A new month has started and I was getting a little itchy since I did not do much painting job over the month of April. Since I had completed about 30+ Deathwing Terminators for my Deathwing Company, I decided to celebrate by getting myself a Land Raider for my company (since they are the only vehicles allowed as Deathwing Vehicles).
Calculating my points, I found that I would have an enough total to redeem for another unit of sorts. Since the Swarmlord/Hive Tyrant was sold out, I went ahead and got myself a Dark Talon/Nephilim box set to add to my army. I was also hoping to get a Crusader/Redeemer box set which was also out of stock, hence the generic Land Raider.
Assembling the Land Raider was certainly a challenge as there were quite a lot of details inside which made me want to paint although it will most likely not visible unless one decided to take a very close look into the interior.
Among the many key points/tools I picked up a long time ago from various sources (web and books) on building vehicles, the most useful was the use of rubber bands. You will probably see plenty of these in the shots as a good amount of time, they were not glued together. Also, painting with thin layer of paints does help a lot in getting a proper consistency to prevent cloud streaks on the paint job.
Land Raider
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The initial assembly |
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Assembly after priming |
I decided to add the Hunter-Killer missile launcher and a storm bolter with a closed hatch on this model. I might just e-bay additional top hatch for this.
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Land Raider rear panel |
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Land Raider side panel. Just a simple colouring |
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All panel interior |
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After gluing the pieces together for the first time. One of the sides was already glued earlier as the opposite side has a gear system for the front hatch |
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Land Raider after everything the rest of the main body and track is glued. Weapons and side doors are left unglued. I am planning to magnetise the Lascannon and the side door panels to the model later. In case you were wondering, the Lascannon and side doors were painted earlier to be used as a guide on for the rest of the hull to match. | |
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A peek into the rear panel |
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A closer shot. Looks like I should have at least washed the panel. |
Hopefully this model would be complete with the next round of painting.
Dark Talon
I decided to go ahead with building a Dark Talon instead of a Nephilim fighter since the Dark Talon has no optional equipment swap and it looks more majestic with the iconography on the hull. In other words, a badass.
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After initial assembly. The two halves were not glued together since I did not glue the cockpit unit completely. Plenty of stuff to pain inside before it is ready. |
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After priming |
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After initial basecoating. |
The model was basecoated with several layers of 1:2 mix of Dawnstone:Abbadon Black. The last layer was about 1:1 mix. I just did the basecoating since I was working primarily on the Land Raider today. One rule I learned about painting black is that never use pure black, even if the primer for the model was black. A little shading will bring out the details of the model. Of course with a little edging.
Hopefully the Land Raider will be completed soon.