGC Brown Ink thinned with Contrast Medium (I cheated lol)
Highlight: Mithril Silver

Steel
Basecoat: Boltgun Metal
Wash: Badab Black
Edge highlight: Chainmail

Green laurels
Basecoat: Dar k Angels Green
Layer: Snot Green
Edge highlight: Goblin Green
Edge highlight: Goblin Green mixed with Bleached Bone

Golden aquila on the banner
Basecoat: Iyanden Darksun
Wash: Gryphonne Sepia (2x)
Layer: Iyanden Darksun
Highlight: Bleached Bone
Highlight: Bleached Bone mixed with VGC Dead White

Plasma coils
Basecoat: Formula P3 Arcane Blue
Layer: VGC Dead White
Glaze lower parts with thinned P3 Arcane Blue
Edge highlight VGC Dead White

Limiting myself to the old Citadel range was a pretty cool challenge, and a nice trip down memory lane. A couple of years ago I made a step-by-step tutorial for my Ultramarines, which also has an updated list of paints so you can adapt this scheme to the current Citadel paint range:

My Ultramarines Captains collection

And here we have a group shot of all my Captains. From left to right: Captain Severus Agemman of the 1st Company in Terminator Armour, Captain Cato Sicarius of the 2nd Company, and, freshly painted, Captain Mikael Fabian of the 3rd Company. Guess Uriel Ventris needs to be next, though he never got an official Firstborn model!

Hope you enjoyed this nostalgia-fueled showcase post. Personally, I’m still quite fond of the Firstborn range, and my Ultramarines are the largest army I ever painted. Let me know about your favourites from the classic Space Marines range in the comments, or post your models over on our friendly hobby Discord server. Leave a reaction below, and until next time, happy hobbying!