KV47 AERO

A New Year, a new blog post.  I was pretty lax on updating this blog through the latter half of 2013. Furthermore, I was pretty lax in painting and hobby work.  I was spending my free time doing other things. I started playing some more video games, playing airsoft, and in the last month or two I started playing Magic The Gathering for the first time in a few years.  This year I am going to do my best to update this blog at least every two weeks and have something new to present in every blog post. With the new IG codex due to drop in the next few months I feel I will have plenty of motivation to finish working on my Guard army this year.

Anyway, a few months ago I went to Millennium Games for an X-Wing tournament and had decided beforehand that I wanted to start collecting an SSU army for Dust: Warfare.  When I got there I saw that all of the Dust stuff was on clearance since sales were not doing that great.  For me, this is sad since I love the miniatures and it's a pretty solid tabletop game.  However, it also meant that the models were 50% off...  I ended up winning the X-Wing tourney and spent my store credit on a KV47 Aero kit and a few squads of infantry.

I finished painting this model in I think November.  But with hunting season and other stuff going on I would get home and not feel like taking photos at all.  I have been sick the last few days and had some free time, so today I set up the camera and finally took some pictures.  I've been using Flickr to host the pictures for the blog since they allow up to 1TB of free storage and the in-site photo editor, Aviary, is rather nice indeed.

The KV47 Aero is transported in game by a helicopter, which was also included in the kit.  I did not yet paint it, but it will probably be the next Dust model I work on.  I painted all of the greens with my Badger Anthem airbrush using a Russian Green paint set made by Vallejo which I picked up at Section 8 Hobbies.  It includes 5 different shades of green which I used to do a lot of color modulation on the surfaces of this model. More after the break.

Back at it.

So, August went by with very little work on the hobby front.  I spent one night working on a warcaster and a talon light 'jack for our Iron Kingdoms RPG game and then put them aside due to a lack of drive.  After that I went ahead and finished my scratch built Neptune Frigate.

This only took a couple of nights to finish up, but it felt good to finish it up.  After that i started work on an orbital drydock for BFG, got it rough built and not much more.  Felt the need to paint something since I had just scratch built the frigate.

So, a couple of days ago I started working on my Hans light Panzer walker for Dust: Warfare.
The first night was spent doing the filters.  The second night I did chipping and some chipping highlights on all but the legs.  Tonight I finished up the chipping and went on to some washes.  I picked out all of the seams and corners and other details with AK Interactive's Wash for DAK vehicles.  This step is what really brings out the lines and actually helps the colors look much more interesting.

Leman Russ: Judgement

Just finished painting the lead tank for my Armor Company and Armor Squadron 1.  The tank is called Judgement and it is commanded by Commissar Constantin Braun.  As this is a command tank it has some upgraded sensors and equipment, since it's the company leader I also gave it the GW command upgrade auspex/comms package.  Went about painting this tank in much the same way as my last Leman Russ Tough Bastard and every piece of armor since then.  A simple grey base followed by scratching, damage, and weathering.  It has the commander stripe with the roman numeral I for the squadron number.  Since it's commanded by a commissar it's also got the red and black stripe design on the side.

Here's a front view of the tank, there is a small medallion on the lower left and the name is below the turret on the flat of the hull.

The commander is the Forge World model and is a very nice sculpt.  He took some time to paint as there are a fair number of details to him.  In this picture you can see that I made the heavy stubber as a coaxial weapon as seen on many of the FW turrets.  I made that with a few small brass tubes.

I put about how much stowage as I usually do and of course my ridiculous whip antennas.  There are also purity seals and the like denoting the honors of the vehicle and strength of its machine spirit.  I did not add any mottos to this tank as it's got a commissar as a commander.  So, the only writing I have done is the name and the kill tally on the barrel.  It's a pretty high tally as this guy is supposed to be a company commander and should be pretty good at his job.  I will perhaps use him as Knight Commander Pask from time to time.

I generally apply much more pigment to the bottom of the hull than to to upper portion.  I will have it so that it rests on the edges of the track axel mounts and then lightly brush it up from there to slightly powder the top of the hull as well.  The top of the tank and turret get a little more in spots and streaks.  Where there are bullet marks and hit damage I add some black pigment.  I also add powder residue to the muzzle break because it looks cooler that way even though it's not all to realistic.  I use mig productions pigments, but you can use any brand you like.  I still have the same jars I bought in 2009 and will have them for several more years before they are gone.  They are ground extremely fine and cover and stay adhered very well, even with wargaming use.  I cannot speak for other brands as I have never used them, but Mig get my support.

Finally, a shot of 1st and 2nd squadron lead tanks together. Can't wait to have all 3 squadrons painted up.  3rd squadron will feature the Destroyer Tank Hunter as leader with 2 FW turret Vanquishers to form a tank hunting squadron.  1st and 2nd Squadrons are a mix of the new and old Battle Tank and Demolisher Kits a few of which have several main gun options modeled.  I can field at least 1 of any variant.

That's it for now, not sure what I am going to be working on next, I am currently waiting on some horses to use to make Rough Riders.  I may begin that project next week.  Comments and critique are appreciated, thanks for stopping by.