I chose the Vendetta Gunship for its tankbusting abilities, and because it’s just a cool model. Unfortunately, the only way to get the parts to convert it is from Forge World which also comes with a minimum order of £250 to get free shipping. So off to look at third party vendors to see what I can find!
I ended up getting the lascannons for under the wings from puppetswar, and a pair of sentinel cannons from eBay for the nose, which came to less than the Forge World kit, even with shipping.
As with most of my models in this army, I started out with a coat of the Krylon Olive Drab Camouflage paint which claims that it has better adhesion with its “Fusion Technology”. I have found that this stuff really does stick well to plastic, especially if you give it 24 hours to cure. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures prior to slapping some paint on, so here is the earliest one I have:
Once the base coat was primed, I gave it a coat of sepia ink which gave it a suitable grimy and stained look. I did the same with metal pieces to make them look worn. Once the ink dried I did edge highlighting with Castellan Green to make it pop a little more.
Next was the patterns on the wing and tail. I use a pencil and draw on my model so I have a guide. Any mistakes I make in this process can be erased and drawn again. It’s important that you make sure that your paint is completely dry before drawing on it! If you draw too soon, you will end up peeling paint off with your pencil or your eraser. I would let your drawing surface cure for at least 12 hours before writing on it (I usually wait 24)!
While I waited for layers of paint to dry, I would paint rivets – I used Tin Bitz as a nice complimentary color. I only painted the rivets on the parts I wasn’t going to touch that day – again, letting the paint cure is key to prevent it from rubbing off. I learned this the hard way when I handled it too soon and wondered what happened to all of the rivets I picked out.
Once my patterns were satisfactory, I started painting them in, using the guides I had drawn. I know you are probably sick of hearing it, but thin layers of paint is the key to success with these patterns! You may have to do this several times to get coverage, but I promise you will be more satisfied with the result!
While the patterns dried I edge weathered the lascannons by using metal paint to give the appearance of chipped off black.
The Vendetta was a pretty fun model to paint. I still have two vulture gunships to add to my air support, and I look forward to painting them for Adepticon 2017!