Legion Scimitar Jetbikes - Part III

 

V8 turbo charged rocket engine strapped to a seat.

Having decided that the jetbikes have been sitting for far too long and need to be finished, I've managed to get a little more done on them. They're fully assembled now, other than the main weapons, but still need an awful lot details to be done, and a matt varnish to cut back the over abundance of gloss that I'd applied earlier.

I'm actually not a huge fan of the colours right now, but I think that's because there's a complete lack of spot colours to break up all that red. There will be blue headlights on the stabiliser wings, some more extreme highlights on the engine, black trim needs highlighting, brighter red edge highlights later to pick out the shape more, and whatever else I can think of. I'm also still pondering over the Imperial Aquila on the nose of the jetbike, and whether that should be a golden colour, or black. I'm leaning towards black, but highlighted in the style of the Blood Angels symbol. That would then make it a point of interest but harmonious with the rest of the model. So I will stay the course and see how it turns out.

The riders themselves are a bit of a pain. I glued them together, painted them, then sat them in place later. This proved to be a mistake, as they don't sit quite properly. I should have glued them in place at the start to get the torso and arms correct, or painted the pieces individually and only assembled at the very end for the same reason. I'm sorely tempted to get the plastic jetbikes one day just for this reason; the riders on the plastic variant will be seated better and I can customise the shoulder pads and helmet to fit with these  models easily enough.

On to some painting ideas: I wanted the cabling underneath the rider to stand out a little bit, without being overly bright, and settled on an orange:

• Squig Orange as the first colour, with at least two coats to build up a little bit of colour.
• Troll Slayer Orange to brighten the cabling.
• Carroburg Crimson to add some shading for definition.
• Troll Slayer Orange again to bring back the brightness in a few areas.

I definitely like the colour for the cabling, but as with most things on this model it needs a bit more variation around it. I'll see how it goes later on.

Most of the brass colours are so far fairly simple:

• Warplock Bronze.
• Castellax Bronze to highlight.
• Agrax Earthshade to shade.

I'll be playing with the colours more after the matt varnish stage. Whatever I decide on, I want to keep that bronze look as very distinct from the silver/grey metals.

There are decals on these models already, which I chose to bring some artistic flair to the bikes. The blacks of the decals is because of the printer used - I might have preferred a gold initially, but actually the black is starting to grow on me. If nothing else, it will fit with the Imperial Aquila rather than being in competition with it.

-- silly painter