Imperial Sabre Jetfighter, Part 3

Here we are at the third and final part. Our fighter is ready for action. As you can see, I attached the tail elevators after de-orking them.  

I've actually surprised myself with the airbrushing, I feel I'm really getting the hang of it now with various techniques I've now tried out. 

Masking things off is a pain, especially the chequered band around the tail fin. Last time I tried is one some aurora chapter predators, I ended up leaving the tape on to long and pulled the paint off with it which caused all sorts of hassle. This time I was more careful though! 

My new favourite airbrush trick, is to spray the citadel washes through it to get a very light grubby effect. I think it suits this model especially well, and probably any flier. I can't imagine they get battle damaged and wether the same way of ground forced, tanks and such. 

I used both nuln oil, around the metal areas, such as the vents down the fuselage, and seraphim sepia just on the general grey panels.

What's a military aircraft without some nose art? Originally I was going to go with the classic eyes and mouth, but I thought I'd be a little more subtle, and a little more original than that. Also, flaming dice on a wargaming model? Doesn't feel like I can go wrong really! 

Just so you can see underneath. I thought about doing it a different colour, perhaps a lighter grey, but once I'd painted it this far, I didn't want to over do it! 

So the model is complete. How do I think I did? I'm actually pretty happy with it. I think it looks pretty imperial. Perhaps if I did another, I'd probably use some more stereotyped imperial guns, auto cannons, heavy bolters, lascannons, to really get the point over. I'm not sure if I might look a bit to 'Just stuck imperial guns on an orky plane' then though. I think the reason the painting works, is the shading between panels makes them stand out a lot, like a proper imperial plane. It almost take the eye of the fact it was an orky plane. 

I'd now be interested to paint up both an unconverted Dakkajet, and an imperial Valkyrie to put my skills to the test!

Gonders