I’ve been posting Nid stuff pretty consistantly so far this month, so I figured it was time to mix things up a bit. If you follow my blog regularly, you’ll know that I bought my wife a new camera this Christmas, and I thought I’d give it for a spin on some of my old models. This way, I get to see how good the image quality is, while creating more content for my blog that doesn’t require effort on my part (other than snapping a few pictures).
Below you can find a picture of my old Falcon Anti-Grav Tank, painted in colors of the Biel-Tan craftworld. It’s long-since been my favorite craftworld because of the stark contrast of the green & white, along with the artistry of the flowing thorns. There’s something so sweet about the colors of that dying world…
I painted this tank… oh… ten years ago, during the times of 3rd edition. I remember this was right after the Land Raider kit came out, because our local hobby center was holding a paiting competition where you had to buy and paint a tank, and this was my entry. Lucky for me, everyone else seemed to enter Land Raiders, and the competition was judged by the public. So, I think everyone liked seeing a tank in the display case that was a little different than the rest of them.
For whatever reason, they liked it, and I walked away with about $300 in new models because of it. If I recall correctly, I opted for a mixture of Chaos and Eldar armies… most of those are still downstairs in the shrinkwrap. Did I mention that I have an addiction?
For those that are wondering, the tank is painted almost entirely using drybrushing. The top was sprayed with the Dark Angels green (spray can–back when that was still available). It’s slightly darker than the DA Green that comes in the paint pot. After it was sprayed, I drybrushed every edge with goblin green, then I went back and hit every corner with a very light drybrush of skull white. Long ago, my prefered method of painting things was via drybrushing (if you couldn’t tell).
The whites were sprayed with Citadel Skull White paint and inked with blue ink (diluted slightly with water). I’ve always been a fan of whites that were shaded with blue (as opposed to whites shaded with greys). I don’t know how natural it is, but it does lend the model some vibrancy that it otherwise wouldn’t have. The thorns are chaos black squiggles with watered down shadow grey highlights. I can’t tell you how I did the gems, because I frankly don’t remember. I’m guessing blood red to black, with a blackwash and a white highlight? Who knows…
The advid modellers out there are surely cringing at the fact that I didn’t clean the mold lines. I’ve somewhat grown from those times. Honestly though, I still miss some lines in my current models, but nothing to the extent of these. Check the side of the barrels on the lower targeter, and the line that runs the length of the pulse laser. Ewww.
I’m still proud of my work from 10 years ago, despite the mold lines and the weird white powdery effect on the body of the model (cause by me trying to brush the dust off it with toilet paper–which obviously worked, but had it’s own side effects). After the toilet paper dries off, I’m sure it will still be one of my finest paint jobs. Sadly, I don’t think my painting skills have grown tremendously since this time… Perhaps I’ve hit my zenith and am going down. Though, I also don’t spend nearly as long on models as I did on this one. If I recall correctly, this took me over 20 hours of effort. Now I can’t think of a model I spend more than 3-4 hours on.
If you’ve been watching my miniature gallery for a while, you’ll notice that pics of this tank started going up on New Years. This is because I’m actually away on vacation for the next two weeks, so I’m pre-writing blog entries to post while I’m gone.
Anywho, stay tuned for more painting updates, and possibly more old models I’ve dredged up…
Aloha!
Warhammer 39,9999 
Smooth paint job. I really like the more subtle highlights on it. Makes it appear more organic.