Lightyear Armadillo repurposed - 2nd Armadillo finally finished

[anevilgiraffe]

You mean this one?



I've got one as well, IIRC it cost me €12,- including shipping... It's ridiculously large, but would make for a great bad guy ship in some scenario. I haven't started mine yet either, but there are plans... 

yeah, I got one for about a fiver from Amazon... no idea what I'm going to do with it, but it was only a fiver...

[Rick]

The twin hull is a bit problematic - with that filled in it'd make a good, roomy dropship. As it is the model just screams "CRASH!" - the potential for cutting it apart (don't wince you wuss!) and making it into pieces of terrain scattered over a wide area as the remains of a crashed starship seem like a good idea and the potential for adding more detailing and converting seem pretty awesome. Other ideas are available! 

[Daeothar]

There's that of course, but the two prongs remind me of some 40K Chaos designs, such as this capital ship:



But more importantly, those fighters below.


So my idea is to (lightly) convert this ship into an assault shuttle, which happens to have been built along the same design philosophy as the above ships. I'll just need to add some doors/ramps somewhere with recognisable 40K design, paint the whole thing blood red, with some off-center Chaos Star in off-white, and presto

[Daeothar]

Just a small update on the two new Armadillos. They were both primed in grey and then one of them is receiving the same paintjob that the first one got, bar some minor differences.

This one has received a spare/replacement door on its left side, probably because the original was faulty or damaged. It still sports the paint scheme of its previous owner, which I'm aiming to have a vaguely Star Wars look to it (red squadron vibes).

The other one will receive a militairy scheme. I am especially taken by the paintscheme that Spleenrippa came up with, so I might just emulate that. Or something like it at the very least.

I might work on that one first though, since I'm very near the decal stage on the brown one, and I'm still sourcing those as per a couple of posts above. Still no luck on that front I'm afraid... 

[Gunbird]

I might work on that one first though, since I'm very near the decal stage on the brown one, and I'm still sourcing those as per a couple of posts above. Still no luck on that front I'm afraid... 

I just finished checking my way too extensive collection of decal sheets, but the closest I got is a 1/72 CH-53G sheet. Sorry

[Daeothar]

Hey, no problem; thanks for looking anyway!

[spleenrippa]

Just a small update on the two new Armadillos. They were both primed in grey and then one of them is receiving the same paintjob that the first one got, bar some minor differences.

This one has received a spare/replacement door on its left side, probably because the original was faulty or damaged. It still sports the paint scheme of its previous owner, which I'm aiming to have a vaguely Star Wars look to it (red squadron vibes).

The other one will receive a militairy scheme. I am especially taken by the paintscheme that Spleenrippa came up with, so I might just emulate that. Or something like it at the very least.

I might work on that one first though, since I'm very near the decal stage on the brown one, and I'm still sourcing those as per a couple of posts above. Still no luck on that front I'm afraid... 

Your Armadillos are brilliant. I have one left unpainted, and I was thinking of doing a generic commercial scheme... Def going to steal the stripes you painted on yours 

[Daeothar]

Cheers

After first nerding out over having to have the exact same decals as I used before, for Armadillo number two, and seeing the several options out there to get what I want, I finally decided to say 'frak it, it's a tabletop terrain piece, not a competition level scale model after all'.

I could have bought a complete vintage kit off the internet, but they're quite dear, and I would be needing just the decal sheet after all, leaving me with an incomplete kit I would probably never build.

There are also 3rd party decal printers, and there actually were a few out there that provided what I was after, but at rather big prices. And since they were seperately designed, there woud still be small differences and if you're going to be analy retentive over a couple of tiny decals, such differences are also not going to fly

Then there was the option of Photoshopping them myself and then printing the decals. I would have done that in a heartbeat, but I (temporarily?) have no access to my Adobe suite, so that too wouldn't work.

And that's when I just went ahead and started applying the decals I did have. I had to slightly modify some of them by cutting and re-arranging, and there are some details that require some paint to touch up, but overall, we're almost there

Early on I had already decided I wanted a panel or door that had been replaced by a spare part from somewhere, just to add some more interest. So this shuttle received a donor door from another craft. I emulated this by giving the door a different paint scheme, with the stripe in the same place to suggest they're from he same faction, just a different unit. And to add to the idea of a donor part, I also added some partial lettering that belonged to a larger marking/registration on the donor craft.

Originally I used a very old and pretty yellowed decal that must have been in my possession almost 40 years. I believe it belonged to a Piper Cup, but I cut one letter from the large red registration number, cut that in two and added it to the door. I made use of the yellowed film by cutting it so that it looked like a cream trim around the dark red of the letter.

But when applying Micro Sol for the second time to smoothen out some wrinkles, the entire decal sadly fell apart. So I had to source a new number or letter. I found one that was slightly smaller (but decades younger) and it still works well in its role. It also has no yellow edges, which is nice...

We now only need the white warning rectangles with tekst above the intakes and exhausts, but I will just go ahead and paint those on. From a couple of feet away, nobody is going to notice after all!

And this is where we are right now; moving again! 

[Gunbird]

Somewhere in Space there is a Crewchief screaming about the use of correct stencils 

Good to see progress and another hurdle taken.

[YPU]

Love the mismatched door. If it won't match to satisfaction, make the discrepancy obvious and international, it's a great solution.

Decal wise... I always know that any flaws in them that I end up with can be hidden under weathering in the end. Something about paint chipping and dirt's smears going over the decals ties the thing together for me as well?

[Daeothar]

So, I bit the bullet and made my hamfisted try to copy the missing stenciling onto the new Armadillo and it went about as well as you'd expect. perfectly (or so I tell myself) serviceable from 3 feet away, but an absolute travesty up close.

I'm going to try to accept this result, but it's... difficult. I'll try to clean up the shapes a bit better with the background colour, but as I'm typing this, it just occurred to me I have yet another option to explore!

Even though I do not have Photoshop right now, I do have the decal paper, in both clear and white. What if I took the white and cut the exact measurement out, after painting on the stenciling while it's still just a flat piece of paper? I could then apply them as a decal normally, and with the paper being flat, it will be that much easier to approximate the lettering.

Yes, that will be an attempt for tonight, the Goddess of Chores willing

For now, I'll leave you with my 2nd grader attempt at painting rectangles. This isn't over just yet!

[hubbabubba]

Why didn't you just mask out the shape and sponge it on, or use a brush.

It would seem like less faffing around.

What ever the case, you're obsessing about tiny details that as you said yourself, look fine when they're on the table.

Having said that, I know I'm sometimes guilty of the same thing.

I find that remembering the quantity of stuff I've still got to paint gives me perspective, employ the rule of 'good enough'.

[Peithetairos]

Really nice conversions and the more realistic paint schemes with chips etc. really bring them to life.

[Daeothar]

Well, it took a while, but I've finally been able to finish my second Armadillo. The painting process was not unpleasant, but time has been in really short supply and then I went off to enjoy a vacation as well.

However, all revived after some time abroad, I finally found the time to put the finishing touches on this little shuttle.

It's been a bit of journey, paintingwise, as I never recorded the painting process when I did the first one. I just never expected to do up multiples in the same scheme, so I've had to recreate the paintjob relying on memory and eyeballing. Also, I worked myself in a corner, obsessing over a couple of obscure and elusive decals.

But in the end, I think I pulled it off, and the two ships fit together as if they were painted in one go

Now I only have one more to do, which will receive a completely different paintscheme (thank the Emperor ), three trucks and that ridiculously large alien ship... 

[hubbabubba]

They look great together, well worth the effort and perseverence, I'd more than happily put them on any table I was playing on.