+ inload: Blood Angels Support +

+ And then it was done + 

+ The Land Speeder is complete – and with that, the army as a whole is finished. Back in June 2017 [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+] I wrote:

+ I'm not going to be obsessive about the army composition. There'll doubtless be a few nods to old models (I'm particularly keen to have a go at updating the proto-Tycho Blood Angels Captain) and the paint scheme, but the force will be a more general homage to the Blood Angels of the time – so tying in bits from the tail end of Rogue Trader through 2nd edition; particularly the artwork. +

+ Well, it turned out to be rather more obsessive than I'd intended; becoming a straight-up duplicate of the army! It's been three years, but I've now got a complete, re-imagined version of the Blood Angels army that inspired me. +

+ In a future inload I'll post up the finished army. I had hoped to get some good pict-captures over the weekend, but alas it was not to be. Anyway, for the moment it's the Land Speeder's time for a bit of attention. +

+++

+ Land Speeder +

+ The crew and speeder itself are painted with slightly different techniques, so while the palette is common between them, the resulting hue is subtly different. The idea behind this is that the Astartes' own armour is treated differently from the vehicle pool. I've tried to emphasise the nature of the vehicle as a piece of equipment by adding little warning symbols below hatches and above the intakes, as you can see above. +

+ As with the Rhino [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+], I used a stippling technique to build texture on the Speeder. This gives an appearance evocative of WWII-era cast-iron tanks; which strikes me as pleasingly anachronous. The Marines, meanwhile, have a smoother, finer finish. +

+ Close study of the inspiration shows that the left-hand figure had a yellow hand symbol painted on his pad, and a striped leg. I didn't realise it at the time, but this is presuamably marking him out as a techmarine. As with Brother Mirandola [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+], I changed the Rogue Trader-era hand symbol for the modern Opus Machina skull-in-cog. +

+ This was particularly interesting (well, in a very trainspottery way) to me because I'd wondered where all the techmarines were. The old army lists required multiple techmarines – one for each vehicle – but the painted army didn't seem to include them. Having one present on the Land Speeder makes things a lot more clear; they were mostly hidden within the vehicles, piloting them. +

+ That might also answer another question – why does the pilot have yellow shoulder pads? I had assumed that this was a simple aesthetic flourish, or perhaps a precursor to the later idea that most Land Speeders were attached from the 8th (Assault) Company, the colour of which is yellow. +

+ Looking back over the army list, it may be that this figure represents the Lieutenant – another figure that's present in the army list (a Lieutenant was compulsory during the later Rogue Trader period) but missing from the army as a physical model. +

+ That's confirmed by Andy Chambers' notes in the later battle report, where he writes that 'the Lieutenant acted as gunner on board the Land Speeder, accompanied by a single techmarine.' It's funny; I must have read that report dozens of times, but it had never clicked with me that the Speeder crew was always planned and painted up to be a Lieutenant and techmarine – it wasn't just a quick way to justify not having those models painted. I should have had more faith! +

+ I included the yellow tip on the multimelta. Not only is that a pretty iconic look for the period, but it added an important point of interest to an otherwise fairly simple model. +

+ The army badge (blue circle) is present on both crew and speeder, though it's much reduced – it was massive on the original. +

+ On the other side we can see further markings – a little bit of freehand helps to add interest to big black areas. The model is Forge World's own retrohammer reimagining of the original; and I'm pleased to see that they kept some of the large blank areas of the original. It's nice to have space and opportunity to play around with texture and freehand. +

+ A word here to say thank-you to Ilmarinen, who picked this up for me when it had a limited advanced release – sorry that it took me over two years to get it built and painted! +

+ The front. The techmarine's hazard-stripe greave has been reduced to a stripe in my interpretation, and he's got a Mark IV helm – just to help the model to blend in with the army. The Lieutenant is Mark VI accurate, just like the original. I enjoyed painting the yellow; even round the studs. +

+ As a little fun flourish, I painted the large scanner/screen in front of the techmarine with a detail of the battle report in WD141; simplifying things to red spots for the enemy Eldar and white for friendly forces. I should probably have added more contrast to the hills, as they're kinda lost – but then as it's just a bit of fun, it doesn't matter too much. +

+ Techmarine and quad-launcher +

+ Talking about the techmarine above reminded me that I hadn't posted a picture of the techmarine and his charge – so here you go:

+ When texturing the large 80mm base, I left a subtle space for the techmarine to slot on, which helps the two to be clearly associated. +

+ inload: Painting the Blood Angels Librarian +

+ He that is first shall be last +

+ Well, we're settling into quite the routine, aren't we? For those of us getting a bit fatigued with Space Marine characters, I can reassure you that this is the final character from my Blood Angels force. Only the Land Speeder remains. As with many projects like this, I end up limping over the finish line, enthusiasm drained – only for it to be reignited when I can set up the whole force and play a game with them. +

+++

+ Theoretical: the inspiration +

+ Unlike the other characters, where there's either been kick-ass artwork or a classic model to build up my enthusiasm, the Librarian suffered from a lack of inspiration. It was also one of the first models I created for the army; before I decided to get more involved with the conversions. As a result, it's a relatively simple conversion based on the librarian model from WD139. +

+ I'm not a huge fan of this model, but then I'm not that enthused by any of the period Librarian models. There are some nice details, however. It's interesting to see that while the Techmarine symbol changed, the Librarian logo has remained the original horned skull. +

+ Unlike a lot of the army, I don't think this one has aged well. The halved scheme, with blue top and red bottom, looks awkward, and the whole figure has a simultaneously cluttered and oddly sparse appearance; with the purity seal and loincloth(?) looking a bit stuck on. +

+ My conversion involved using the (then-)new Primaris Librarian and reposing the arms. I converted the chest to make it a Mark VI torso, and swapped the head for something a bit decorative. The idea was for the robes to partially obscure the red legs. +

+ With red and blue both being used, I kept the robes neutral to avoid the figure becoming too busy. When considering how to paint robes, I tend to look at whether they're practical or ornamental. Here, the Librarian has both inner and outer robes. I decided to paint the outer one as a weatherworn leather, building up the colour with repeated stippling and washes. The inner robes were painted in a contrasting lighter tone, intended to frame the armour and provide a bit of visual pop. I added some ritualistic details (some Enochian letters) around the hem, and suggested a red decorative hem on the inside. +

+ The leather effect is clear here. I may have sounded a bit negative about this figure above; but this is a lot of lovely subtle details on the base sculpt, such as the decorated reinforcement where the split cape joins and the pipework joining the psychic hood to the backpack. +

+ I replaced the modern backpack with a period one. You can also see the decorative shoulder pad I added on the left here. It's from one of Forge World's Emperor's Children kits – these two highly-decorative Legions have lots of pieces that work well with each other's kits. +

+ I added a trussed bird to the banner (it's from the late-lamented Bretonnian Men-at-Arms sprue) as a suitably outré addition. I painted it up as a light-coloured pigeon, or dove. Perhaps he uses it as some sort of sacrifice, perhaps some sort of communication. Who knows? The little shield on the kit proved a great place to add the Company markings. +

+ The horned skull shoulder pad is part of the standard kit. I added his apotropaic name on the scroll, and added an Enochian sigil to the forehead of the skull. +

+ The split scheme can be seen nicely here. I'm glad I went for a robed figure. It allowed me to keep the homage to the original, while partially hiding a device I'm not the fond of! The robes also give a nice 'Obi Wan Kenobi' feel, which I like. The banner, as with the other personalities in the army, is a replication of the original. +

+ I don't think the Librarian is my finest work, but I'm still broadly pleased with how he's come out. I guess I'm just not all that enthused by wizards at the best of times. Must be my inner dawi. With all that said, he's definitely growing on me. Even the red/blue split isn't looking so obnoxious as I remember! +

+ inload: Blood Angels Chaplain +

+ Chaplain Savonarola (Amaliel 7:13)+

Blessed is the mind too small to doubt.

+ Imperial aphorism +

+++

+ Theoretical +

+ Unlike most of this project, the inspiration for this Chaplain came not from the Games Workshop Studio army of WD139, but from the Dave Gallagher artwork that graced the cover of the Warhammer 40,000 Compendium (and which inspired my Captain Tycho conversion [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+]). One of the supporting elements in this painting is a curious silver-coloured Chaplain. +

+ It's a very distinctive look that I don't think has turned up elsewhere, but works really nicely. It's particularly suitable for the Blood Angels, I think, as it complements the golden armour of their heroes and champions and contrasts with the black armour of their Death Company. +

+ Appearing as it did at the back end of Rogue Trader, the image differs from the black-armoured Chaplain of the studio army and elsewhere; but it's such a striking look that I wanted to include it. +

+ Of course, this raised the question of whether to tackle it with non-metallic  metal (NMM) techniques – as in the original artwork – or with metallic paints. The former would have worked well alongside my Captain Tycho, where I used a NMM approach; while the latter would sit better alongside the rest of the army. +

+ Unable to decide, I split the difference and decided to experiment, using metallic paints alongside non-metallic paints to create a halfway house. +

+ Practical +

+ I was not at all confident that this would work, but gave it a go anyway – that's the only way I know to improve! When approaching a model like this, I find it helps to start with some safe elements – those bits you can do easily. Here, I painted the robe. Having something like this finished or blocked out is reassuring when the experimental areas go through the (almost inevitable) stage where they're a bit crap looking. +

+ I started the silver itself with a base of Fenris Grey (one of the old Foundation paints) mixed with Payne's grey acrylic ink. This gave a nice, deep, cool underpainting. +

+ I then overlaid this with a mix of Iron Warriors acrylic paint, and both Payne's Grey and White Pearl acrylic ink. The latter is material I bust out when I need to dilute metallics. It's effectively a clear carrier of metallic flakes, which means that it doesn't alter the hue of what you're working on. This allows you to thin metallic paints without losing the metallic effect; and also lets you give non-metallic paints a sheen. +

+ The effect is pretty clear here in this shot of a later stage. I've worked up through various metallic paints including Chainmail and Stormhost silver. All had White Pearl acrylic ink added, to ensure smooth transitions. However, even the lightest tint of GW's metallics are slightly grey, so for the final touches I took a photograph of the figure under a spotlight, then used a mix of Instar paint's Arctic White and White Pearl acrylic ink to copy the reflections. This let me create the forced highlights that you can see. +

+++

+ And so to the finished figure. He was turned around in an evening; and I'm pretty pleased with the result. I'll certainly call it a successful experiment. Omricon suggested the technique might suit Stormcast, too; which is a good idea. +

+ Figures painted completely with metallics can look a bit unfinished, so I made sure to include some other textures, such as the cloak lining, purity seals and weapons. +

+ The half-seen three-skull motif on the shoulder pad and torso is visible nicely here. It was applied with dilute Payne's grey ink. +

+ This close-up demonstrates how the metal and non-metal areas interest. +

+ Polishing this figure off (ho ho) means it's just the Librarian and Land Speeder left. +

+ inload: Painting the Blood Angels medic+

 + Medic! +

Upon the seed of the Blood Angels there lies the ancient curse of mutation, a foulness which cannot be seen, which is covered over by the grace, intelligence, and high achievements which are the proud boasts of this most noble of Chapters. Yet the fire that burns behind the eyes of these sons of Sanguinius is bright with a thirst that only the blood of man can slake. Aye, it would be wise to but whisper the name that comes from times heavy with age and fear, a name which echoes in the march of the Blood Angels...

+++

+ Apothecary Euthan Sansavino (Varchiel 2:06) +

+ The inspiration and build process for this model are covered in this inload [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+]; so as with Techmarine Mirandola, I'll concentrate here on the painting decisions. +

+ I went back and forth on the overall scheme, toying with a vertical red/white split; but ended up plumping for the scheme on the original medic from WD139 – white armour with red shoulder pads. This was mainly because – unlike the techmarine – the base model was very different from the inspiration. The robe, back banner instead of big hand-borne banner, the pose... all broke away from the old model. The paint scheme was therefore important to use to create some consistency. +

+ I tackled most of the equipment in a similar way to avoid the model becoming busy. A nice neutral layer of Charadon Granite was used for the hand flamer, the wrist-mounted narthecium, holster and pouches. The metallics were similarly tackled in a cohesive way, with wet-in-wet washes of Leviathan Purple and Seraphim Sepia over Ironbreaker. +

+ A little bit of freehand detailing on the holster, chainsword and text on the shoulder pad scroll add some interest, as does the blood spatter. The latter was achieved with a mix of brown and red. +

+ The robe didn't come out quite how I wanted – I was aiming for a softer, worn leather effect. I may need to go back with some further glazes of sepia ink. I don't think the result here is bad; but it's a bit busy – almost reminiscent of camouflage, which wasn't the intention. +

+ I am, however, pleased with the reduction of the big banner. Having freehanded all the other material in the army, I thought it'd be a cop-out to do something different for the banner. The key elements are faithfully reproduced, and I've turned the row of nine blood drops into three groups of three – a decision that serendipitously proved to echo the tweak I'd made to the Third company symbol across the army. Sometimes happy accidents turn up! +

+ I changed the banner top blood drop into a blue jewel; symbolising Sanguinius' tears of sorrow. This was mainly to add a contrasting accent and cause the viewer's eye to flick back and forth between here and the marine's eye-lenses, taking in the banner a bit more. + 

+ The white armour came out nicely, I thought. I used a Payne's grey ink wash to build up the shading; in much the same way as I use the purple paint and sepia ink to shade the red [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+]. +

+ Those who have kept their opticalinput augmitters at full will spot that there's a large blood drop honorific on his shin; something absent in the composite image above. I added this at the last minute at the suggestion of a reader. While I like it in and of itself, I am rather kicking myself that I overlaid the blood spatter, which I was pleased with. The two rather fight here, I think. +

+ One final shot of the apothecary/sanguinary priest/medic... and that leaves just three model to complete: the Chaplain, Librarian and Land Speeder. +

+ inload: Blood Angels Chaplain +

+ Blood Angels Chaplain +

Though workers of iniquity may consume my eyes and waste my flesh,

Though sinful agency weary my body and spoil my works,

I remain faithful to the ideals of my Lord,

Still I shall rely on my Lord to direct and guide me,

And though I die, I shall die knowing neither defeat, despair nor dereliction of duty

Great Angels! In his name! Sanguinius!

The Dirige Conspectu of the Blood Angels; known as the Lament of the Lost.

+ Well, here's the last one: every figure in the Blood Angels army is built, so it's just down to painting now. +
 

+ Inspiration +

+ David Gallagher's artwork of Blood Angels fighting genestealers inspired my Captain Tycho [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+], and it includes this interesting character, too – a silver-armoured Chaplain. In terms of miniatures and paint schemes, Chaplains have always been black, so he's a very distinctive figure that stands out beautifully against both the red of the line troops and the black of the Death Company. +

+ Part of the joy of exploring the Nova Terra Interregnum is that it's largely uncharted. Who's to say that – for whatever reason – Blood Angels Chaplains weren't routinely silver at this time? It's a perfect excuse to try something new out, and so I built the following miniature. +

+ The cape is from the Dark Angels Master Lazarus figure. Regular inloaders will remember that I used the front on the Apothecary [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+]; I never like cool pieces to go to waste. It's attached to an easy-build marine, which demonstrates it's not about throwing money at a problem, but about finding the right pieces. +

+ The rest of the build is relatively straightforward. A period backpack fits nicely in the project. +

+ The weapons were picked to evoke the artwork – the boltgun is an Umbra pattern one (the modern take on the 2nd ed. boltgun). The only modification I've made here was to slightly shorten the barrel to better match the artwork. The crozius is a thunder hammer haft from the Mark III marine set, with a banner top from the Command squad on top. I've added a tiny ruby blood drop below the skull. The scale's slightly off the artwork, but the principle elements are thus still there. +

+ The head's the obvious big difference. I started with a head from the Sanguinary Guard kit and trimmed down the top of the head and 'brow' of the helmet, before sculpting the skull on top. The eye lenses and grille of the original helm was left in place to give fine detail. The latter part works as a hint of teeth; and – I hope – helps it to read as a sculpted helmet rather than a literal skull. +

+ I added a couple of purity seals and details to the belt. This area's not visible in the artwork so, as with the cape, I decided to improvise and riff off what was there. I think the cape's a good addition – he would have looked too plain without it. +

+ Theoretical +

+ Painting next, then. Left to complete from the basic army are:

• Techmarine
• Apothecary
• Chaplain
• Land Speeder.

+ I'm a bit undecided on whether to try non-metallic metal silver or metallic paints for the Chaplain. What are your thoughts? +

+ inload: Blood Angels apothecary +

+ Apothecary of the Third Host +

+ Following on from the reimagined techmarine [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+], here's the army's medic – a Blood Angel apothecary. +

+ Whereas the techmarine was an attempt to copy the pose of a classic as closely as possible, here I've adhered less closely to the original model – though I have aimed to make it clearly reminiscent of the original through details. +

The original

+ There were two core reasons to my decision here. Firstly, that banner. It is lovely; but it always struck me as odd that the medic held it. Secondly as with the techmarine, I wasn't too fond of the original sculpt. In fact, besides the detail on the pads, none of the classic medics really had much that made them scream 'medical officer'. With a different scheme, they could easily be just another soldier in the line. Such aesthetics are great for the real world – after all, you probably don't want officers and specialists standing out – but I like the greebling that 40k adds to figures. +

+ My interpretation saw me keep the chainsword armament, mark VI armour and slightly left-weighted posture. The banner was reduced to a back banner, and I gave him some robes of office along with some apothecary equipment. He's intended to be a halfway house between the current sculpts and the classic one; so he shares details with both. While he has a forearm mounted reductor and belt accessories, his backpack is a standard one, for example. Similarly, his helm has no additional optics like the modern sculpts. I did toy with that, but decided that it overlapped too much with the techmarine. +

+ The pose is relaxed but alert. In losing the banner, I had the option of giving him a hand weapon. I opted not to do this, as I felt it made him look too much like a front-lines fighter. An open hand felt more appropriate, and nods to the original. +

+ Another nod to the original sculpt is the hand flamer. Clipped off to allow the medic to hold the giant banner, I thought it would be a fun detail to return his weapon to him after thirty years! +

+ Dark Angel Master Lazarus was the donor kit for the front of the body. Since I didn't want to include a full cape, it necessitated sculpting the back half of the torso and his arse. The detail is mostly hidden – which is forgiving. My sculpting's not the best, so it's nice to practise on areas like this which are not hugely visible in the finished model. The cape that he originally wore swooped over the leg you can see here, necessitating a bit of repair work on the pistol grip and holster, which is not sculpted in the original. Similarly, I filled in the semi-circles on the corners of the greaves left by the removal of the ankle details. I don't always do this, as I quite like the clean mark it creates, but here it felt right to clean up a bit more than usual. +

+ This detail shows the banner top that I originally had on him. The characters and sergeants have, thus far, all had unique banner tops. A comment from cowboyjesus on Instagram suggested that I match the banner top of the original – and who am I to reject advice from the (rootin' tootin' gunslingin') Son of Man? +

+ I think the suggestion improves the result, tying it closer to the original, so thanks for the idea. The banner top here is still unique – the wings are carved from another banner top and attached to the blood drop from the haloed original. +

+ Theoretical +

+ In losing the big banner, the figure becomes less of a focal point for the army, so one of my first additions will be a dedicated Ancient. These specialist banner bearers didn't exist in the Rogue Trader period in any 'crunch' terms, but since they exist now it seems a fitting addition. Here, the anonymity of the original sculpts should prove a benefit – perhaps I'll create a banner bearer that matches the pose of the original. In this way Tim Prow's model from the GW studio army will prove the seed of two new figures. +

+ inload: Techmarine +

 + Brother Mirandola (Maltiel 4:01) +

+ As every tech-aspirant knows, every gun needs a gunner (unless you're one of those xenoheretics looking at Tau drone technology). Building on the completed quad-launcher in yesterday's inload, here's the accompanying techmarine, Brother Mirandola. +

+ Clad in modified Mark VI Corvus armour, Mirandola combines classic Rogue Trader stylings with modern touches. He's a good example of the guiding principles of the project: what would Rogue Trader-era designs look like if produced today? +

+ Today's inload goes a bit into the process I go through when re-imagining older figures. It's quite long, so I won't be offended if you just want to skim the pictures! +

+ Theoretical: RT-aesthetic, modern tech +

+ I think he's a good example of the principle that good ideas are timeless. The various tools, accessories and peculiar asymmetrical helmet of the original design immediately identify him as a combat engineer of sorts; albeit with a sci-fi aspect. Those sort of identifying marks are recognisable to everyone; they don't rely on any familiarity with the setting. + 

+ Hopefully the source figure is clear in my re-imagining +

+ The modern techmarine, in contrast, [+noosphericexloadlink embedded+] hints more obliquely at their military role. The principle is flipped: high-tech fantastic details like the massive servo-claw and snaking mechadendrite cable are more striking and impressive than the rather drab and down-to-earth RT-era figure, but they're thus less grounded and gritty. The modern sculpt is sci-fi fantasy first, and engineer second; vice versa for the RT-sculpt. +

+ I don't think either is better, per se; but it's worth seeing how the designers have moved from having no internal design language to fall back on – hence the looser and arguably more creative aesthetics of Rogue Trader – to having a great well of depth to draw from and build upon. Today, Techmarines don't need to 'read' as real-world engineers so easily, because there's so much texture to draw on from within the setting. That allows the more unusual aspects to be played up – but it comes at the cost of being slightly exclusive. +

+ Lest that come across as unnecessarily critical of the modern approach, I do think that the depth of background allows the designers today to come up with some wonderfully creative stuff that has more implied depth. Sure, it's not so immediately recognisable, but if you are invested in the world, there are loads of details that have a language to decipher. It's more rewarding to analyse a modern sculpt than – say – a regular marine carrying a toolbox. +

+ Both approaches have merit; my point is not to convince you of your personal preference, but rather to highlight why I'm setting this army in the Nova Terra Interregnum, rather than the 41st Millennium. It's because this largely undescribed space allows me to explore the original aesthetic without conflicting with the modern. I want to demonstrate that it's possible to like both; and that there's no need to take sides. +

+++

+ Practical: Making decisions +

+ When 're-imagining' a piece, I spend some time working out what the key features are, what I want to include, and what I want to change. +

+ While Mirandola himself would definitely argue that old stuff is sacred, we're enlightened enough to know that sometimes things do change for the better! In creating my update of the original sculpt, I didn't want to make a direct translation of every detail. Not only is that reductive – I'm never going to be able to translate Mark Copplestone's skill and vision into a conversion – but it's also a bit dull. I want to be creative with my hobby and give the figure some of my own flourishes. +

+ For me, the key features of this marine are:

• Posture – suggesting a heavy toolbox, and an alert pose, scanning for enemies.
• Helm – the unique design is a perfect focal feature of the original.
• Toolbox and pistol – the angle of the wrists really explains what the marine is doing. Without the correct dynamics and angles here, it'll lose all sense of narrative.

+ I think any conversion that included those would be successful – and you wouldn't have to be rigid, either. It wouldn't hurt to have a plasma pistol in place of the bolt pistol, for example; or to swap the helm I picked for another suitably baroque and techno-gubbin-arrayed one. +

+ With the key features identified, I then worked out what details I wanted to include alongside them. I knew I wanted to have Mark VI armour. Even though I don't feel it's absolutely critical to the update (indeed, a Mark VII or Mark X version would be an interesting alternative challenge), I enjoy making Mark VI armour and felt it would help settle the figure into the broader army. +

+ I also wanted to include the tools at the below, though I was happy to vary the detail of these. In the end, I did replicate the drill on his left hip (right of picture), but updated the mobile keypad – very high-tech in the 80s/90s – to a touch-screen/haptic input, which I think captures the concept of 'high-tech' rather than simply duplicating the original. I'm fond of the classic figures, but fetishistically copying them can result in something a bit kitsch; and that sells the vision of the original short. Like 2000AD, Rogue Trader was partially tongue-in-cheek, but that doesn't mean that you can't have believably dangerous, unpleasant characters. +

+ Keen to include some details that used the modern design language to identify the figure as a techmarine, I replaced the sculptural 'clawed hand' shoulder pad with one that incorporated the Opus Machina. This is a modern touch that doesn't compromise the overall feel. Similarly, the original model has a weird cable-covered left pauldron that I simply didn't like. I replaced this with a studded Mark VI pad. These details of the original are examples of 'exclusive' design: unlike the toolbox, they mean nothing to those outside of the hobby. Therefore I could happily replace them with modern 'exclusive' elements. +

+ At root, this is a fairly simple conversion – almost a kitbash. You could very easily make something comparable without using a knife or greenstuff; so success is really about planning more than anything technical. +

+ That said, I wanted to have this marine in Mark VI, as mentioned above. To that end I did some trimming and sculpting ~ and I'll cover that in a future inload soon. +

+++