What-ho all, time for updateyness on an ongoing project. Thats right, current work, not another bloody retrospective post on a previous project, and more waffling about the Britannia Model Village or Steampunk stuff.
Work continues apace on the Thunderbolt miniature- in the last update, the model was about 75% completed, but unpainted. A recent surge in activity saw me trying to get it a bit more finished, so this post shows its current state- most major construction work done (apart from finishing the pilot and the cockpit glazing), and a start made on painting.
For the sake of the pictures I have planned, the Bolt is being liveried up as a Phantine Air Corps plane, from the novel “Double Eagle”, in particular the plane of the squadron leader, Bree Jagdea. Its eventually intended (after I’ve done some pics using the model) to re livery in a squadron marking of my own devising, but for now it is being used for a piece of fanart
Markings for the aircraft are in fact something that have caused me some bother- I didn’t have any transfers big enough for this model (it being built to 1/32nd scale), and I didn’t want to just rip-off pictures found on the Internet, so I ended up designing my own markings. The Stars and Bars Imperial Eagle above was drawn up, and developed as a supposed modification of the standard 40K Eagle, perhaps a special version created for the Guard Air Force. Very much inspired by the US Air Force logo. Other bits and pieces were knocked up on Photoshop specifically for the model; they're not too clear in the below snaps, but should be more visible in the high-res pictures the model is intended for (for instance, there are 'rescue' arrows on the cockpit, squadron and pilot ID tags, and a slightly gung-ho "GET SOME" stencilled between the cannon rig under the nose).
It was given a paint scheme based loosely on 80’s Nato camo, mainly because I like the scheme (child of the 80's and all that). Belly is light blue, top surfaces a mix of lawn green and primer grey, applied in several coats direct from spray cans, because I'm too poor to afford an airbrush. At this point it the model needs to wait a bit until I complete all the decals- PH/01 referring to the squadron, but Jagdeas aircraft is tail serial number 02 so I need to knock those markings up, and also paint a bit of nose-art on, then weather the whole shebang to make it look a bit more like a veteran, battle-scarred aircraft. In the book Jagdea is very straight-laced and serious, so I don't know if she'd really go for having nose-art on her aircraft, but I've wanted to try it on a model for a while, and have a design I came up with for the Britannia Project which never made it into the final models, so I may reuse that on an engine cowling. I'm aware that the model is pretty heavily armed too compared to the Bolts in the novel (which only had gun armaments), but then again, I prescribe to the maxim that one can never have enough Stuff That Goes Boom, and anyway, its a bloody made-up plane in a book set in the far future, and I'm trying as hard as possible not to take this sort of thing too seriously at the risk of murdering my social status any further. Incidentally, and somewhat ironically given that this is a Warhammer 40K model, its super-scale of 1/32nd compared to normal citadel miniatures has meant that the nose guns are in fact the only citadel parts used in its construction...
As the model approaches completion though (reckon theres about another evenings work, when I get chance) I need to build a couple of other models before I can start the photographs this model is intended for...
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