The Deathwatch is essentially the Warhammer 40,000 spec ops teams, made out of Space Marines. They get conscripted from the various marine chapters, paint all the non-iconography parts of the armor black, and the left shoulder/arm is all Inquisitorial silver.
For painters, it's a delight because we get to use a lot of different colors and splash images on neutral black/silver, and have lots of different little freehand things we can do to differentiate each model. Plus, I gave this squad extra meaning to myself. Mom assigned colors to me and my three brothers growing up so we wouldn't fight over stuff. Socks had a green dot on them? They were mine. Red dresser? Was Kyle's. Etc. So, I picked four chapters to represent our colors growing up, and had to figure out what to do for the Sergeant. Because if it wasn't going to be me as the lead (I wanted my Dark Angel with the plasma gun which the Sgt. can't use) then sure as hell it wasn't going to be any of my other brothers.
Eventually decided to make it themed off our dog growing up, Sparkey. He was a little half Shelty, half Poodle. Black and white. So, that's why the beaky helm guy is the leader and he's black and white.
All the decals are free-hand on there. I spent a lot of time on each face. I think the Ultramarine I painted up for this is the best miniature I've ever done, or at the very least is the best face I've painted. I also love the pose of the Imperial Fist, looking over his gun as he's about to toss his grenade. Felt very action-like.
The bases are from the Sector Imperialis basing kit, and the Deathwatch shoulders are all legit from the actual upgrade kit. Pretty much every part of each guy is taken from the Sternguard box, exceptions being the shoulders of the Blood and Dark Angel. I had the Dark Angel pad from an upgrade sprue I'd picked up awhile back, and the Blood Angel one a friend just gave me because he thought my concept was way cool.
Enjoy! If you've got questions about how I did anything, leave it in the comments and I'll try to guide you through it.
