Thursday 28 May 2009

Imperial Navy Valkyrie (Part 1)

I've been painting the inside of my first Valkyrie on an off for a little while, things have now started to come together now though having spent a few hours assembling it at last.



The inside is'nt a mega paint job, no highlights, just flat colours and a wash on the metal, I dont envisenge I'll spend much time looking at the insides(!) but since it has some nice detail in there and as I wanted to have the hatches opening it would of been silly not to paint it. Both side doors work, as does the rear hatch, not wanting to play around with magnets for this I took an easier approach, attaching a strip of plasti-card to the rear above the hatch with just enough of a lip that the door remains shut but so it can be easily opened and closed. I'll add the Heavy Bolters shortly, then I can simply fold them out an open the doors if I want to use the upgrade or keep the doors closed when I dont.




I've also settled on not glueing the wings, this way I'll be able to fit three Valkyries into two double depth trays, a much better deal then one for each, the wing fittings are surprisingly stable and a good snug fit so I dont believe I'll have any trouble doing it this way.



I hav'nt yet decided what colour scheme I'll paint it, I definately want to do it up as Imperial Navy rather then as a Guard version, that would'nt really fit the theme of the Praetorians, but my first choice of grey is how my tanks are painted so I need to do some thinking. Also I need to decide how I'm going to fit the weapons, I know I want them swapable so as too allow me to field Valk's and Vendetta's I'm not quite sure on the best way of achieving this yet though, I may have to try an get some different shaped magnets to my usual disc ones.

12 comments:

Col. Corbane said...

Looking very nice mate, the interior is spot on.

Mordian7th said...

That's coming along nicely - I'm in the middle of painting the interior of my first valkyrie and have been thinking about the color scheme as well. My tanks are all in grey too, so I'm thinking about continuing the 'sandstone' color I used on my Thunderbolt here for all my Navy flyers. Just a thought.

Keep up the great work!

Craig said...

great detail inside, you wouldnt notice you havent highlighted it and i honestly dont think you'd ever need to

Angelic Despot said...

Do you have any BattleFleet Gothic ships? If so, could you take colour inspiration from them?

Thinking of the traditional white / green colours for Imperial Navy ships - I think that would convert over to the Valkyrie well. Mostly white, with a green cockpit, for example.

Crazy Red Praetorian said...

Very nice Col. I almost didn't glue the wings on my Valkyrie. I'm kind of wishing that I had not glued them. Transporting is an issue and I think your solution is WIN!

Raptor1313 said...

For all the lack of highlighting, it's still a plenty solid-looking interior. It's not like someone's going to regularly take a light and look in there.

As a minor note on the loadout (since I see you're planning on heavy bolters) if you're running a basic Valk, have you considered the missile pods? They're still anti-infantry, but are S4, AP6, Large Blast templates. Being defensive weapons, you can still crank out a 12" move and unload all your anti-infantry lovin'.

Plus, it'd save you the trouble of throwing the heavy bolters in; I imagine it'd be a bit more of a pain to assemble.

Cadian 127th said...

Very neat looking interior - works well. Why not try a light blue underbelly (like on WW2 aircraft) and then a dark coloured scheme for the top? Maybe dark red like Adeptus Mechanicus colours.

Corbania Prime has a nice little tutorial on magnetising the Valkyrie - sorry if I got in before you Corbania.

- Courtney @ Cadian 127th

Itkovian said...

Looks good. Where is that foam from?

I think the interior will be just fine, as others have said, there isn't going to be a massive amount of attention directed there anyway - beauty is only skin deep, yadda yadda... :D

Barjack said...

Jeeze gravis, Think your showing off a bit much. No, I think your valk interior is looking great. If you take that much care on the outside it will look awesome. You might want to look at some of the works people use tamiya weathering kits for around the engie and so just to give the engines the look of leaking oil, soot and burnt metals and the such.

the other Kevin said...

I have to wonder if you painted the interior before you assembled, or if you used the ship in a bottle method of painting. All those lights and wires! So detailed. Very nice workA

Col.Gravis said...

Thanks guys :)

Nice idea Mordian7th, I am tempted by something similar I must admit.

Angelic_Despot, that thought had actually occured to me, I'm afraid I dismissed it though as I really dont fancy painting so much white, it's just too difficult a colour to pull off on so large plated area's for my tastes.

Raptor1313, dont let the WIP fool you, there will definately be Missile Pods, easily the best loadout for a basic Valk, my plan is too have the wing mounted weapons swapable though for those games when I just cant fit in the extra 30pts, the Hevay Bolters on are the same sort of principle, except reversed, I dont envisenge using them often, but by having them tucked away inside I have the option to use them if I have the spare points and the inclanation.

cadian127th, yes I've read the tutorial, and am stilling browsing around the net looking ta how others have done it, if I'll do the same method I'm not sure quite yet, quite possibly though. If I do bite the bullet an go with a grey scheme I may go with something like Spacewolves Grey underneath.

Itkovian, the foam is from Figures in Comfort, there's a link to the left of the main page.

Barjack, I'm not sure about the weathering powders, I've seen them used to great effect, but I've never got much out of them, there is a very nice tutorial on using them on a Valk I've come across (and cant find the link now arrghh!), but we'll see.

the other Kevin, dont worry, I did the painting before it was assembled ;)

Benedictus said...

I mean wow. I would love to know what kind of hygeine standards your guardsmen must have cos that is one clean valk. I love it though, awesome painting. Cant wait to see it finished.
i think Cadian 127th's idea for the WW2 style plane colours would work really well, all you need then is the 1950's pinup model on the side :P

Benedictus - BB40kE