The camera's flash may not be my friend.

Not having any background in photography, I am generally blind and unthinking in my approach to taking photos. Luckily I have friends who have no problem saying that the shots I took look bad. Specifically the camera's flash washed out the colours so much that any evidence of highlighting was obliterated. So I took a long hard look at these photos and tried taking a few shots in natural light and with the flash off. I did do some colour correction using a very old program I have but I tried to keep my manipulations to a minimum and had the model at hand to compare the colours. It is quite possible that such digital shenanigans is at least partly responsible for the washed out look of the previous set of photos but that sounds too much like taking responsibility and that just is not my thing.

I may finally get my first game of 6th Ed in soon, but for that I am planning on using my Ultramarines. At 300 pts kitted out like this this flier may be a bit much for a 1500 pt game (points wise that is). There is also the inevitability that the first time a newly completed model hits the table, it gets destroyed by the first shot that hits it. I should probably field the Wolves just to get that out of thee way and blame it on unfamiliarity with the demands of the new rule set.

ABW* point reached (*all but weathering)

So the Storm Eagle is pretty much done and assembled. The two frame bar thingies on the front of the canopy were a pain in the butt and popped off at least three different times.Once the canopy was in the front canopy piece did not seem to sit well so I need to re-glue that portion down and secure it. I did do some carbon scoring on the engine nozzles but I kept it low key as I am grooving on the overall appearance of the model. I suspect that I will be adding paint chips and other wear marks but even those will be relatively light. But for now, this is how the project turned out. Now on to the FW projects...

Wow, it's been a while....sorry for the delay.

 So life intervened and greatly interfered with all projects great and small. But I have done some work in the interim. the second, secret FW project has actually become two now but I should have shots of them up by the end of next week. The models are great but the subject matter is not in my area of interest so it is hard to be motivated at times. And I have continued some work on the Storm Eagle. The base coats are about done but I want to finish highlighting the red portions before I apply the first coat of sealer. Then I will continue working on the grey portions. I will need to re-line the lines between the armour plates just to clean up the lines a bit but overall it is starting to shape up. I also detailed the base but I did not photograph any of that just yet. Anyway here are some of the more recent shots:

A lull in the painting...

So an order I made for some FW stuff arrived about 2 weeks earlier than I anticipated and I am currently working on a couple of pieces from there. The idea is to surprise a friend of mine so I am keeping the project under wraps although I can say that it is an interesting piece to paint due to all of the details, though the topic matter is not to my taste.

So unfortunately that means no new photo updates until next week (maybe... depending on my progress) and the Storm Eagle is on hold too. However I have started painting that model up as it is a priority for my personal collection. In fact barring any future favours for friends, all other painting should focus on clearing our the closet of shame (TM).

So bear with me for a little while longer and more regular progress should commence.

Storm Eagle Primed

So I finally assembled and primed the Storm Eagle after adding some wolfy bling from FW. I also cut a pair of "stalking wolves" from plasticard to put on the engine cowling. Some joins require greenstuff as they are much more visible with priming.

Still I can see the beginning of the end for this project, which is good as I will have something completely different as a painting project next. It is a surprise piece, but after that I am looking at returning to the orks or working on the Hierophant biotitan.

I have figured out that right now I am focused on doing projects rather than painting an army, but my ork army has a few projects within it. Still, it would be cool to see the hierophant out with my hierodules some time.Did I mention I have a caestus assault ram on the way? Apparently the closet of shame has a vacancy.

Yet More Storm Eagle WIP

So I have moved the forward control surfaces back now. Positioned at the front, they seemd to give a boxy outline to the model as they widened the front of the SE. Having moved them back now restores most of the delta shape the model had before these fins were attached. I could always just leave them off but that would take this conversion further away from being a SE than I personally would like.

In these shots you can also see the resin SW pieces that I am using to spruce up the plane. The eagle icon from the Rhino door kit from FW on top of the vengeance launcher actually looks surprisingly good. I really should have worked out the mounting before assembling this model though.

And yes I realize that the lascanons on the right wing are crooked. They are not glued in and that mount is a bit looser than the other one.

More Storm Eagle WIP

Well I have added the front stabilizer fins. Originally I had them mounted over the front engines, but they seemed too big and out of place. The actual SE lit has the side doors mounted further back so the front stabilizers are also mounted further back. It also lacks the large engine pods that the SR kit has. So I decided to mount mine over the side doors as it places them in the right location if a little high. They still do not look bad where they are. So here are a couple of shots of the meager progress that I have made this week.