Getting down to the nitty gritty bits of this project now, and giving my self a chance to practice some simple techniques that I've not tried before.

One of these is using a dark wash in the panel gaps. I've seen this technique used, and I wanted to give it a go to make the panels stand out a bit more. I used the normal GW Badab Black and applied a heavy wash into the recesses. I also applied it to the rivet holes as well.



So here is a (blurry) photo of the tail section showing the above mentioned wash. It really does seem to give the model more depth and stops it from looking like a giant slab of green.

It can also be seen in some more of the photos but first I'll explain the second thing I tried out. Once again it's probably nothing new to some of you, but a first for me - and that first is paint chipping. Normally I just use drybrushing to provide the weathering on my models. However, I wanted to do a bit more to the Valk, and so attempted paint chipping. For those that haven't tried it, basically you paint a small area with black, in my case Chaos Black, and then paint a small amount of metallic colour inside the black, Boltgun Metal for me.



The above pics show my attempt at paint chipping. I'm not sure if I want there to be lots more chips, or if the one's that I've got will be about enough. I will probably add some more to the edge's of the wings and also on the areas where the panels change.

What I have realised is that paint chipping is a very time consuming task and takes a lot of patience, especially on such a large model. I'm trying to do them in batches so I don't go cross eyed in the process. So they are the two simple techniques that I decided to try my hand at.



Having seen some other Valkyrie's on forums etc, I wanted to add the pilot's and copilot's names to the side, much like you see on other aircraft. With this in mind, I grabbed the Forgeworld Imperial Guard transfer sheet that I had an proceeded to come up with some names and possible ranks.

In the end I settled with Capt Desh and Lt Minan, and set about cutting the individual letters from the sheet and applying them to the model using MicroSet followed by MicroSol.The observant among you will notice that these are not the names in the picture above. That's because I managed to knock over my nearly full bottle of MicroSet whilst applying the transfers. I'd managed to get to Capt D and Lt Mi when this happened. Of course the MicroSet went everywhere, over my painting station, over my leg, onto the floor.

Unfortunately it managed to flood the remaining transfers off the desk and into the abyss below. So quickly scrambling round the desk, I grabbed a modelling knife and very carefully removed some sections of lettering from the phrase I had dissected in the first place. These happened to be ROTE and H and L.

Having rescued these letters, I managed to get them in place and complete the names. Some words of warning, do not work with open bottles of fluid of any kind when you have to reach round them, and try to have a back up plan in case things do take a turn for the worst. For those that want to know, I was using the phrase "Let Faith Protect Your Mind and Metal Your Flesh" as it had the most letters on it.



Now that that little disaster was over, I added some nicknames to the other side. Something that the aircrew had added to their machine when the Techpriests weren't watching. So Capt Drote is known as " Big 'D' " and Lt Mihl is "Sky". The nicknames were painted on using Adeptus Battlegrey and then a highlight line of Fortress Grey.

Right I'm off to add some more paint chips and transfers to the model, I hope to have another post up before Christmas, if not Merry Christmas to all and I hope that everyone has a great time. Thanks for reading!

In a break from the Valkyrie, I added the finishing touches a another infantry squad. All they needed was a wash of Devlan Mud and a coat of matt varnish, which is normally all I have left to do on most things.



So I did the usual and took photos of the front and back of each model and then used the wonders of Photoshop to get them all on the same image. I'm still extremely happy with my light box and my camera as no image adjustment had to be done :).



And here is the shot from the back. This is the last of my infantry that I'll be posting for a while. I've got the Valk and a Sentinel to finish before I start on any more foot sloggers.

Cheers for reading people.

Due to the snow in the UK, I could't get to work so I decided it to do some painting (after playing on Gran Turismo 5 for several hours).

I worked on the pilot and co polit, and their cockpit's and also the under wing weapons. Here are some pics for you to enjoy:



First of all a pic looking at the two crew members. Like other's, I wanted to give them an individual feel, and painted the helmets differently. The front guy's helmet was a right pain with it being white, I lost count of how many thin coats I had to put on, and he still isn't quite finished. I went with a grey stripe using Adeptus Battlegrey, then Codex Grey and finally Fortress Grey. Its plain and simple but pretty effective. His targeting eye isn't finished yet, and needs a dot of bright red, and a gloss varnish once I've done the matt varnish.



The other side of the crew, although the front guy is a bit bleached. In contrast I painted the rear crew member's helmet bright blue, Enchanted Blue to be precise, with a highlight of Ice Blue and then an Asurmen Blue wash. The visor was a Mechrite Red base, then Red Gore, then Blood Red, then Blazing Orange with a Skull White dot. This will get a gloss varnish like the targeting eye on the guy in front.



This picture focuses on the rear crew member a bit better. You can also see the detail on the top of the helmet a bit better. I left this section black and painted on small X's using Iyanden Darksun, with a small dot of Skull White in the centre. The edge of the helmet was highlighted using Codex Grey.



Time for a top down shot. This shows off the helmet designs a bit better, but the main focus here is the dials, readouts and buttons. I wanted to try and keep the colours that I used down to a minimum, so I doesn't look like I used every colour in the spectrum for the dials etc. I've done a test fit of the clear canopy and the inside still stands out which is a result.



Finally here are the two under wing HK missiles. The missile warhead was basecoated Mechrite Red with a Blood Red highlight and then a wash of Baal Red. The body of the missile was basecoated Codex Grey. I then applied a Fortress Grey highlight. I'm not sure if I want to put a light wash of Badad Black over the missile body, I may just put it in the recesses.

So thats all I've got done, I'm still finishing off the pilot/copilot and have started work on the missile pods. Once they are done I'll get the engines finished. Until then, thanks for reading and feel free to leave comments, suggestions etc. Cheers.