These two Imperial fighters were built and painted by me a couple years ago. In my quest to down size my collection, they are headed up to ebay. Both have color schemes used in Tactica Aeronautica, from the Typha IV campaign. Typha IV was an ice world, and featured both Tau and Imperial forces, and was primarily an air war.
I chose to paint the Thunderbolt up in the color scheme of Ixan Muro, a fighter ace druring the war. Knowing that I couldn't paint the eagle wings free hand, here is how I did it:
After assembly, the model was primed white. I then used a pencil to draw the imperial wing designs. Then, taking masking tape, I blocked out the sections for the wings, and sprayed the model black with an airbrush. Once that was done, I used layers of Golden Yellow and Bad Moon Yellow. The black was carefully touched up, and then I used my normal silver scheme for those areas.
The gold for the front eagle, was also done with my normal gold layering. Finally, I used P3 Coal Black to create edge highlights.
The Lightning used a camo pattern pictured in Tactica Aeronautica for the 111th Fighter Wing. This is the old, out of print Lightning pattern no longer available. I used various gray shades to achieve the colors.
The camp pattern is done just by creating wavy lines across the model with the lowest layer of gray. Then consecutive lighter layers are applied to create the highlighted effect. The black is done as I normally paint it, just like on the Thunderbolt.
My biggest regret with these two models is that they were acquired before the new flying stands were existant. It would have been nice to be able to use them in a more natural way during games.
