Storm Raven Commission

Not too long after the Storm Raven kit came out, I got a phone call from a friend while he was playing Magic at one of the local stores...

"Hey Tim! Would you consider painting up a Storm Raven for the Fantasy Shop on commission?"

After a little negotiation and deliberation, I had a new Storm Raven kit delivered to me for assembly and paint. My first thought was, "This is great! I get to experience the new kit and get paid to do it!". Unfortunately my second thought was, "Oh crap! I just agreed to a fairly large project, and Adepticon is right around the corner!". See, I still had a Rhino, Predator and Drop Pod, along with a few other bits, it paint up for the tournament. Thank God I have an understanding wife, otherwise I wouldn't have finished anything before Adepticon.


Considering I was going for a display piece for a shop, I decided on a Blood Angels paint scheme, and also decided that I needed to paint the interior to show off the model to potential buyers. Once those decisions were made, I had to figure out what to assemble first, and to what degree the assembly was going to be before I began priming. After those decisions were made, I primed the interior Skeleton Bone from Army Painter and painted the interior completely.

After the interior was complete, I masked it off with Frisket Film and the primed the exterior Dragon Red, again from Army Painter, in two thin coats to insure both even coverage and consistency in color. To be honest, using the Frisket Film mask was an experiment as I needed something to mask off the fully detailed interior, without taking up any paint, and it worked beautifully. I highly recommend it's use for any masking needs, and am contemplating it's further uses in the future for camo and other detailing.

After priming, it was a fairly standard process for painting the exterior. I did detail the interiors of the cockpit and turret, again for display purposes. The biggest finisher for the exterior would be my use of weathering powders for shading and atmospheric effects.

I'll go into more detailed usage of weathering powders in a later post if anyone is interested. What I will say is that I do recommend playing around with them on old models to get the hang of them before using them on pieces you care about. The learning curve isn't steep, but it's there. The other point I'll make is to shop around. Weathering powders are like paints. Everyone, including yourself, will have preferences towards which brand you want to use. I like using the Bragdon Enterprises brand of these.
www.bragdonent.com/weather.htm

In the end, the Storm Raven came out great, I think. I'm pleased with the results and the local shop was as well! I wish I had some shots of the interior, but I wasn't thinking and delivered the model to the shop before I took some well lit, and better planned, pictures. Ah well, I'll get some eventually.

-Tim