Epic Proportions First Unit Completed

4th Vindicator Squadron, Salamanders 1st Company Support 

I can't tell if I lose some resolution when I crop and enlarge the photos, or if the closer view emphasizes how much work I still need to do in controlling my edge highlight lines. It's probably the latter...

My first unit for the Epic Proportions challenge is finished and I'm pretty pleased with the results.  It was also very satisfying to set out to complete a unit and pull it off in just a few hours of painting.  Epic was always the scale where you could feasibly have the units you could never afford in full size when you were a money poor teenager, and now as a more organized adult painter it seems like a quick route to the great feeling you get when a unit is completed. This challenge may be more fun than I originally imagined. There are many more pictures after the jump...

This is what they looked like when I bought them semi-prepainted way back in 1993.  I would imagine that's Chaos Black on the guns and Dark Angels green on the body based on what paints were available at that time.

I tried to freehand lines representing the classic squadron marking you would see on imperial tanks in WD but I couldn't pull off straight lines in a way I was happy with so I resorted to tiny transfers to number the tanks in the squadron.

The flat area on top is crying out for some extra embellishment so I tried painting flamebursts before I added the Salamander decal.  They turned out great except I got fire backwards and put the lightest colors on the outside...

Up next on the painting agenda, Salamanders Veteran Company...