Ultramarines Terminator Librarian

This is probably my favourite model in my collection. The Space Hulk Terminator Librarian is probably one of the most recognizable miniatures GW has produced in recent years. It's one of those models that's just right.

It's a great sculpt and was a joy to paint. For a Space Marine character model he's actually not got too many fiddly details, but the details that are present work very well. A very characterful model, from the pose right down to the librarian iconography.

 I love the pose of this model – dynamic, yet serene; passive, yet menacing. It's a great centrepiece model.

 Unusually for a Space Marine character model, we have a totally unadorned shoulder pad. This gave me a chance to try out some freehand. I'm afraid the above photo is a little blurred, but hopefully you can see how I fared.

I'm not great at freehand, but this turned out all right. After painting dozens of Ultramarines over the last few years, I'm pretty used to painting the Ultramarine 'U' (sometimes referred to as an 'agemo' – 10 cool points to the first to correctly post why in the comments!), but I'm must less comfortable painting other designs. Also, painting one design over another makes me very nervous.

One tip I picked up from this was the need to paint a fine line between the white of the 'U' and the yellow of the background. Those two light colours need something to allow the eye to more easily separate them. In this case, a mid-brown colour sufficed.

In fact, there's a fine darker blue line between the halo design and the background. Again, the helps the design 'pop'

The Force Axe uses a shining metal tip I picked up from a White Dwarf a couple of years back. Basically, it involves painting blue and black washes over silver paint to create the 'sheen', then glazing with a very watered down bright metal. I'll do a proper tutorial on this technique at some point as it's simple, easy, and very effective.

This model has a nice face to paint, and the skull cap/helmet arrangement makes the face really pop. I kept the tone of the metal quite dark to help draw attention to the face.

For Librarians I like to paint glowing eyes to represent their otherworldly power. Blue works for me – green seems too 'techy' or 'sickly', red is a bit too 'evil' for a loyalist Librarian. The eyes are painted almost white in the centre with a pale blue surround. A light wash/glaze of blue around the eye sockets help suggest the glowing effect.

So overall, I was very pleased how this guy turned out. In a game, I like to run him with a five-man squad of tactical Terminators.

Let me know what you think in the comments below!