Imperial Knight, putting it together.

So the Imperial Knights have arrived, I've spent the last few hours putting my 1st one together. It's a great kit, buts it's absolutely worth taking your time with it. Don't even attempt to try and skip though the instructions.
I've put the "Skeleton" together and left all the armour plates off. As I've mentioned before with airbrushing sub assembling models is a must and this kit even for so, even if I were to hand paint this model I still would build it this way. For those of you who plan to hand paint the model, I would maybe look at getting some coloured primer from the likes of Army Painter. They do a silver which after washing would be perfect. It would need a few washes to darken it down to your tastes but that's easy enough. Hand painting whilst easy enough would take some time.

It's worth noting GW have posted some videos on their website that contain tips on the construction and painting of the Knights.

Anyway I'm building the Errant version of the kit and I have some new stencils I would like to try when it comes to painting, I have 3 "themes" I am mulling over at the moment.
A sort of Hotrod flame paint scheme, a Dragon scaled scheme and a Skull themed one.
Not sure which to try 1st but likely the flames 1st.

Until next time
Cheers
Joe.

Imperial Knights, Playing X-Wing and plans for the Blog.

Imperial Knights are coming to Painting Plastic Crack, Playing X-Wing and plans for the blog.

1st off I would like to apologise for my lack of posts over the last two months. With moving house, Christmas and many other things getting in the way painting just wasn't happening for me. I also admit I was suffering with a bit of burnout too.

All that changed last week when GW announced the Imperial Knight kit in its latest issue of the revamped WD. This kit has really got my painting juices flowing again. The fact they can be used as an army in their own right is brilliant and I plan on doing just that. 3 Paladins and 1 Errant rocks in at 1495pts.

I don't expect it to be all powerful but man these models will look great on the table and in the cabinet.

I don't plan on painting all 4 in the same scheme, I think that it will be more exciting to go for 4 "Freeblades" these knights will have their own heraldry and paint schemes and each will be unique. Far more creative and much more interesting to post about too.

So as we speak, I'm dusting off my airbrush and getting my paints ready. I've not pre-ordered anything just yet as my Eldar are on eBay. Once they are sold then I will have the funds to get stuck in. The lots finish on Thursday and I'm planning on ordering at least 2 knights to begin with. I'm sure most of you have seen the release schedule for next week. Codex Imperial Knights as well as some accompanying books. I'm getting those as well.

This release could not have come at a better time for me, I was really struggling to get any painting done. I was basically burnt out I guess.

What have I been doing with my spare time then ? Well I picked up X-Wing and have been playing that. Such a brilliant game and now I have a bit more knowledge of the game I will be adding some x-wing based content to the blog. I'm planning on doing some repaints of some of the models, Boba Fetts ship Slave 1 being the 1st.

Anyway guys and gals, if you have any ideas on colour schemes you think could be interesting for a Freeblade knight why not leave a message down below, I'm open to any ideas and would love to read your thoughts.

Cheers

Joe

Airbrushing Eldar, Iyanden Wraithknight Showcase

Here is the Wraithknight from my Iyanden collection, painted using the exact same scheme as the rest of the army. I did deviate slightly with the addition of green gems on the shield arm. Im not sure if I like that or not but I felt they would pop against the black and complement the purple on the shield more than red gems would have. All the blue areas of the model were painted separatly and you can see a w.i.p picture of that in the title picture of this blog. Whilst the blues and the extreme highlights I gave them are not very realistic I really liked the effect. This model was completed last year. I do plan on adding a second to my army in the near future and I am planning on doing a progress log on here.

I know many of you players will notice I have given the Knight 2 of the Scatter Lasers. Any player will tell you that a Monstrous Creature such as this can actually only fire 2 weapons per turn, so with the addition of the sun cannon it does make 1 of the Scatter Lasers a waste of points. I don't actually use 2 on this guy but for the sake of symmetry and maybe a little OCD I felt the model looked better with 2.

If anyone has yet to buy one of these, I can tell you it was a lot of fun to build and paint, but please even if you plan to paint by hand don't completely build it before painting. I can imagine for many painters it could be a real nightmare of a job to paint fully assembled.

Group shot of all the Eldar boys so far, You will notice that despite saying in my earlier posts about sticking to a paint "recipe" I did deviate with my Jetbikes. These were painted in Saim Hann scheme as I felt that reds suited the models better. Plus it gives me an excuse to start that craft world too.

Next up it will be my Wraithguard

Airbrushing Eldar, Iyanden Wave Serpent Showcase.

Heres another few pictures from my airbrushed Iyanden project, this time 3 Serpents. They were painted in exactly the same way as my Crimson hunter but I have yet to do the Canopy frames. These were really a joy to build and paint. Whilst we can all agree Games Workshops newer kits are really great and well put together theres something to be said for the simplistic nature of these older Eldar skimmers. I bought all 3 at the same time and "batch painted" them together in sub assemblies.

Again as with the Crimson Hunter these guys were mostly exclusively painted using my airbrush.

The paints I've used for this project are all from the Minitaire range by Badger. I really like these paints and they have some really vivid colours in their range that are just right for war gamers. The main colour used for my Iyanden is a colour called Craven. Its a lovely yellow and I think it gives the Iyanden colour scheme a more real appearance than the very vivid and bright yellow Games Workshop used in their army.

Heres some work in progress shots to show how I painted the yellow.


1. The Wave Serpents were primed in grey Vallejo airbrush primer, they were then pre shaded using  Minitaire "Red Clay"

2. The higher areas of the Wave Serpents were airbrushed with a white colour from the same range called "Snow White"

3. Finally they were painted with light, thin coats of "Craven". You can see where the "Red Clay" pre-shade and "Snow White" pre highlights are still visible and blended though the yellow.

4. After using lots of masking tape, airbrush templates and blu-tac to mask off other areas to paint the blues weapons and gems here is a pic of my 3 Serpents in their display cabinet. All in all I think these guys took about 4 hours from starting to build to ending up here. I think for a table top standard paint job they look great.

Next post I will feature my Wraith Knight.

Airbrushing Eldar, Iyanden Crimson Hunter Show Case.

I thought it would be nice to show some of my painting projects, some current and some from the past here on Painting Plastic Crack. Ive even managed to get my hands on a better camera, so going forward my pictures should be improved over what I have been currently uploading.

Here is my Crimson Hunter from my Iyanden Eldar. Now I know its not quite as fluffy as the the Hemlock for this style of army but whilst I am not a competitive player,  I just preferred what the Crimson Hunter had to offer gameplay wise. However I wanted it to fit into the rest of my army and it had to be yellow.

This was 95% painted with an airbrush, including the gems and base. In fact the only parts painted by hand were the white dots on those gems and the shading around them. Oh and the red tinted canopy was also hand painted. Some have asked me just how I managed this effect without having any streaks. The paint I used is called "clear red" and its made by humbrol. They also make a blue and a yellow but I have yet to find any other colours. Im not sure if you can use these 3 primaries to mix the other colours as red was what I was looking for at the time. I painted it quite thickly on the inside of the canopy and straight out of the tin. I allowed it to dry completely before picking it up.  half an hour later, job done. The great thing with doing it like this is you still get to see the pilot, but theres no use going to town on painting him or her as the red tints all the variation of colour out anyway. I prefer this than seeing completely painted canopies.  Of course some keep it clear and I have seen some brilliant painting of cockpits etc. This is my way though. One word of warning, don't go using any of your best brushes to do this. Its quite gloopie and it will knacker anything of quality. No kolinsky sable here please.

The hexagon patterns you see on the wings were made using an airbrush stencil I picked off of eBay. Very easy to do and just required a steady hand. I did the same underneath the Hunter, but in reverse. I think its a nice touch.

Obviously I can't paint as straight as some of the crisper panels suggest I have on the model. This is where low tac masking tape comes in, Tamiya is the brand I use and it comes in various widths. As long as you don't lay it down on fresh paint it won't peel anything off. I used it to mask off the surrounding areas of the gems so I could airbrush those, I used it over the canopy glass so I could airbrush the pale blue canopy struts, I used it over the from of the front of the Hunter so I could paint the and black blue panels too. I think as a playing piece it looks ok. The engine glow was achieved using blues and whites and allowing the overspray from the airbrush to create the OSL effect.

I used the airbrush to paint the base too. I hope you like it. All my Iyanden models have a snow base to match my Realm of Battle board. I plan on doing a tutorial on how I made these very soon. So if you like them keep an eye out for them.

Cheers

Joey