Aeronautica Imperialis (with Epic 40K models)

I blogged about a mini-project I started a few weeks ago, inspired by Fawcett Avenue friend Ethics Gradient and his blog "Another Slippery Slope" (see our Links section).

I enjoy painting tiny airplanes because a) they're relatively inexpensive, b) they paint reaaaally fast, c) they look cool, and d) it's fun to game with them.

This project coincides with my recent sci-fi mania in that it involves Games Workshop "Epic 40K" scale aircraft. I decided to paint Orks and Imperial aircraft in a quasi-historical theme, the Korean War of the early '50s. Orks=MiGs, Imperials = F-86 Sabres and Corsairs. Here are the results...




These are Imperial Marauders that I converted to the Ork cause. I thought they looked alot like Ilyushin IL-2 Sturmoviks, which the North Koreans used, so I went against canon and painted them up Orky. First I added some greenstuff to the nose for extra armour, to the wings for some Orkish-looking reinforcement, and to the engines for the Ork-standard issue heat shielding.


Ork aircraft...

And a close-up of the "Honchos"


Here are the Imperial planes... the silver ones are smaller OOP Thunderbolts and the ones in the foreground, the larger current ones. The latter are kitted out as Corsairs for ground attack, in the "Navy blue" scheme with low-vis tactical numbers.

Since I had six old T-bolts I painted some with black and white stripes and some with yellow and black... both of these schemes were used on sabres in Korea.

A close-up of the "Corsair".

Lots of fun to paint. Looking forward to a game with them soon. Maybe a ground attack mission against some of Greg B.'s Epic Imperial Guard...?

Sherman XXV

Mike F. has now caught "sci-fi fever"... excellent... he's created a very cool sci-fi "Sherman XXV" based on a 1/48 Sherman kit.

The main gun may not look as unfeasibly large as Greg's and my sci-fi tanks, but as Mike pointed out "it carries on the fine British tradition of not mounting a big enough main gun..." However, I think it looks pretty sweet.

Nice work Mike!!

Completed Space Panther

The arms race continues, and Gün Schwarm now has some armoured support to help in the battle against FutureKom. On Saturday I completed a conversion of a Solido 1/50 scale Panther. Yesterday, I managed to finish painting it, along with a few more grunts. Photos are below.









































For colours, I used GW Snakebite leather as a base, then applied GW Desert Yellow. After that, I gave it a coat of Devlan Mud GW wash. Once that was dry, I applied more GW Desert Yellow, and dry-brushed with GW Bubonic Brown. I used various browns to weather the tracks and road wheels, and dry-brushed some black in some places to try and capture exhaust effects and other things that ruin the paint. I painted some of the vision slits with either green or red "glass" highlights.

Following Dallas' example, I placed some rust splotches in different spots using GW Boltgun Metal and GW Terracotta Brown.

The decals were courtesy of Dallas - thanks much dude!

The Panther Ausf. W-2050 is now ready for action. I hope to complete one more of these for the force, but that will have to wait until more tank sprues arrive from GW, so for now, it's back to painting regular troops, and getting their IFVs built. I'm also working on a wonder-waffen for the Gün Schwarm as well. Watch for more in this space.

FutureKom Standard Bearer

Banner by Brian of Vaubanner Graphics (http://www.mts.net/~homenic1/vaubanner/vaubandex.html)

Nice work Brian!

Project Opfor - Armoured Support

As Dallas continues to expand the FutureKom armed forces, it is time to get some armour into the lineup for their opponents - now to be known as the "Guun Schwarm" (I would have put the little umlau over the "u" if I could figure out how...). I'm using GW's Steel Legion figures for troops, but the Guun Schwarm will need tanks to overcome the power of FutureKom.

To try and keep a counter-point to the soviet look and feel of the FutureKom, I thought I would start with the German Panther tank - a 1/50 model from Solido. This would be modified to try and provide a sci-fi look and feel, almost to GW standards - i.e.with an absurd main weapon.



The first step was to use a hacksaw to cut the gun and cupola off. Cutting the cupola away was a major pain, but it was one of those things that, once you start, you can't really leave half-done, so I kept at it and finally shaved it away. I then used a Dremel tool to try and balance the surface off a bit after the hack job.

I also cut the gun barrel away. After all, the long barrel 75mm gun looks reasonable, and we're going for sci-fi here.



Using chunks of plastic tube, the Panther was upgraded to a 120mm gun, a calibre I felt would be suitable for the "period" we're going for. I then turned to the very useful GW tank and heavy weapon sprues. I added a co-axial 20mm cannon (GW autocannon), hull mounted heavy MG (using the GW heavy bolter) and the GW cupola with an MG and search light.




Smoke launchers were placed on the turret, as was a searchlight - a couple of gun sight bits were also dropped on to the turret which I hope that, when painted, will give this a sci-fi look.

Unfortunately, the exhaust pipes at the back were a casualty of the poor hacksaw job - I figured screw them, and just went on without them. I glued a length of piano wire to serve as an antenna, and also cut the end off of a GW lasgun bit and mounted that on the back turret hatch of the Panther to provide a kind of light anti-infantry rear-defence weapon.

The very first Panther Mk 2050 is now waiting to be painted...




In the end, I have a rather heretical product - a glorious Panther tank, hacked for the purpose of playing a Sci-Fi game! Oh my - what would the up-tight "serious" WW2 gamers make of something like this - using GW components no less! The horror....

Stay tuned for further updates - I hope to have this sucker painted very soon.

More FutureCom Fun

The arms race continues...

I've really been enjoying the conversions and painting projects I've been doing for my Pig Iron project. Science-fiction painting and modelling can be fun even without skullz and spiky bitz ;-)

Anyway here's the latest addition to the arsenal - based on a gigantic 1/43 Russian diecast T-34/85 tank obtained from Greg B. A mild conversion really - cut off the main gun and replace with twin GW Heavy Bolters, mock up a hull-mounted lascannon for a big punch, add stowage and a pintle-mounted storm bolter, and sprinkle on some randon sci-fi bits. "Simple but effective," as they say... here are some pics.

A word of caution for anyone attempting to repaint Russian diecast... DO NOT paint the tracks!! I forgot to remove them before priming the vehicle and the paint would not dry on the flexible vinyl... it turned into a sticky mess. After a bath in Castrol Super-Clean degreaser they are OK again, thankfully.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the pics and stay tuned for pictures of the painted Polikarpov I-16 conversion coming soon!

The Finished Flyer

Thanks for all the kind comments on here and TMP regarding the Polikarpov I-16 conversion!

I thought I would post some final pics of the painted model and briefly describe the process of painting it.





The whole model was first primed with cheap black spraypaint - the cheapest I could find (that still has "fast-drying" in the description, as I am an impatient hobbyist)



The top surfaces were basecoated with Citadel Catachan Green and panels highlighted with a mix of Catachan Green and Camo Green. The red nose ring and rocket warheads were painted Citadel Mechrite Red from their Foundation range. All of these paints are highly pigmented and cover extremely well.





The underside surfaces were painted Citadel Ultramarines Blue and panels highlighted with Citadel Shadow Grey.

The metal parts were painted Citadel Boltgun Metal and washed with Citadel Badab Black, and a Botgun metal drybrush applied. Black craft paint was drybrushed along the fuselage bottom to simulate the effect of the jet wash.





After painting the colours, I went around and added paint chips to panel edges and wear spots with Citadel Boltgun metal and a spotter brush. (Most all of the panel highlighting was done with a no.2 "Filbert" brush which I tend to use alot).



The last step was to affix the canopy with white (PVA) glue, to avoid fogging the clear plastic with cyanoacrylate fumes. The (twenty-year-old) kit decals were applied and I although I used Microsol to set them, some silvering is evident, and I think I'll touch that up with some paint.

All in all, this was a really fun project from start to finish and I hope you enjoy the pictures. Cheers!