EPIC28

Playing EPIC in 28mm.

Friday 7 February 2014

Thunderhawk Progress.


 OK, so this is strictly WIP.  I did notice that when I mentioned 'thunderhawk' in my  list of outstanding things, no-one even mentioned it.  Well, just I case you thought I'd forsaken the Guard and gone over to the power-armoured side.  I present, for the time being, my thunderhawk !


From this angle the big feature is the cockpit canopy.  Which on a one piece resin floor tile will need a bit of work.  And/or balancing amount of skill.  Neither of which are abundant around here, but I'll give it a go.  S'only spaze muhreen terrain, after all.

So that's two layers of (midnight and then royal) blue and then blue ink.  So there'll be another glaze of ink (or two) and then a layer of 'ardcoat and I'll see what that looks like.  The airframe was undercoated black, then sprayed a nice deep red (just a shade deeper than red gore). Then hairspray and sand and then the German Grey.  So I'm quite pleased with the weathering effect but you'll have noticed that the German Grey is perfect camouflage for the terrain.  Ho hum, time to rethink the landscape,


I figured that the Grey T-hork could pass for a Black Templar one that had been out in the sun a lot, or some sort of codex grey replacement airframe or Inquisition vehicle.  Or perhaps belong to a Chapter that really does have grey a colour scheme.

So carried on with the further weathering; mostly rust.  Now my  blazing orange had almost had it, but responded very well to resurrection.  So after a bit of paintomancy, I sloshed some on.  It looks very vivid, but that's the light/camera/refractive index etc.  It's dulled down with a black/brown oil wash.  a bit.

Another few thin washes with the black and brown in differing quantities should improve things a bit.  One problem I have with this is self restraint; to apply a thin wash in the first place and then to let it dry enough before doing the next thing.  What I find is that the wash always ends up heavy and that a blast from Mrs Zzzzz's hair drier would improve things.  Ho hum, I'll try and concentrate next time.


I plan on just carrying on with the weathering that I've already done and carrying on until the orange is a little less in-yer-face.  And of course, eventually changing the landscape to something a little more beige.  I'm allowed beige, because I'm old enough.  You have to call it brown.  But I figure that the tile is big enough to handle a bit of beige around the crashed bus and fade to grey at the edges.

Ummmmmmmmm, Ultravox.  I'm sure that used to be a piece of wargear.

11 comments:

  1. I had no idea you had one of these beasties....

    i suspect you have many things about which I have no idea.. but still..

    larverly rust. i hve lots of things i use for rust, but orange paint is always in there somewhere :)

    I suspect that a very convincing weathering job and colour change of the base could be achieved with a ground up pastel (or weathering powders) and some appropriate sealer... well, combine with airbrush/drybrush first maybe .. but still wouldn't take long to make it look "bostin"

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    1. I think you're right, there's an amount of mig powder rust there already, but the effect is sort of lost in the noise until you're at froth blowing range.

      I will try to remember that less is more the next time I touch it.

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  2. That looks smashing (or should that be smashed?), really nice job. Have to say I quite like that closeness between the camo and the landscape, it looks like the dust is slowly reclaiming it. All that 'small debris' as well as the obvious broken wing etc, makes it look very realistic.

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    1. I agree with the camo/terrain thing; realistically, the camo should match the terrain. The T-hork in the ointment here is that they are quite often painted in bright primary colours.

      And it's the sculpting that makes it so easy to work on and give such a good result even with my levels of both skill and diligence. When I ordered it, I had no idea that it was as good as it is.

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  3. What? "I'm paining a Thunderhawk" he said. "Surly he is joking" I thought. A Chaos Warhound and now a crashed Thunderhawk. Now I'm waiting for you to say that you have also been working on a FW Imperial Fortress (the giant £721.00 one)!

    The bright orange isn't all that bad you know, particularly from the first angel. I agree that it will dull nicely with a wash or two.

    The weathering is well done too. I'm interested to see how it will look in a 'beige' (arr, I mean brown) setting. As Ed said, the grey landscape does work quite well.

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    1. In my defence, your honour, all of these things (the list I blogged at the beginning of the year) were already purchased.

      This years rules are only bits and services to allow projects from that list to be finished.

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  4. Looking fantastic, man! Love the rust effect, it really looks beat up. Good stuff!

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    1. Many thanks ! Whenever I pass it I think about masking the existing to effect the changes to the ground. Looking forward to better weather in the garage. I suspect that you are still under 18' of snow ?

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    2. I dig it - a bit more contrast between the ground color and the THawk might help the whole thing 'pop' a bit more.

      Only a couple inches of show, but it's been down around -20c pretty consistently over the last few days. Supposed to get up to 0c today, gonna break out the shorts and t-shirts in this heatwave! Hah!

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  5. Echoing the above mate - looks great - with a few washes to tone back some of the vibrancy in the rust it'll look schmicko.

    Agree the need to change the tone of the ground though otherwise it all really does blend in together.

    Very cool stuff and the title of the post totally threw me!

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    1. Ah, well; I did give in eventually and get some spaze muhreens. But the comic over-the-top aspects of the Black Templars meant it had to be them; I quite like how the old BT 'dex has pythonesque echoes. Well, not so much echoes, there are no overt references, but the spirit the Holy Grail, Jabberwocky and Life of Brian is writ large across the BT. More from them soon !

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