Mek Update...

Crawling slowly toward completion. I think I might stop here and move on to painting him. I thought about adding mek boy odds-n-ends, but with the huge pack and choppa-tool, it might get too busy (if it's not already).

Besides, I need to scratch up some kannons so I can actually play a game...

See him finished here.

KFF BIG MEK...

...surprise surprise, a WIP. I wonder if I'll ever be able to post a finished project...

See him finished here.

Because I don't know how to post it on your site...

...and because you wouldn't want it there anyway.

Jeff, the Raiders are looking very cool, and looking them over led to some sketching, so I thought I might as well share. The DE's look is so jagged, I wondered how that might be played up in the sail. That led to another mast, mid-ship, that the main sail attaches to. The shorter mast also has a sail, tying into the back of the ship. Ended up looking like shark fins, but I don't know, maybe that fits with your theme too.

I know the scale and shapes are off, but hopefully it still hints at the idea:

Also had an idea for material of the sail. Yes, it's probably another bad idea, but I thought I'd share it too. It seems like I remember mention of 'energy sails/fields' on a DE ship in the book Nightbringer. Not sure about that one, though. Anyway, my idea was to use 'granny-grate' (i think it's used for needlepoint, just semi-rigid plastic mesh) for the sails.

Painted in gradients, I think it could look like the ships 'crackling energy sails'. Might play into the Night Shield upgrade too, don't know much about it.

Comes in different mesh sizes:

Anyway, I've been working too long tonight, so I might be addled. Feel free to disregard, especially since the raider looks sweet as-is. Keep it up, your creativity is inspiring me to get to work on some of my own conversions/builds.

The Ursamarines vs. The Ursus Bellum

Still struggling with the name decision, but I guess I'm leaning toward Ursamarines. In the grim dorky world of my far 40K tournament future, I think it will be more acceptable to other players. Ursus Bellum sounds singular, some might need an interpretation, and it might come off like I'm just plain trying too hard. It's a tricky thing, finding something that's cool in a nerdy world, and still have it be my brand of nerdy.

I need to work on the lighting for my pics, but below are a couple marines showing my newly finalized colors. The ML was painted entirely with this new scheme, while the flamer was painted in a different scheme and then touched up to bring in line with the new.
This was more about finding the colors, and less about painting to top standard. Hopefully, my line highlights will be more careful and neat on showier pieces. Also, these obviously need a lot more work (weapons, details, etc. but I do like the eye of the ML trooper).

I decided to ditch the pauldrons with a bleached bone field. They are bears...bears that have been charging through the blood of their kills, seeking more enemies to slay. Really, I wanted brown, but after deciding that most will have red legs, I found that the brown was overpowered by the huge white pauldrons. I think this will also help with the chapter symbol, a nice dark background to slap a white symbol on. I may have some vets with white helms, and some sarge's with red helms. We'll see.

Because of the dark lighting, you'll definitely need to view the larger pic to see anything, and maybe even zoom in on that.

Also, with the switch to brown pauldrons, I can get away with a pauldron trim color, which is more appropriate since it's a codex chapter at the moment. I'm leaning toward a muted gold for second company or red for third (Ultramarines standards)

Blah blah blah...

Update: a stab at correcting the shoddy pic...colors are a little more true to life:

40K TERRAIN with Pegasus Hobbies Gothic building sets...

This is a little closer to what I had in mind. I'd still like to stretch the building sets with some less ornate panels...get more out of them. I'd also like to elevate the whole structure and have a stair leading up to the main entry (again, like zigor). That would also allow for a blasted floor and rubble spilling out of the building.

And of course, whatever configuration I set the pieces up in, I plan to have a lot more flooring remnants at the various levels. I like the idea of almost everything counting as a ruin, but minimizing the area terrain (I wouldn't want to play the entire interior as area terrain). I'll have to consider that if I decide to glue these up into a permanent configuration. Right now, I'm just having fun building and seeing how far the pieces will go (I used most of what I have on this set-up).

I was very careful when I was shooting the pics...some of them are pretty fuzzy...