Imperial Navy Vendetta - Now with 100% more working picture!

Well back from Throne of Skulls, I'll hopefully get some reports about that up soon, but I'm busy decorating again now though for my sins so it'll be a bit before I get back into the swing of things. For the meantime though, the finished Vendetta (and it did'nt suffer from new model syndrome either)!

On the Workbench - Vendetta

I'm taking a little break from my own sculpting projects for the webstore at the moment, because I've neglected my own hobby far too much of late, and as always there are deadlines! Anyway, top of my project list is to get my Vendetta done, so here at last is some progress on it, alongside my Valkyrie hull. The inside is already painted, having been done at the same time as the Valk - its not just a case of getting the external paint job and cockbit finsihed up.

Imperial Navy Valkyrie & Vendetta (Part 4)

Well the terrible truth is I never did get my Valkyrie finished for the GT, let alone the Vendetta(!), the Valkyrie is very nearly there though, this is it in it's current state, with a picture taken at the UK GT by Mars who posts on the Warhammer Forum and Heresy Online.



There's a little bit of paint rubbed off from the nose on the near side in the course of transporting it too Nottingham, but otherwise it's very nearly there, the underside of the wings need varnishing and some decals need adding to the top of the wings - possibly also some nose art, I'm as yet undecided on that subject!

Imperial Navy Valkyrie & Vendetta (Part 3)

Tick follow, tock follow, tick follow, tock.

Times running out, this time next month my heat at this years GT will be over - and I'm painting like a crazy man.

The focus of my fustrations at the moment is my Valkyrie, with a revised list and loan of someone elses Vendetta it's the last thing I MUST get finished in time though obviously I'd like to get my own Vendetta finished as well, however for the time being I'm pleased to say so far, so good.

The sides are done bar detailing, and I'm now doing the belly, then it'll be the top section, cockbit, engines, detailing and finally getting the wings done, I'm lucky enough to have a few days off so I'm hoping to get it more or less finished by the end of the weekend.



Back to work!

Imperial Navy Valkyrie & Vendetta (Part 2)

I've had a slight change of direction with my Imperial Navy Valkyries, on reflection I've realised I'm very unlikely to want to field them without Missile Pods so my Valkyrie won't be magnetised at all, as such it's now as far assembled as it will be for the time being and is joining the painting queue.



On the same basis I've decided one of the two Valkyries I'm working on will become a permanent Vendetta having proxied one for a couple of games (with another Valkyrie to be added at a later date), the interior was painted as with the Valkyerie with a simple Adeptus Battle Grey and Metal scheme so it was presentable but without spending too much time on it.



There's plenty of filling to be done, but after construction I then got on with the weapons. The nose mounted twin-linked Lascannon was fairly straight forward simply cutting the Lascannon from the other kit where the sensor is on the Vendetta's. At this point I still need to do some Green Stuff work on this especially to merge the weapons together where the bands align.



The wing mounted Lascannon meanwhile are taken from a Landraider kit using the original sponson mounting bracket, this has been cut down to a better size and then mounted on the normal underwing weapons mounts, the weapons themselves are not fixed in place yet as it'll be easier to paint them like this.



Likewise I'll come back to working on this one once it reaches the front of the painting queue, at the moment my plan is too get everything done for my Draft 1500pts Guard Tourny List ready for the 40k Online Tournament in August, it's a bit of a tall order given the list includes 21 Infantry, a Russ, Chimera and both these Imperial Navy craft but I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

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.

Imperial Navy Thunderbolt Pilot (Updated)

A little more work, and some new pictures can make a bit of a difference, he could do with some more I'll admit, the highlights on the back especially leave something to be desired, but I'm hungry to get on with something more Praetorian now, so this'll do!

I feel the need... The need for speed!

Is it a bad thing that I have the sound track to Top Gun playing? If it is then quoteing the film for a post title is definately even more worrying. No I'm not watching the film, nor do I have the soundtrack CD or even from the PC, it's just on in my head.

I assure you there is reason, and a fairly good one as it happens. While I'd planned to get on with some new Sergeants and Leman Russ bits I've ended up painting Forgeworlds excellent Imperial Navy Thunderbolt Pilot. I've had this model sitting around in the pile since it came out and just had'nt got round to painting it, but with two online painting contest's coming up at the same time I decided to break it out, and boy am I glad I did, it really is a joy to paint, both as something which is a break from the norm for me and as it's simply a beautiful model.

About a days work, based very heavily on Karl Kopinski's excellent artwork from the Aeronautia Imperialis Rulebook, has got me to what you see below, theres a fair way to go yet with plenty tidying and detailing to be done, but I'm pretty pleased so far infact it's one of those occasions where I'd say the photo's dont do it justice, though thats not least as it's not focusing properly for some reason.

The only catch at the moment is he does'nt have a plane... an that just aint right.

Hmmm