Wayland

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Eldar Nightwing Conversion/Liquid Mask/Sun Blitz Botherhood

Every time I try to get out - they pull me back in...

One of the combinations of armies I want to try in 6th Edition 40k is Codex Eldar and Eldar Corsairs. The Corsairs army list is given in Imperial Armour Volume 11: Doom of Mymeara. It is a fast attack list. Apart from some compulsory cannon-fodder infantry, the list features lots of fast movers, from jetpack walkers and jetbikes, to fighter and bomber aircraft. Since reading the book I've had a yearning to field an army with flyers in it and, as 6th Edition features these vehicles, now's the time.

The downside of this list though is the cash cost. Both the Nightwing fighter and Phoenix bomber are Forgeworld models and quite pricey. When trying to decide if I really wanted to commit more than £100 on two models it suddenly hit me that the Edar Razorwing is very similar to the Nightwing, in shape at least. A minimal amount of kitbashing later, and we have this:


Its not a perfect match, but its good enough. The Nightwing doesn't have the central dorsal fin and does have moving wings. But my model cost half as much as Forge World's, so I'll keep the £30 and use mine, thanks very much.

It is simple enough to switch the Dark Eldar Lance's out for some surplus Eldar ones from the bits box. They require a bit more effort to secure, not having the nice little square peg the supplied parts do. The forward Shuriken Cannons are also quite simple to make from chopped down tank weapons and a couple of other spare parts.

For the paint scheme I have decided to go with the Sun Blitz Brotherhood, also found in the IA11 book.

I based the model with a black primer. On top of this I sprayed a Mechrite Red base coat, then a layer of Blood Red, and then a couple of coats of Vallejo's Game Colour Gold Yellow. I have blended up some of the more raised areas with a mix of Gold Yellow and Iyanden Darksun and edge highlighted the panels with Sunburst Yellow. Sadly, most of these paints are no longer available, but Vallejo probably do passable equivalents of the GW colours or you could just use Air colours.

The next step is to add the red spirals that marks this vehicle out as a Sun Blitz flyer.

When planning this I saw two ways to do it. Either, having sprayed the thing with the reds, mask off the spiral shapes before spraying on the yellows, or spray all the colours, mark out the spirals and then respray the reds. I went with the latter for two reasons: my airbrush is not that great (nor is my technique) and it was late at night when I started painting so there was no way to get hold of some liquid mask.

Here is how the model looks with the Liquid Mask (also by Vallejo) painted on:


I have never used the mask before so here's a couple of things I have learnt:

  • It looks like a fairly watery paint on the palette
  • It can be painted on to a model pretty much like a paint, having a consistency similar to thinned PVA glue.
  • It dries more quickly than a paint. Beware of using your good brushes for application - it will form a gum between the bristles really quickly, so use an older brush you don't mind writing off if you can't get all the mask off.
  • It takes longer to dry on the model than an acrylic paint. I'm not sure how long you're supposed to leave it until painting over, but its been on my model for about twenty minutes now and still feels a little tacky in places. That said, I've seen videos where people sprayed over it almost immediately so I'm going to go ahead and spray it now.

Thats all there is for now. When I have sprayed on the spirals I'll take some more pictures and write about removing the mask.

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