Weekend Paint Work

 On Sunday the wife and kids went with my mother-in-law to Yosemite for the night, leaving me with the dog (and chores).

Like an idiot, I thought it would be a fun little project to build up and paint something new with the free time, rather than working on things I already had sitting around on my work table (and there are a LOT of things there lately).

In keeping with my Eldar project, I thought I would build a falcon, which I had new on sprue from an old Eldar battleforce box (where for $85 you got a fair amount of figures, at the time it was 12 guardians, 3 jet bikes, Viper, the falcon, and some of those jungle trees that GW threw into everything at the time.  I think I got it for $65, and now the falcon itself is $55)

To make the project faster, I thought I would try spraying the parts on sprue.  I used this spray in the winter when I was preparing the Eldar and marines that the kid and I have been working on, and it had a great color, but was hydrophobic, and all the figures had to be coated with gesso to use regular paint.  Figuring it was due to the temperature or humidity last time, I conducted a little test on an old sprue, and pleased with the results, sprayed all the sprues for the falcon.

Parts all sprayed and ready to go!

Naturally, the test spray worked, and the actual spray did not... however, I did not know that at first, and got to work building the kit.  This model first came out in 1997, so it is not the most technically advanced, but on the other hand that means that it is pretty easy to figure out how to assemble.  For a kit of that age, it is also interesting how interactive it is, with turning turrets, elevating guns, and opening rear door.  While this kit is well overdue for a refresh, it still comes together pretty nicely. 

Main inner body parts clamped and glued

When I got the tank completed in sub-components, I found out the awful truth about the paint.  Every brush stroke slid off, and thinning paints made it worse.  Fortunately, GW base paints do stick, so by painting everything in thick base paint, I was able to move on.  

Looking pretty good so far, but the frustration of painting each piece a couple of times with very thick paint sapped my will to continue, and I went to bed rather than finishing the paint job, and did not meet my goal of starting and finishing a project in one day. 

Still to come, washes, highlights and layering, and about 100 meters of edge highlights...