[Lord_Cap'n_Kitten]

An Introduction
Greetings everyone. This thread is a record of my ongoing project to create an alternate legion for an alternate 30k setting. It is heavily meso-american themed and will draw upon a variety of South American myths and cultural tropes as it matures in form and concept, but primarily it will use the Aztecs for its visual aesthetic. I've always felt 30k space marines simply weren't colorful enough, despite the galactic cultural separation; it speaks to an older spirit of the game when you field a hundred dudes in bright primary colors covered in blood. It is my fervent desire to field an army that commands attention throughout the room, and the internetz.
If you like well researched alternate legions, and even alternate Heresies, with flavorful and interesting themes then this project is for you. If you find those things unappealing and prefer the traditional setting, legions, and story this project is not for you. Consider yourselves invited and forewarned. Now, with liability solved lets push into the meat of the content.
This project was born from my interest in a group project on /tg/. The anons wanted to create an alternate 30k setting with more ‘gritty realism’ in it and a story revolving around different legions, primarchs, and worlds, but with the same major plot points as the original. I joined out of a desire to test my writing skills and flesh out pieces of the original setting that interested me. The Crimson Teeth, 7th legion of the 18 Legions Astartes, is the embryo of that idea.
The goal is to field a legion whose aesthetic and mythos are true to its source material while sticking true to the spirit of 30k/40k. I subscribe to the idea that 30k/40k is a setting of ridiculous space opera demanding larger than life events and characters to the point of parity. Yet at the same time the concept must be played straight to maintain the subtlety and effect of the joke; simultaneously including sufficient ‘realism’ to create a sense of plausibility in the setting.

The Legion

The Crimson Teeth’s theme, scheme, and fluff is constantly influenced by my research into Meso-American culture and mythos. The legion’s colors each represent a different rank within the legion and are direct copies of Aztec military uniforms. At this time the accuracy of the representation is extremely circumspect, but they still look great.
Here are some examples of the legion’s color scheme. Credit to Russian chaptergenerator.

I’ve spoilered existing examples of my painted work to ease the strain on viewers. All the stuff you see here is completely painted, but has not been sprayed with a finish and needs to be based.

Chaplain

I think this is the first model I painted for the Crimson Teeth. I painted this chaplain red to force perspective shift to the miniature, and added various shades of teal to help the weapons and ornaments stand out. This is very much an experiment and he has a little less gold than I'd like on a 'high ranking' astartes but it's effective for his low role.

Legion Command Squad

These guys were a challenge. Each one of the Chosen is essentially a standalone piece by my current standards. They are all unique, have different poses, and require different slightly different steps to paint them. After setting up all the yellow and bone on these guys I painted them each individually. I've made liberal use of agrax and nuln oil to hid messy seams between bits while also relying on it to make the blood... bloodier. Overall it was effective, but I can do better.
Legion Standard Bearer

This guy was a big step out of my comfort zone. I've never painted a detailed banner before, so I relied on the 'color-in-the-shapes' approach this banner provided. It taught me a bit about color contrast and maintaining cohesion of tone. For example all the colors are 'warm' colors but still cool enough to have some links to the blue lining the sides. My local hobby store loves this guy.

The Color Scheme

I reviewed a variety of pictures that appear to document ancient Aztec uniforms and weaponry, but couldn't decide which one to choose so I chose to appropriate all of them. I focused on creating a sufficiently Meso-American theme without adding jaguar spots and tiger stripes. (That's due to how intimidating painting proper spots and stripes are. I plan to make jaguar marines at a later date.) But after some looking I came up with the following schemes.

From Left to right: Primarch/Praetor/Delegatus | Legion Centurion/Consul | Legion Chosen/Legion-Specific terminators | Legion Veteran/Legion-Specific marines/Seeker Squads/Terminators | Legion Techmarine/Apothecary | Legion Tacticals (Despoiler/Support)/Artillery Crew/Heavy Support/Breacher Marines

This should provide a clear idea of the army's presence on the table. A multi-colored mass of heavily converted, blood covered bad guys dropping from the sky. I'm really looking forward to working out a scheme for the different dreadnoughts.

 

[Lord_Cap'n_Kitten]

Seems like you're off to a good start. I'd love to see closeups of the command squad, but I like what I see. The Khorne symbol looks out of place, unless there's some element of chaos, or maybe the culture your legion draws from has a war god who happens to be a flavor of Khorne.

I definitely appreciate your homebrewed fluff, just sorta causes dissonance/confusion to see that sort of thing.

Ah, good point. I neglected to point out that the miniatures I am painting and fielding are essentially what the legion would look like during - and post - the Siege of Terra.

 

[Lord_Cap'n_Kitten]

I have added more content to the original post for clarification and expansion on the idea.

Now question: has anyone tried using feathers on the heads of their space marines? My references are pulling up huge feathered headdresses.