It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a FLYER!

[Wappellious]

Yes, this thing finally has actual rules :-)

It is a big part of the Angels Solaris army which you can see here on the blog:

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2012...s-solarus.html

Today I finally posted the storm raven!
http://www.coolminiornot.com/313128

Here are a few images:

[PaintMyBits]

Your art has made this model look a million times better than it is. The freehand is awesome and the hulls blend from top to bottom is flawless. Very cool

[Wappellious]

Thanks! Its bulkyness can be quite unsightly, that's for sure...

[freakinacage]

Fair play, air brush for some of it?

[supervike]

A flying brick!

A nicely painted one, to be sure.

[moetle]

Best one I have seen yet. Awesome.

[Dragonsreach]

I have to be honest it's not a kit that appeals to me, but this is a Damn Fine Painted version.

[Wappellious]

Thanks for all the kind words on this beast! The only thing rougher is the Storm Raven, of which I have done one already (see requisite blog posts under Imperial Fists).

Anyway, no airbrushes were harmed in the making of this brick airliner. I used to use airbrushes all the time in my regular 2D artwork, but for several reasons had to set those aside. For the last year or so, I have been painting with much bigger brushes. Even on small minis like the Reaper she devil, I start out with a #8 round.

For vehicles such as this, I use flat sable brushes (all the way up to 10) which helps me move around each surface very rapidly. I also use powders on my vehicles, which helps a great deal. My next experiment is to start taking my regular Sennilier pastels and grind them down to use as miniature painting pigments!

[KruleBear]

I am even more impressed knowing it is all brushed. Great freehand.

[Wappellious]

Thanks! I have noticed quite the explosion of airbrushed minis lately, especially with painting services doing 40k armies. Since I am often "on the road", with only some paints and a few brushes... or working on a whole lot of fantasy figures, etc., the airbrush is just not practical.

Also, my wife would not appreciate any compressor, no matter how quiet, going off at 4-5 am in the morning (that's how late I have been working for a while)!

Perhaps I might break out the airbrush to do some experiments of my own, but I prefer the faster clean up of brushes for the time being!

[KruleBear]

I have two airbrushes that i have never used on minis. A 20 year old single action Badger that i painted one batmobile with ( still unfinished to this day). I bought an expensive doule action a few months ago and decided i still was not accurate enough to use it on a mini. But after seeing Moetle's use of it on those anime figures i am thinking i will use it to base coat and try zenithal highlighting on some Warmachine minis that are essentially all red.

In my short use i did find one usefull trick...get a portable air tank ( roughly 5 gallons) used for filling tires when you are not near power. Remove the tire wand, add a regulator, and add a connector for the air brush. I fill it up in the barn with my big compressor, then bring it to the house for hours of quiet air supply.

[Wappellious]

I had some very neat Iwata aribrushes, a Badger, and all sorts of air pressure/condensation controls. I used to use an airbrush for 10-12 hours a day of painting when I did the 2D art. One thing we did notice when we tried using the airbrush in a few experiments on miniatures is that you could not avoid a texture difference when it came time to do brush work. I know that from my 2D art.

In the end, it was just a lot faster and easier to adopt the bigger brush, shaded basecoat technique :-)

[Aldonis]

James - this is one of the most impressive paint jobs I've seen on this model. Got to see your Grey Knights at Adepticon - truly stunning! Thanks for sharing the awesome stuff you do - even though I suffer from incredible envy of the artistic talent you have!

Best regards!

[Wappellious]

Thanks for the kind words!! I am hoping that my new Adepticon armies will be as much fun to look at!! The Tomb Kings are mostly done (just making some new units to change up the army), and I am now beginning to paint my Dark Eldar stuff. I think they could be pretty dramatic. :-)