WIP: Stormtalon Part 2 (Games Workshop)

After a week off working hard in "real" life, I got some free time over the weekend to get some paint down.

I take a lot of time planning my moves when I make models. It makes things excruciatingly more slow going, but I like to think I have less soul-crushing mistakes that make me trash a kit as well. Part of this planning process was the knowledge that I had to finish 100% of the cockpit interior before really getting to work on the kit proper.

I started by basing the inside with Tamiya's metallic black, then picking out the lights and other details. I used a few different references when painting the inside, and from looking at aircraft interiors, I wanted to give the semblance that SOME of these buttons and toggles just aren't being used. Some of them I painted as "lit" and some were just the darkest base coat to indicate them being "off." Once the glass goes on, though, you probably won't be able to see, but such is the way of the modeler...most of our time is spent on tiny middling details that nobody will notice but the maker.

The next step was to paint the marine. I've never really done much in the way of painting space marines, so I put this off as long as I could. He's not set up for any particular chapter, just designed to look like he fits with the color scheme I wanted for the actual vehicle, and a very low-fi paint job since the canopy glass will cover most of him anyway. You can see part of him built and painted above. I assembled the head, torso, and legs, then slid him in, since his arms actually attach to the console of the Stormtalon. Once in place, I used tweezers to place the arms in the right spots, but this made putting the shoulder pads on difficult. I used low tack tape, and put glue inside, them wedged it in place:

After that, I used Microscale's Crystal Clear glue to glue the canopy down, with rubber bands on it to clamp it down without causing any damage. The instructions would have you leave this off til the very end, but when you're airbrushing sub-assemblies, it actually can act as a mask for the cockpit interior, so we need to make sure the bond is fantastic. Also, when I do anything outside of normal styrene cement (a different glue like epoxy, putties, etc), I usually do a small test piece (in this case a toothpick) with the material on it to make sure its dry and able to be touched. When the toothpick was dry, it was time to proceed.

I masked off the canopy with Tamiya yellow tape, and it was time to prime. Since I plan to use white and orange on my kit, it was better to start priming in white, as I could use less masking material overall. Right now it looks daunting, but in the long run, it will be a huge time saver.

Alright, time to let the primer dry, and the house to fumigate, and move on. We'll see what happens next, and thanks for stopping by!