Showcase; Forgemas 14; Eldar Corsair Hornet

Hi All

At last, after a mere 3 months, my Eldar corsair Hornet is finished.
I must say I've enjoyed this project immensely, apart from the water effects fiasco of course, but even that led to a much better base in the end.
It bodes well for the rest of the army I'll be building and painting that I've enjoyed the paint scheme and I've learnt some stuff whilst doing it and also improved my method since I developed the scheme on the test figure. I'm looking forward to it a great deal.
Here's some pics of the finished model...

I say it's finished but in truth it's not quite complete; I want the army to have a symbol which will be some form of stylised scorpion or possibly just the tail. My Corsair Band are called the Scions of the Scorpion; their back story being that the Corsair Prince and his Bladesworn Retinue were at one time Striking Scorpion Aspect Warriors, hence the green and yellow colour scheme and the fact that I will be converting striking scorpions to represent my HQs.
Anyway back to the symbol, or lack thereof, I haven't nailed down the design yet so I'll be leaving all the models without varnish and I'll come back to them all once I'm happy with the symbol.

So my next project will be some scenery for an upcoming Code 40K event; Worcester War IV, more on that in later posts, and then back to finishing off my Imperial Knight Freeblade.

Hope you like what I've done with the Hornet, c and c as ever is most welcome.

Bluddtoof

Forgemas 14; Eldar Corsair Hornet, WIP, Nearly Done!

Hi All

Bluddtoof here with another WIP post of my Eldar Corsair Hornet. Nearly there now, should only need a couple more sessions to get this piece finished. A pic of its current state...

As you can see I'm working on the green plating on the hornets upper face now, I've finished the pilot who is now ensconced in the cockpit with the canopy now fixed in place. Fitting the pilot was a chore as I knew it would be; I'd tried many trial runs before and during painting.
The issue, if you're planning on building your own hornet, is two-fold; firstly the control panel the pilot is connected to has to slot inside the cockpit underneath the lip of the outer plating, so it has to be placed inside the space first. Secondly the pilots shoulder plates are wider than the cockpit opening so also have to go inside first!
I'd spotted this well before painting started and tried a few ways of fitting him, I decided to paint him as a sub assembly as painting him in-situ would have been a nightmare and I wouldn't have been able to get the finish I wanted. The trick was to paint the pilot without putting too much on the shoulders so as to not make him even wider at that tricky spot and then when it came to squeezing his shoulders through the gap to be super gentle. The process resulted in some minor wear of the paint around the cockpit edge, which is covered by the canopy frame anyway and a little wear on the back of the pilots shoulders which are not visible; so Huzzah! Success!

The weapons are now almost complete, gems and lenses done, the green cowlings are being painted alongside the made hull as all the shades are identical and I need to do a little more work on the cables. Once the green is highlighted up to yellow and glazed all I'll have left on the hull are the gems and a few bits of touching up.

A few more pics....

Hope you like it so far, c and c always welcome. More to come soon, in the form of a showcase with any luck.

Bluddtoof

Forgemas 14, Eldar Corsair Hornet, More Progress...

Hi All

Done some more work on my now severely delayed Forgemas entry, my Eldar Corsair Hornet.

Above is the overall progress, following are a few shots of the details..

Two shots of the underside which is now complete apart from a little work inside the exhaust ports.
The second shot is with a flash, which brings out the yellow highlights on the green plating a little more.

And a few shots of the hornet  so far on its base...

That's it for now, the work on the underside since the last post amounts to about 10 hours. Just the top side and some detailing work like gems and such like to do now so I should be done soon.

As ever c and c welcome...

Bluddtoof

Forgemas 14; Eldar Corsair Hornet, WIP

Hi All

Bluddtoof here with another WIP post on my Eldar Corsair Hornet. This model seams to be taking forever to paint but I've finally got the yellow-white shading done on it, now it's just the green armour plating and the gems to do before a final few touches. Hopefully I'll only need a couple more weeks.

So here's a few piccies...

I'm really pleased with the shading compared to the test corsair I painted a while back, it matches well and considering the areas involved are significantly larger it looks ok. In total it's made from 14 shades; starting with averland sunset through yriel yellow to flash gitz yellow then adding more and more white to flash gitz til I got a just off white for the final edging. The pilots seat I stopped at shade number 11 cos I was happy with the colour. I think it's come out a little more lemony than the corsairs weapon, see here for the relevant post, and I like it, the trick now will to remain consistent across the rest of the army. Eventually there'll be a Revenant Titan in these colours! That'll be a challenge, I may need to invest in an airbrush at that point.

Next step is the green plating with its yellow highlighting.
Hope you like it so far, c and c welcome as always. More to come soon.....

Bluddtoof

Forgemas 14; Eldar Corsair Hornet, WIP

Hi All

Just a quick update on the WIP of my Eldar Corsair Hornet; I've done most of the metallic bits, I decided to go a little darker than I'd originally tried on the test corsair, I'll see what I think once it's done as to whether I stick with it for the rest of the army.
Currently working on the yellow to bone white shading sections of the model, it's a long process, what you see below comprises 5 shades getting respectively lighter from a base of GW averland sunset, when finished it will shade right down to a bone white as on the muzzle of the test figures shuriken cannon.
You can see the post of the original test figure here.
Pics of the wip...

That's it for now, more to come soon.

Bluddtoof.

Forgemas 14, Eldar Corsair Hornet Update; Base Complete

Hi all

Bluddtoof here with another update on my Eldar Corsair Hornet; the base is now complete with the addition of the hunted Guardsman and his abandoned kit...

I painted the guardsman in muted colours so he wouldn't stand out too much, the Hornet is the main event here after all. I chose green, grey and brown shades as these will tie him into the base colours.

he's painted quite simply, with just simple highlights and washes.

I took a few shots with and without the flash and with a really strong light source off to one side too...

Hope you like it so far, I'm working on the hornet itself now, more to come soon..

Bluddtoof

Forgemas 14, Eldar Corsair Hornet, Painting the redesigned base.

Hi All

Bluddtoof here with an update on my Hornet base. My previous post was about the disaster I'd had with some ageing water effects; I'd rebuilt the base without any watery areas and it's now painted....

Next step will be to paint the guardsman who's hiding on the walkway and some final weathering touches, including a little sponge weathering on the pipes and glossing up the damp areas.

More to come soon...

Bluddtoof.

Forgemas 14; Eldar Corsair Hornet, Update. Disaster Averted!

Hi All

Bluddtoof here with a much delayed update on my progress on the Eldar Corsair Hornet.
My previous post on this showed the build, including the scenic base, find it here. Unfortunately I had something of a disaster during the next step which I will now explain....

So I started the process of painting the base, this needed to be done in a few steps as the plan was to use water effects to simulate a water filled trench. I started by painting the concrete trench wall,

I had painted the slimy water beneath the walkway during the build so at this point I painted the rusted metal walkway. I took the second photo with flash so the colour of the water shows up better.
Next I moved onto the pipes and painted the base in the green slimy colours which would show through the water effects...

I also added some weathering and moss effects across the concrete, as well as a freehand peeling poster by the valves.
Once I was happy with all that it was time to tackle the water effects; I built a mould around the base using a piece of thin plasticard wrapped tightly around the base, this was lined with a sheet of greased cling film to stop the water effects resin sticking to the mould...

It all went incredibly well to this point, first time I'd tried this and well happy so far, I then proceeded to pour the thin layer, about 1 1/2 mm deep into the mould..... no seepage! Huzzah!
I left the model in nice warmish room to set, a day later no change, nor the next day or the 2 after. At this point I was a little concerned as the resin was showing a marked dip in the centre, I checked for leaks but all was good there. Next day some of the resin was starting to clear but only in the middle of the 2 sections, so 4 days in and it was barely setting, I decided to check the bottle to see if there was a best before date; no such thing, however I did spot the GW copyright text which was dated 2000-2005, implying that the bottle was as much as 10 years old! I had a little think and realised that yes this was the very bottle I used nearly 10 years ago when I built a series of water filled craters for a scenery project! Now I don't know for sure if age was the primary cause of the failure to set but I suspect it played a major role. 6 days later the resin had still not set but had in fact taken on the consistency of cottage cheese!
At this point I decided to carry out a little exploratory surgery; removing the mould which pulled a mass of gloopy, cloudy resin with it. I then spent a pleasant couple of hours scraping and cleaning to remove the residue, in the process I had to remove the mesh walkway completely and some of the pipework too.
This was the weekend before Christmas so finishing in time for the judging was unlikely, I was now nearly 2 weeks behind schedule. So I had a few days off and then set to work redesigning the base and building the new bits. I've gone for a more pipe filled dry trench now, here's some pics of the newly rebuilt base, some of the paintwork was unaffected as you can see...

I'm now in the process of repainting this and I actually quite like the new look, I will be buying some new water effects resin for use on other models in this army, I have a plan for a large base depicting guardsmen crawling through sewer pipes to evade a prowling grav tank

So to close, if you're planning on doing something similar, check that your resin is still in good condition before committing it to your models!

Stay tuned for more updates as this progresses.

Bluddtoof