Original Space Hulk Terminator Squad Done!

++Terminator squad Raphael, ready to move out++

So... here's something you don't see in these parts every day; a squad of newly painted GW minis (I think the last one was four years ago)! Of course, newly painted doesn't mean new as these guys have been waiting patiently for their turn for 25 years. With it being an anniversary and everything, I thought I'd paint a squad of 1989 Space Hulk plastic terminators! Actually, that's an after construction... I don't know why I decided to start this little project. It might because my 10 year old niece is turning into a little gamer and I thought Space Hulk would be a fun next step for her. Then again, I have a bunch of the original metal terminators that I painted to a, shall we say, acceptable standard back in the day. I don't know! Maybe it's the Oldhammer thing finally getting to me or me needing to take a little break from all the beautifully detailed, but delicate, Infinity minis. Whatever the reason I got five minis taken off my mountain of lead.

Does this look familiar to anyone? Oh, and the colours are all weird in these shots. Bad lighting..

Although I played Dark Angels way back when (actually before Deathwing, so all my DA terminators were dark green) I wanted to go with the original Space Hulk look so painted these as Blood Angels. The aim was to stay true to the original box art, which is pretty much the only place you'll find these particular type of terminator models depicted, but as I painted I made several adjustments here and there to make the model look less of something Barbapapa would turn into and more like a terminator. The largest deviation is probably the white/yellow boarders on the shoulder pads, but it felt needed to give the models a bit of definition. I kept the hazard stripes on the power glove as that's probably the best bit!

The terminators in the 1989 Space Hulk all came with these large whip antennae, which hasn't been seen before or since, but is kind of cool in a way. I really couldn't see you trying to make your way through tight tunnels with a damn banner on your back, but a whip antenna? Yeah, maybe. It does look fairly goofy with all of them having one though, so I snipped them off at differnt lengths, leaving it intact for the sergeant and two nubs for the flamer and corporal to kind of signify some enhanced communications gear or something. It helps them look less uniform anyway.

3D Roleplay Hobby Game? Back in the day when companies didn't really know how to label stuff like this. Still the best Space Hulk cover to date though. 2nd edition was especially crappy!

During my painting sessions I kept thinking about how these minis were created. I mean... they look quite
different from the metal ones! At first I thought maybe these were some early prototype that was later refined when done in metal, but seeing as GW used metal minis on the back of the box and in the rulebook, as well as all the art that looks nothing like the plastic termies this was clearly not the case. So they were made by a third party contracted by GW as they didn't have the capacity to make plastic minis of their own back then. This of course make sense and explains some of the discrepancies. Some of them probably come from the demands of the moulding; like the drooping shoulder pads for example. But I still don't understand where the antennae came from or why the stormbolter looks like a shoebox with two toilet paper rolls glued to it! Especially since the box front art clearly shows them with the proper looking gun. One thing they did nail though, was the helmet! It's pretty much spot on and really makes all the other little oddities about them not look so bad. Thanks to the helmet it's unmistakably a terminator. I quite like the power glove as well as it's huge and kind of clockwork-looking. The gun hand though... jeez.

Was it a rush job? I'm suspecting this as, again, the terminator minis seen on the back of the box are all metal. Perhaps the plastic company didn't get the stormbolter art in time and had to go with their shoebox placeholder! Pure speculation, but I kind of like this explanation. And for some reason I kind of like the boxbolter as well. It's cool in a very minimalistic and... boxy way. Another thing I don't quite get is why didn't they make some kind of sergeant clip-on sword, like the did the flamer?! There are two terminators per sprue and each of them get a flamer as well. Seems like a wasted opportunity not to make one of those into a sword. Perhaps there wasn't time...

Five little termies, jumping on the bed. One fell off and hit his termie head. So sergeant called the medic and the medic said, no more termies jumping on the bed!

Backside... a bit less detail. Just a bit!

These were intended to be a quick little project so I looked around for some speed paint Blood Angels tutorials and mixed with my own ideas I used the following: Army Painter Dragon Red spray, Averland Sunset for the yellow parts and follow with a Strong Tone wash. Highlight with Blood Red then Blood Red with some flesh colour mixed in. Be liberal with the highlights and don't be afraid of making them too light as we follow it with a Red Tone wash to bring them down. Yay! Then it's just Vallejo MC Black+Basalt Grey+Pale Greyblue for the black bits and Natural Metal followed by Badab Black wash followed by Silver highlights and done! Oh, and the yellow parts were highlighted back up with Averland Sunset followed by Averland Sunset+Pale Greyblue mix. For the bases I simply cut out some car wire mesh into little roundles that I sprayed black, glued on and drybrushed metal. Certainly helps making these rather simple minis pop a bit more. So that's that, quick and easy but with a reasonably good result!

Now, painting these did give me this idea to paint the rest of my Space Hulk stuff. I'm not sure I'll paint any more of the plastic termies (except a librarian or two) but I did put all my old metal ones in the bath to strip the of paint. Although I'm not really into Oldhammer I am intrigued by it and I often find the juxtaposition of old, often fairly rough (but characterful!), minis coupled with modern painting techniques really interesting! The idea I have right now is to paint my metal termies (about 10~15 or so) as Blood Angels as well and then maybe, maaaaybe get the Deathwing minis from Dark Vengeance to give a bit of a modern flair to the game as well. Then there are the genestealers and hybrids of course. The painted ones you can see in the pictures I probably did 15~20 years ago so could perhaps do with a touch up or two - especially the bases. I know I have a Magus and one or two metal hybrids scurried away somewhere as well, which should be a nice upgrade to the plastic ones.

Oh, and if some kind reader out there has a Blood Angel transfer sheet or so that is not needed I'd be happy to takt it off your hands! Sure, their emblem isn't too hard to pull off free hand, but these are supposed to be quick minis!

"Guys! Guuuuys!?"