An Exercise in Frustration

When does the Taxi get here? 

The last of my reclaimed Ultramarine sets that I'm repainting into Blood Raven colours is a Landspeeder Storm, and it's turning into a bit of nightmare. I started this blog to be a record of my painting, so i guess the frustrating things that don't turn out belong here too, so here's a "Works in Progress" Update on it.

So this was assembled and originally painted up blue, and stripped down pretty well. I'd clearly not undercoated it properly when I first did so some of the paint refused to be removed, and there are some areas that whilst aren't obvious at distance, really look rough close up. But that's not the main problem. The main problem is that painting it's interior is a horrorshow.

Gah! Scruffy Cockpit Interior

I was able to get the crew out of the set without problem but the rest of the speeder remained steadfastly intact. The open cabin has a fair bit of molding, including gun racks, screens and controls, and assembled you can't get a brush at them other than in fairly broad strokes, and clean, straight dividing lines are nearly impossible, at least at my skill level. Given that I wanted to do the interior in a light cream/white colour to contrast it with the red hull, it just looks scruffy - which will be fine, to an extent, when the interior gets aged and worn but ideally I'd have liked it to look clean in the first place.

I've less excuse with the scouts themselves but my old nemesis - white cloth - has risen to defeat me again. I've had fun with it before, in small areas, but always managed to make sure it was on a small enough part of a model to not make much of a difference, visually. But these buggers are evading me - I seem to be able to get a decent cloth effect in any other colour. Currently painted light grey, dark wash and then a white highlight, and i suspect that'll have to do. Ho Hum.

Is there good news? Well white leggings aside, the scouts are looking OK. The main colour is done on the speeder now and it looks pretty solid, and once the white wings/tail are on I think it'll look pretty good. And then hopefully the busy, cramped nature of the passenger bay, combined with dirt and wear along the base line and forward edges, will cover up a lot of the "scruff". Fingers crossed, eh?

White wings and tail to be added!