Eldar & Imperial Guard WIP

[medwayscott]

Over the last couple of days I've started work on the undercarriage, interior, lights and lenses. The detail is on yesterday's blog with a few photos.

It's getting there, but it still looks a bit clean, and although the complete hull wash worked on the Stormlord, I'm not sure if it will on the Vendetta. The bottom of the hull will have to be weathered in the same way as the first stage of the Stormlord with a drybrush of graveyard earth (highlighted with increasing amounts of bleached bone) to indicate dust blown up on landing and take off, but I can't really add much more to this I don't think... Certainly not anything approaching the same sort of snow as i did on the Stormlord. I suppose at the end of the day aircraft would generally be cleaner than tanks in any case.

 

[medwayscott]

I've tackled the cockpit, pilot and copilot tonight. Took a while (and you won't see much of it once the canopy is in place anyway), but I reckon they've come out ok.

There is a list of colours used and a few more photos on the blog.

 

[medwayscott]

Well I managed to get the canopy finished and on. I trimmed some of the detail from the front of the engine section so although the canopy is glued on, the engines still lift off so you can get a look at the personnel compartment.

Next I've got to work a bit more on that interior space and get some aircrew sorted out. Elysian's to the rescue! There's a couple more photos here.

 

[Count Darvaleth]

Nice work on the cockpit mate. Too many people (myself included ) are too lazy to paint interiors and such. I've done my share of blacking out the inside of the cockpit to make it look like darkened glass and leaving bare grey plastic on the inside.

And brilliant Stormlord there, added a 9 to it. Good job.

 

[medwayscott]

Thanks Count. I must admit I'm normally the same, but trying a bit harder on these. The chaos space marine army I just did is painted to an ok standard, but pushing myself with this one a bit more. Of course, I have still got to start on the infantry...

 

[Abbysal]

It's all looking fantastic MS absolutely beautiful stuff.

 

[medwayscott]

I've alluded to the fact that this is a repaint for the Vendetta. Originally I was going to start a desert themed army, but thought it was starting to look a bit Tau-y so I had a rethink. This is the first colour scheme. You can see I wasn't too comfortable painting battle damage on the first try.

 

[medwayscott]

Painted (well, re-painted) a Sentinel today and got the first infantry squad underway.

The infantry squad is now basecoated and ready to get going... They were made out of all sorts of guard bits and pieces. I've tried to load them up with extra kit and made sure the poses look ok. Quite happy with them so far, let's see if I can mess it up with some paint!

 

[medwayscott]

I haven't quite finished the Vendetta yet, but I've gotten a bit further with the first infantry squad.

There's a list of colours used on the blog, but here's the latest (post wash) photo.

I tend to tackle five miniatures at a time, you still get them done pretty quickly, but it's not as endlessly monotonous as batch painting the whole unit of ten in one go.

 

[medwayscott]

I've had a momentary distraction from the Imperial Guard, but it still fits on this thread (fortunately) as it's the 54mm scale Eldar Ranger from the GW range.

There's three posts on the blog showing it in various stages of prep, assembly and painting and here's the links...

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

It's still not finished, but here's a picture of it at the end of today.

 

[Santawraith]

I have always wanted to try the larger models from gw I love the ones from reaper. Now I will need to order one or two. He is looking great as is, cant wait to see him finished.

 

[medwayscott]

As always Santa, thanks for your interest.

Same here... Always wanted to, but never got around to it. The sculpt is good, but the quality (of this one) was really bad. There's a lot of repair work on the back of the coat and the tabard at the front. Might be a one off, might be a regular problem. The miniature itself is great to paint. You can put as much or as little into it as you want. The proportions are better as well... The sword blade is much more slender, the rifle barrel is very thin, probably about as thick as the one on the 28mm Rangers. I hope to be posting some more pictures later in the week.

 

[Tarkas]

Herro thar!

You did a great choise to paint a model like that ranger after reading that novel, it truly is a great inspiration, even if not as awesome as the Path of the Warrior.
I am hoping to see the Ranger finished not far from now, looks really good so far! Oh, and is that another grenade in his left hand?

I'd like to comment on your sentinel as well, it's my fav of about anything in this thread I believe. I can't say why, but it's all so well executed if I may say so myself.

Keep on doing your thing!

 

[medwayscott]

Thanks for the Comments Tarkas. I'm quite fond of the Sentinel as well, and I have another two to paint! Got to get some of the blasted infantry finished first though.

The thing in the Ranger's left hand is the hilt of another sword. If you look at the back of the miniature you can see the contour where the end of the scabbard finishes and is pushing out the back of the jacket (on the right hand side at about knee height). One of the extra items in the kit is the hilt if you opt to have him holding the rifle instead of the sword in the right hand like I did (or the shape under the jacket wouldn't make any sense).

I'm guessing the next novel will be Path Of The Ranger, can't wait. I enjoyed Path Of The Warrior more than the follow up, but it was interesting to see the same events from the different perspective.

 

[medwayscott]

Well I managed to finish the first infantry squad. Here's a picture with the Sentinel (now with its finished snowy base).

 

[Trevy the Great]

Those are lookin' fine! Keep it up!
Have you thought about doing any freehand/transfer squad markings or serial numbers or stuff like that? I find that those little touches tend to make the army look so much more realistic!

 

[medwayscott]

I have thought about it - and you're right, they do make all the difference. I'm quite happy with the stripe on the right shoulder pad (and how it looks weathered), so I'll probably go for squad, platoon and company markings on the left. As explained in an earlier post on the Stormlord, I'm not a huge fan of transfers, so I'll try and freehand what I can. Roman numerals are pretty easy to paint if nothing else...

The first heavy bolter team has been finished this morning. Got the next three out, primed and ready to start this afternoon. I think getting that CSM army done for the Tale of Painters challenge to a target points level, standard and deadline has given me a bit of a push to do the same with these. It can be done!

 

[medwayscott]

Here's the latest WIP shots of Yarrick.

 

[Santawraith]

yarrik looks awsesome my friend. you have really brought him to life.

Your comment above gave me a idea about the tale of painter's honing your skills. Do you think we should do another type of challenge. My single figure challenge seems to of not went over as well as I had hoped. Maybe a army pledge is better at times I am thinking a month at a time challenge.

 

[medwayscott]

That could work. I would dearly love to have finished the Harlequin in time (it's still waiting to be finished in fact... Fallen victim to the ever growing horde of Imperial Guard waiting at the painting station) and I simply couldn't afford to take part in the Ork Mek challenge.

The Tale of Painters really was a good challenge for me. As you've probably noticed I do tend (and I'm sure I'm not alone) to flit from one thing to the next. As a result of that challenge I now have a game legal, fairly sizeable, reasonably painted army.

As this is mainly a Vampire Counts forum would that be a better idea for a challenge? Mine are, again, sitting to one side. How about a scratchbuilt scenery challenge? Cheap and something that most people could join in and learn something from. A well painted army always looks better on a well presented gaming board after all... I'm just rambling now... So many ideas so little time (and I've got the plans for a scratch built Imperial Thunderbolt Fighter somewhere as well...)

 

[Santawraith]

I was actaully thinking like a single unit of the pledger's choice.

Example

me pledgeing a 10 man unit of Beserkers with power fist and two plasma pistols.

you pledging to paint a
sentenial squad.

 

[medwayscott]

I think the element of choice is important. It means people don't have to outlay cash for stuff they'll probably never use.

As always Santa, I'm in. It's not like I don't spend a lot of my time painting anyway... It keeps me off the streets.

 

[Santawraith]

It also keeps you on the nice list, wait I thought people wanted to be on the naughty list. I know I love staying on the naughty list.

 

[medwayscott]

The naughty list is more fun...

 

[medwayscott]

A few posts ago I mentioned I had the plans to a scratchbuilt Thunderbolt Heavy Fighter. The intention was to use these as the basis for my own build. I love the Forgeworld models, but simply can't justify £85 for one of these... Anyway, the plans were actually for a papercraft Thunderbolt, so the first thing I had to do was cut it out, stick it together and get an idea for how this was going to work.

Here's the papercraft version (minus wings and tailplane).

Then I had to see about making all of that in plastic. The first bit I did is tucked out of the way (in case it went horrifically wrong. It's the section that sits under the nose of the fuselage (and will later have twin autocannons mounted either side of it).

That came out ok, so then I attempted the main section of the fuselage. Here is the plastic version side by side with the papercraft.

Then, over the last couple of days, I've managed to add the cockpit, lascannons, autocannons, wing roots, tailplane and some of the final detailing. The largest job left by far is to clad the whole thing in extremely thin plasticard to make the separate panels (and to tidy up all of the joins). Here's the next few step by step photos.

There is a more in depth step by step on the blog if you follow the links below...

Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
Step 5
Step 6

Hope you enjoy it, and any advice will be gratefully recieved as this is far more construction than I have ever attempted before.