The predator recovery project

Greeeetings non-existent readership!

In this post i figured i'd catalogue my efforts in recovering one of the very first vehicles i did.

This lil' beauty was one of my vehicles that suffered pretty noticeably from when i had an air leak on the compressor connecting hose, resulting in me needing to thin the color down quite a bit (mistake number one) and then using too high a pressure to compensate for the lack of an even flow (not the song, but misstake number two)

the result from this is a pretty regular occurence and is easy to identify, if you have a very runny color that pools in places and runs of other surfaces, you have simply thinned the paint too much and had too high a pressure, the problem was, for me, further amalgamated as my dark colors in the metallic scheme pooled rather extensive, leaving a mottled color, that i thought looked a bit reptilian in nature. Sleep addled as i was i let it dry and headed to bed, only when i woke up did i recognize my mistake.

However,  having as of late, gained some rudimentary skill with my airbrush i figured i'd try my dab hand at recovering the vehicles, and in so doing, getting a uniform scheme for all future vehicles.

Now most of what i am doing here is exactly what i did with my Sicarian tank. But in a couple of more turns, to properly use all the colors.

This is what i started with

As i mentioned you can see that the green and blue layers have pooled and gives a mottled effect, now had i gone for an overtly reptilian or draconian theme, like the 40k work that does, it might have looked good. But as it stands it just looks blotchy and haphazardly done, if not lazy.

Now, as with the sicarian i gave it a nice thin layer of the vallejo acrylic

As close as love comes in a bottle

 The first layer, great as it is for coverup (thusly eliminating entirely the need of doing black basecoats) will leave some colored spaces, if you want a good impression of what the light hitting it will be like, you can leave these areas untouched, and then have the lighter color (silver for metallics, for me at least) Now, after my two layers of acryllic metal, i move on to Vallejos "silver" not covering the entire tank, but rather where the light will hit it, like the front arc of the tank, the areas at the top front, and the edges to the side. Imagine sun filtering through a broken, twisted hab-block, and how the light would fall on your tank.

 it should leave you with something like this. , not a great picture, but the difference will be more tangible later, particularly in regards to the blocky turret for the Mars Autocannon (left) as opposed to the cupola shape of the plasma executioner, giving both different light 

while the quality isn't great, it gives a decent impression 

 Now, for me, this is pretty much what i was going for, lighter "patches" here and there that really looks great when you see it on the table.This is after only two light layers of Calth blue. A simplified FW recipe is

* Metals as before
* 1 layer calth blue
* 1 layer mortarion green
* 1 layer calth blue again

it gives a good AL scheme, with none of the tamiya hassle (if you consider it thus, that is)

 Kindly notice that this is a NEW tank, the "restored one" is below, with all the gubbinz i'm going to gush about

Forgeworld gushing in, 3,2,1.....

 i think that my love for Fw gubbbins is clearly documented at an earlier juncture. But the thing is, if you buy some plates for your legion, and a pintle mounted weaponry set (two of each netting you six weapons) and a tank commander set (you get three alternatives) you can EASILY make your transports, Deimos or Mars patterned, look unique. Which i know is something that a lot of people working on a budget for is worried about. Above is (in no particular order) a tank commander, two pintle sets, and two deimos turrets, that, in my opinion, works GREAT for the mars pattern. or the Deimos pattern brand of turret..... moving on!

Now we only have details left

* Stripes around the vents (see above) either black or white is good, i use white for command tank designations.
* all rivets in leadbelcher, all "steps" in leadbelcer, the chimney stacks in leadbelcer and drybrushed with a good copper, and whatever hatches you fancy
* i did the back vent (on the top) with copper, nuln oil, and an easy highlight of lighter metal (what-chu fancy) to get some variation.
* lenses. i did them in red, for matching the rest of my army, and did the whole "half moon with white dot" that you can find GOOD painters to describe better


Let dry

And move on decalling. Now, if you don't use microsol or similar, you can always use 'ardcoat under neath the decal, and the use another coat ON the decal to keep it down. It's passable.

This is my tank commander. the XX on the cupola is due to it being the ONLY iconography missing on the rest :)

Front pic, i'm pretty satisfied with the angle of his arm, he's scouting for targets

And here's a picture of the new one i did, the entire squadron will have the stylized" 3 on the right side, and an Omega on the left side, I magnetized the sponsoons, and with a wide variety of turrets each tank can be what i want it to be, the hydra way.


Final pic of everyone together

And there you are, two out of three done, and one extra turret for my last one, i think the command tank will be deimos patterned. Since i managed to get my mitts on one.

Thanks (if you did) for the read

keep stronk!

#powerfullsweden