GW dakkajet - WIP

[Hasdrubal]

Hi all,

After a nearly 1-year painting break, I've found the drive to go back to the painting table again. I've started working on hte latest GW Ork kit, the dakkajet, by assembling and painting the pilot:



As it will be inserted in the cockpit, I've obviously placed more emphasis on zenithal highlights on the shoulder, uppper fingers, and the like.

As usual, feedback is much appreciated!

[marjedi]

He is great! Love that kit, want one soooo bad lol.

[cassar]

if the rest turns out anything like this should be a gudn

[marjedi]

One flew out of the local GW store and crashed in my arms....now i have to take it hime and paint it

[Master Splinter]

nice orky pilot, love the glasses. "Fer very fit ork ladz". Need one also.

[Hasdrubal]

Thanks for the feedback guys. It's nice to be able, once in a while, to take the time to work on single models to a good standard instead of doing tabletop painting in assembly line style. Mentally refreshing

The plane is assembled and glued. GW really did a good job on the kit, as there are lots of different combinations possible to tailor the model as one sees fit. I usually paint in lots of sub-assemblies, this time I've decided to challenge myself by assembling almost all the parts prior to painting. The tail isn't glue yet, 2 guns and 2 side panels are also handled separetely for ease and quickness of painting.



I'll try a different technique to paint the canopy frame this time. I've masked off all the glass panels, leaving only the frame exposed. As the canopy is in 2 parts, and not glued yet, it's sealed from the inside using blue tack, which also doubles as temporary adhesive during painting. This, I hope, should help during the airbrushing phases as everything while be done at the same time. Close-up on the canopy:



As usual, suggestions and C&C are welcome!

[marjedi]

It is an impresive kit this one. Easy to assemble and will be fun to paint, mine is primered and drying. Didnt go for one of the "official" builds, just built it to look good. And i am gonna add all the dakkagunz a rear gunnergrot and all the bombz and missile that fit.

[Slybarbeau]

One trick that I have learn, for the canopy, is painting the first layer with the interior color of the cokpit. After paint the canopy the color of the exterior fusolage. So when youare going to take off the masking tape, you will see, from within, the inside color of the cokpit inside the canopy. I am french, so I hope that you understand what I wrote is. I Have started that kit too, but my compressor just let me go last week. You have fun.

[marjedi]

i Agree with this, an old model aircraft builders trick

[Hasdrubal]

Thanks for the tip! To be honest I considered doing it, but was too lazy to bother. I'll definitely do it should Iwant to present to model to a painting contest though.

@ Slybarbeau: I'm French as well, but I perfectly understood what you meant

More progress on the plane this week-end, as it received its initial basecoat. I started by priming the kit with Vallejo's grey polyurethane primer, then did some pre-shading using thinned VAC black. The engines and guns received a layer of VAC Gunmetal, then were masked. I'll have to touch them up after though, as the side thrusters are a pain to mask. I then sprayed my yellow basecoat and modulated it:



I started with GW Squig Orange, which is an orange-brownish color. It's alsmot invisible, but gives a nice tint towards the back. I followed with GW Tau Light Ochre, which actually is sort of the base color here. The third layer is GW Averland Sunset. This was supposed to be the base color, but I thinned it more than the previous layers and, as such, it isn't showing as strongly as I would like. Fourth layer is P3's Moldy Ochre, sprayed from a zenithal angle and focuising on the front part of the body and wings. The next highlight is P3's Sulfuric Yellow, and the final layer is a mix of Sulfuric Yellow and VMC Ivory. Total time to paint the yellow : about 2.5 hours, including intermediate cleaning between each layer.

A close-up on a wing:


The final result isn't 100% what I expected as I initially envisioned a more yellowish tone, to fit with the Bad Moon theme of my ork army (for those who play W40K), but I'm not that surprised as moved towards a more natural/muted palette over the last 2 years as I borrow from military modelling techniques.

Most of the highlights on the plane body will ultimately be covered by the flames pattern I plan on spraying this week-end. Should I then try to deepen the shading to bring more contrast? I'm hesitant to do it as I fear it would bring the overall tone from a yellowish ochre, which is fine for me, to a more brownish ochre, which I don't want to. Your advice would be most appreciated!

As usual, thanks for reading!

[marjedi]

Another yellow ork plane lol!

And flames....deary me.

I know the feeling of not having ones paint job look like one would want. Painting yellow in the future I would recomend using VMC flat yellow first and then shooting a more vibrant yellow on top. Finish with brown oil wash and bobs your uncle.

[Hasdrubal]

No updated picture of the plane since I only added a couple of copper plates on the piping. However, I spent the better part of this morning practicing airbrushing fire pattern with my airbrush.
Since acquiring an AB, I've been looking at lots of tutorials on techniquse used by airbrush artists, and decided to give (realistic) flame licks a go. This is a fantastic exercise to push me outside of my confort zone as I have to apprehend another way of visualizing an effect I want to achieve, i.e. visualizing how the flame can look like, based on rough free-handing. However, here's the twist: while most realistic fire effects are on a black background, and made with light colors, mine needs to be inverted as I want to apply it on a yellow plane (side note for 40K players: I knew Goff where the easier scheme...). This obviously makes thibgs much more difficult to do. Onto exercises results on pieces of cardboard:




While I've still got a long way to go, this was useful in understading how to build flames, and how black candy color works. While the white flames on the 1st test are OK, I prefer the transitioin of color built on the second one (guess what colors I used). I've also understaood how Auto Air colors work, how they behave, and how I should spray them. Lots of lessons laerned, lots to think about.

I might go for a simple design on the dakkajet, using a Smoke layer, then a white layer for accents and the 2nd licks, before tying everything together with black candy. Have to try it on the mext exercise before moving to the model ^^.

[marjedi]

Ufff the airbrushed flames, really hard to do on such a small surface. I find it better to cut out a template and go from there. Freehand flames works better on large surfaces.

But if you can pull it off your AB skills are topnotch!

[Hasdrubal]

Well, that's the part of my game I want to push on this model

I've eventually found a reference of what I want to achieve:



Know I kind of see the direction I need to go to.

[marjedi]

Looks neat....buuuut not orky!

Would looks sweet on a valkyrie.

[Hasdrubal]

I know it doesn't look proppa as such, but the weathering should take care of te extra neatness. Bad Moons are rich enough to afford paying for humies slaves as painters instad of using those puny grots ^^.

[marjedi]

Lol, true dat. Must be a boss plane.....and ace!

[Hasdrubal]

Now this is more like it, I think I've got the concept right this time:




The cardboard piece is about 6 inches long and 10 inches wide.
Sorry about the quality of the picture, I went a bit overboard with the black candy, the bottom is a bit glossy and my camera is drowning out the details. It's close to 11:30 PM so I'm too lazy to kill it with matt varnish then wait for it to fully dry.
Still got to work on the general movement, but it should be easier on the dakkajet as the curves of the model will guide me. Next updatewill feature either a big fail or a black-fired plane!

[Crazychester]

When you're done the plane can you come do my car?

[Hasdrubal]

Lol. True-fired dakkajet pictures:




I started by outlining a few large flames using Auto Air Transparent Smoke Black, reduced to a 1:1 ratio with Auto Air Reducer (about 10 PSI air pressure). I then applied a light Black Candy layer (same reduction) and let it dry. I then siwtched to Transparent White to lay out the flames, using different templates to get long licks as well as faster, more curved licks, being careful not to overdo it. I re-applied Black Candy, then went for the last layer of flames, making sure I was painting short curved flames rowards the nose of the plane. I then applied Black Candy one last time, but focused it more on the areas between the last layer of flames, so that they would stand out against the black background. As I had some Black Candy left in the airbrush, I then sprayed faint additional flames towards the back of the plane to tie everything together, and darkened the guns and bullet areas.

I used Artool True Fire templates in Mini and Nano sizes, Auto Air Transparent and Candy paints, shot through my H&S Infinity, using a 0.2 needle.

As usual, feedback is much appreciated, especially considering this is my first go at true fire on an actual model!