Maximum Firepower!: Ultramarines

Here's a few pics of my first Tac Squad. I moved to Space Marines around the time of the 5th edition changeover. After playing a horde army without heroes or tanks, the space marines seemed like a good change of pace. I decided on Ultramarines because I still wanted a tyranid connection (and at the time, I planned to use Tyranid Hunters in my army). And despite that people claim "everyone plays Ultrasmurfs", I've only seen one other player with them. He and his son had just bought AoBR, and were learning the hobby.

So far, I've only finished one squad (and I'm working on the second). I've found more time and started to focus better. I'm going to do this army the "right way", and paint up a squad at a time, before moving on to playing with them. I hope this will help me to finish painting everything.

Most of these pictures were taken before I revamped my light source.

I've also been revamping the paint scheme; in the next update I'll compare models from before and after the paint scheme change. Originally I liked the dark scheme quite a bit, but I just started feeling it was too "grimdark." From far away you couldn't tell they were even blue! Plus, the updated scheme makes them look less like Crimson Fists.

Here's the old scheme:
Armor Base Coat: Regal Blue
Armor Next Coat: Cygnar Base Blue (leave recesses)
Armor Highlight: Cygnar Blue Highlight
Gold Trim: Rhulic Gold mixed with Brown Ink
2nd Layer: Rhulic Gold
Silver: Cold Steel
Eyes/Purity Seals: Scab Red, with a tad of Blood Red to highlight
Base: Scorched Brown

First marine I've ever painted.

I planned on replacing this smaller transfer with a larger symbol.

One of the purity seals.

I painted the tips of the missiles; not sure if I will keep them or make them silver in the future.

I'm trying to find how I did the flamer. I believe it was Chaos Black, then Scorched Brown, then a Regal Blue watered down to a wash.

Group shot; My first painted Ultramarine squad. Well, until the revamp is done.

Yea, so I noticed I painted the frag grenade like a pouch instead of silver. Oops!

I chose to paint all of the skulls/decoration on the squad members silver, and all the matching iconography on the Squad Leader gold. I'm not sure if I will keep this decision, but I like it. I also like the gold pommel instead of the bleached bone skull.