"Medic!" - Primaris Apothecary - Part 1

Amongst the most honoured Space Marines 

of a Chapter are its Apothecaries. 

It is their role to to mind the physical well-being 

of their battle-brothers 

– this is seen most obviously on the battlefield, 

where an Apothecary serves as an emergency medic.

- Games Workshop

Hello one and all! Welcome back to your weekly dose of The Art of Caesura!

If you are struggling to "find" the time for things, remember that you will never find the time. If you want time, you must make it. 

I have to remind myself of this when I put off important but non-urgent duties under the idea that "I'll do them when I find the time."

Anyway, there's your weekly dose of practical philosphy ahead of your weekly dose of hobby goodness! And what hobby goodness we have today!

Instead of painting black (templars) I painted a WHITE space marine! No, no he's not a White Scar, he's still a Black Templar; it's time for the Primaris Apothecary!

As a medic myself, I have been quite looking forward to painting this guy, and he didn't disappoint!

It took me a while to decide how I was going to paint him, I first thought of using the technique of how I paint the off-white pauldrons on my normal dudes (stippling up from Steel Legion Drab to Rakarth Flesh and Grey Seer) but I thought the end result would look a little weird if I left some of the Steel Legion Drab around the place. So I changed things up; I sprayed him Wraithbone and then covered him in Streaking Grime. 

I removed a bunch of the Streaking Grime with mineral spirits...

...and then re-established highlights with Wraithbone applied by hairy brush. 

Battle damaged and the most raised areas were treated to a stippling of White Scar. 

With this, the white armour was complete.

I should pause for a moment to comment on the effect that I was going for with the armour. As per the little flavourful blurb at the top of this post, Apothecaries fulfill a sacred role for Space Marines - harvesting and protecting the proginoid glands. I saw something of a similarity there between Chaplains (safe-guarding Space Marines' souls) and Apothecaries (safe-guarding their bodies and lineage), as such I replaced his plain left pauldron with a very ornate gothic one from Scribor Miniatures. I wanted his armour to look "grimdark" - battered and heavily used. Like he is always on duty and has no downtime to have his armour detailed. I feel like I accomplished that look. Others on the Black Templars forums felt he was too beige, looking more Death Guard than white apothecary. Oh well, to each their own. 

I painted the elements that would end up being metal, black as well as some of his other details. 

Next, I painted the red elements using what has become my standard red recipe: Mephiston Red or The Red (from Kimera Kolours - which is similar but brighter and more saturated)...

...followed by a shade of Contrast Flesh Tearers Red, before highlighting with the original red and then Evil Sunz Scarlet. 

Below you can see him painted up to this point (white and red done) under natural morning sunlight (a rare commodity in Ireland) instead of my usual daylight bulbs. 

I dug into the details: decal on right knee, Narthecium and power pack. I painted the browns with Mornfang Brown to Skrag Brown to Ushabti Bone. 

I painted all the metals with Vallejo Air Dark Aluminum, and painted the Purity Seals purple to stand out against the red apron. I painted his apron / tabbard red partially because it is one of the main colours of my Black Templars, but also with the idea that it would be so saturated in blood that it would be issued in red.

With the final details in place, I began on the details of his head. 

Ta-da!

I'm super happy that I even managed to get a good lens glint!

With that, he is complete (bar the base - I'm still deciding if I want to change up how I'm doing the bases on my Black Templars). Below are four pictures of the completed model under different lighting and exposure. 

And that is it! My first non-black Black Templar! Don't worry my next one will be SUPER black to compensate. See you next week on The Art of Caesura!

Reading: Detransition, Baby - Torrey Peters

Watching: Outlast (Netflix)

Next Week:

Primum non nocere...