So a long time ago, I had something of beauty. A fully built, fully painted Imperial Thunderbolt. I had done it is a cream colour scheme to be one of the mighty Apostles from Abnett's book Double Eagle. I loved the Thunderbolt model, and honestly still do. It is one of the single greatest designs in the 40k mythos. It just is brooding with power, a brawler in the skies. I of course was particularly proud of mine, even though compared to the work I can do now, it probably wasn't that impressive. It did have some cool features though, as I had bought 4 hellstrikes and modeled one of them launching.
It would probably still be like that today. The cream blending, missile firing, slight super glue frosting on the cockpit window. But alas it was struck down. One summer, coming home from college, I had loaded up my jeep and without a good case to put it in, I had set it on top of a pillow in the back on top of everything. The pillow was even slanted so that if the Thunderbotl slid, it just slid into a box and rested there. It handled the trip fine and made it all the way home. When I got there it was time to start unloading the car. Unfortunately, my brother did not understand the concept of taking from the top first, so what did he do? He removed the first thing in the middle, which just so happened to be supporting the pillow that had been the safe and secure resting place of my Thunderbolt for the last 7 hours. Without the support, the Thunderbolt went into a terminal nosedive and got into a fight with the pavement that it never had a chance of winning. All in all the damage wasn't extensive, just major at one key point- a wing had broken off. Sheared right through. In doing so, some other slight damage was done and two missiles broken off, but it was the wing that put the nail in the coffin for years to come.
Over time some little progress was made here and there. I just glued the broken wing back on and used it is several Apoc games, even with the damage. But it just wasn't the same. So eventually I bought a bunch of simple green, grabbed a tupperware container large enough, and gave it a week long bath with daily scrubbing and scraping. After I had it stripped as best I could and broken down to it components I... well I let it sit. For quite some time. Something like 2 years. I have always wanted to bring it back. I could see the paint scheme in my head (especially since it was out of IA Vol 1 and already in use for my Aeronautica), I just need the time, reason, and dedication.
Then came 6th Edition and the incorporation of flyers into the game. I knew it was time. I sat down, took out the parts, grabbed mine pin vice, grey stuff, green stuff and plasticard and began reattaching stuff. After a few hours of work this is what I had. Keep in mind, both wings had been snapped off where they met the fuselage.
So then I took some primer and put down the base coat.
Next it was time to work on the pilot. Since I have to finish the interior first anyways, he seemed the logical place to start, plus was a nice change of pace from Marines.
To do the checker pattern I just did a yellow base coat stripe and a once over with a yellow layer and then put on plack dots and then went back with yellow layer paints to brighten the yellow. Then cleanup up the edges with the black and ceramite white. His boots are scraped up from test fitting, but you can't see them in the plane anyways, so I didn't really care too much. It is the top half of his torso/birds eye view angle that matter most.
Well thats good for now. I have done more work, but not too much (the cockpit and base coating the place) As for now, I leave you with what the end goal is with Aeronautica and IA Vol 1references.
1303rd Fighter Wing. This will be Flight Lt Gabriel Constantine