Flying high - the IG Valkryie in progress

Darth Vader Reborn?

Steps taken so far... roughcoating certain armour plates (too much effort for too little impact? we'll know at the drybrush stage).

Black undercoating.

Step in progress - basecoat colors.

Difficulty - determining what color uniforms should be. Are they of the same IG regiment, of of the Imperial Navy. Decision was taken to be part of the regiment. But slightly different, since flyboys always want to well.. be different. (or not, since the regiment does NOT yet exist... the pilots' flightsuit color scheme might end up being used for the whole regiment!)

But it appears that as present, the infantry armor colors are Orkhide shade.
(so why is the Valkryie's basecoat in Battlegrey? uh oh... not enough thought here!)





Pilot from the front.












Pilot from the front. different picture. Must figure out how to focus camera onto the pilot... perhaps take canopy off first, then put it back on before hitting the take picture button? need to find tripod.











Side view of the front.




"Guns guns guns! hit the target." Rumours are that 3x twin-lascannon version is a forgeworld upgrade. Dang. Perhaps its not too late to rip off the front sensor array to magnetize the lot?


1 week to go. Can it be finished?




Body Update 10 April 2009

The Pilots cockpit/fuselage were completed. Full details on their progress to follow.


Here's the body.




this Picture link is big.







The Door Gunner. Now one would question just how much of a field of fire the gunner would have, with the gull-wing design limiting his vision.









The full Model. Pretty big. The hull is as long as a Land Raider, and the wings... well, 1 1/2 times as wide as a Land Raider. If one somehow manages to field 9 as 3x3 Fast Attack Choices, they will fill up the deployment zone. (or just put everything in reserve!)






Another view of the Valkyrie. The blueness is due to the fact that the camera's light setting was still on incandescent, and the flash triggered. Still, it is in focus.







Quick conclusions
Its been a fun model to put together, with just some complaints about the engines being a little excessive in detail (see th engine hoses right.)

The model can easily take some magnetization (the door gunner is magnetized to make it easier to fit.

The wings can be left unglued, as their mount is deep enough such that one can remove the wings for transport. The front fuselage in this model has just been attached by blu-tack rather than glued on. (It is a pretty lengthy model.)

The flying base is nice. With a cross for the horizontal strength, and a variable plate one attaches to the Valkyrie so that one can find the correct center of gravity so as not to have it fall over. I have only blu-tacked the flying base mount onto the Valkyrie and it has not yet fallen off after 2 days. This is one flying base that will not snap off at the slightest accident.

I'll look into following up how the front fuselage was painted in a following article. Time for a break.


E.o.M.