AGIF Viewer Mailbag: Who is the biggest Primarch?

Hey guys, Macca here and today I'm answer some viewer questions.... such as how big certain Primarchs are, and who is the biggest so far?

I will preface this with a disclaimer *I don't have all the Primarchs*. I have seen them all, and compared them, but on hand, I only have 5 in my personal collection, so those are the ones I will show you.

Primarch vs Marine size:

To start with, here is the MK III armoured Ultramarine Commander we are giving away soon, and he is our scale model, a nice 32mm marble base is beneath his feet.

Lorgar and Angron, Shadow Crusading their way to Terra....

Ferrus Manus and Horus Lupercal, modelling this years Summer and Winter Cataphractii range respectively.

Perturabo, modelling Cataphractii Plus-Size.

Primarch vs Primarch size:

Perturabo is of course, the largest. Vulkan is huge himself, in fact, he is Horus' size and only wearing power armour. However, for total size, it's the guy riding part of a Knight Titan into battle. There is an optical illusion however....

The Illusion?

Perturabo hunches forward on his base, in much the way Angron is sprinting and hunched, so is Perturabo. When I lay him down at the right angle, his scale becomes very apparent.

Yes, Perturabo is about a head taller than Ferrus Manus, comfortably, and that's not including the little cogitators and such on top of his giant suit of Plus-Size armour.

For more on Perturabo, or Horus, our videos can be found here.

So who do you think should be the biggest? My money is on Magnus the Red, who is the biggest and the best Primarch. Space Wolves players, your opinions aren't valid on that one....

~Macca

Lorgar Aurelian: Part 3

So I finally finished Lorgar. With one big exception: his cloak. Upon starting to assemble the model, the cloak wouldn't even come close to fitting. Short of hacking away at it madly, I have decided to leave it off until I can figure out what to do. Anyway, I am very pleased overall, however I think I will slightly darken the area around Lorgar's eyes as they don't stand out enough for my tastes.

So three Primarchs (including the repainted Angron) in a week or so. Very pleased. Funny enough, Lorgar is the first Edgar Skomorowski (I think that's how you spell his name, apologies if I'm wrong Edgar!) Primarch I have worked on, and it was quite a bit different to Horus and Angron. His armour is more simplistic in regards to trim, but the textures are very organic, unlike Horus and Angron who are very smooth and mechanical sculpts by the great Simon Egan.

Smash face Warmaster, smash face.

~Macca

Lorgar Aurelian: Part 2

Two Primarchs in one week whilst working every day AND spend time with the girlfriend? I'm trying to give it a shot! So, today is part 2 on Lorgar, and the first thing I want to say is that GREY IS BORING. Thus, being a fan of Evil Lorgar (muh ha ha) I started with a nice red basecoat with the airbrush, Minitaire Angelic Blood was the go-to, followed by a top-down coat of 50-50 Angelic Blood and Hazard Orange.

Next, I cracked out my wet palette. This bad boy is still wet from working on Horus as I top it up with water to keep it moist through the day. I grabbed some Evil Sunz Scarlett and some Blazing Orange, and in a 70-30 mix, I went around and highlighted the UPPER panels around the zig-zag runes. I didn't go too orange as eventually once I wash this model, the contrast will be huge, so it only pays to highlight lots now if you're not planning on a wash.

Following all this, out came the Balthasar Gold for another hour-long session of gold trim painting. Fuck you GW, fuck you FW, 20 years of painting chaos space marines has given me an intense dislike of gold trim. But it looks shit hot, so I grudgingly do it whilst praising your foul dark gods.

Next, I painted a mix of Auric Armour Gold and Balthasar onto most of the trim. In pic one, you see just the base, in pic 2, you see the full gold mix.

Next came the steel/silver sections. I mixed up some Ironbreaker and Chaos Black to get a darker steel tone, and painted all the tubing and Illuminatum(?) This Crozius is DELICATE. I think out of all the Primarchs I have done, well, the two others, nothing can match this. If you work on this, be very wary of breakage.

I also painted the purity seals/streamers on his armour, as well as doing a soft marble on the shaft of his crozius. this was done by painting it matte black, then applying some very thin veins of pale grey, followed by a Guilliman Blue glaze. I will be coming back to the streamers later after the oil wash, so they aren't quite finished yet.

Thus began the long-ass oil wash. Lots of runes and gold, meant 45 minutes of picking out delicate details all over the place. In the end, I'm really happy with the result, and once he is dry, the matte varnish will really sell him. I will paint the face and cloak in the meanwhile, and bung up some pics of him tomorrow.

Thanks for viewing guys,

~Macca

Lorgar Aurelian, Part 1

Today I started work on Lorgar's base. I decided that as I had already hand painted one, (Angron's) and airbrushed with hand painted detailed one (Horus), that I would try my hand at oil painting one.

To start with, I prepared my resin. This involved a good clean in warm soapy water, as well as filing it. I then test fitted the parts, before I belt sanded (I am a fitter and turner by trade, I have lots of big tools floating around) the underside of the large and normal base. This gave me a nice flat surface, which comes into play when gluing the base later.

At this point, I test fitted the parts again and primed everything. As always, the prime didn't give a smooth finish to the entire base, but rather added surface texture to the material.

Taste the Rainbow.

At this point, I did a quick semi-gloss varnish, and once dried, out came my $12 oil paint set. These oils will last a LONG time, so $12 is a good investment. I then apply a little of each into my palette. Once I have all my oils out, I then dabbed them all over he base components.

Now, I smear it all together into a nice hangover-esque mixture of Kebab and Bourbon. (A sight I am all too familiar with.)

Now, as the oils take a little while to dry, you have a little work time. You simply get a clean tissue, and use it to rub away any oils you don't want. The more you press, the more oil you take off.

I repeated this 3 times in order to get the right rock tones. Check out some of the mid-process shots.

I ended up with this at the end of all this Kebab/Bourbon work.

I gave the base a very light drybrush with some light grey, about the colour of the base coat. You can compare the before and after with the above and below shots.

From here, I picked out the candles and skulls with both regular acrylics and some washes.

To top off, I think that Lorgar's base is too plain. Just a little. All the other primarchs have pipes and rubble and dead astartes, but Lorgar just has some stairs and a few candles. I thus cracked out the Secret Weapon green bits box (my terrain box of brass etch, rubble etc), and I applied some mossy patches and a couple of Gale Force Nine bushes/shrubs.

So, that's Lorgar's base. Coming after Horus, it probably won't appeal as much, but I am chucking it up anyway because someone, somewhere might enjoy it,

~Macca