Warhammer Wednesday; Thunderhawk Gunship

Today on the blog, Warhammer Wednesday sees a build of one of my favourites, the Thunderhawk Gunship.

Released as part of the Aeronautica Imperialis game, it's recently come back as part of the Epic re-release. I used to play Epic back in the 1990's and the metal kit of the Thunderhawk was one of my favourites. I'd been wanting to get my hands on one of the new ones, and once again, Acme Games of Llandudno came up trumps when I couldn't buy one of these at a Games Workshop.

I seem to vaguely recall my metal kit in the 90's consisted of about 9 parts...

Just look at the detailing on this- the usual crisply-moulded Citadel kit.

I didn't have a particular Chapter in mind for this when I undercoated the model...

...that said, I'm a fan of large aircraft in white, so decided to make this a White Scars machine. I can't see myself getting into playing Epic, but wanted to use this for some aerial photography in the same manner as the Captain Scarlet planes last year.

A light dusting of white, then some detail painting followed. All very minimal. And due to reasons of poor planning, no transfers either, as I finished the model off whilst in Wales and had managed to leave the transfer sheet in Yorkshire... Final weathering was a bit of drybushing, and a wash of nuln oil (front to back, nose to tail this time) to pick out the relief details.

Just look at the surface detailing, the vents and grilles... this on a model about 10cm long. Please, please GW, release this in the standard scale!

As with the Angel jets, I'd drilled-out the engines, and inserted the telescoping metal rod for the home-made flying rig. Two cocktail sticks, wrapped in cotton wool, went into the outer engines.

First shoot, on the beach at Criccieth.

However, the cocktail sticks wouldn't stay in place, so I gave up after a few shots...

...and in the afternoon, went up into the hills above Porthmadog (where I'd shot the pics with the Rogal Dorn and the Rhino, see the earlier posts).

Some low level, over the planet shots, trying to use forced perspective to make the moss look like a woodland scene.

I really like this model. Not enough to tempt me into Epic, sadly, but I do have an Aeronautica Imperialis box set somewhere, which I could get into...