Rat13 Posted January 25, 2021 Share Posted January 25, 2021 As I attempted to finish my wife's Orks before the new year (a task I failed at) I started planning the "first" project I'd start afterwards. As usually happens, at least with me, I decided upon and subsequently changed my mind about numerous projects. Eventually my first project ended up being Reaper's Layer Up kit. There was of course another project that was a really close contender, especially considering how much prep work I'd already put in. Coming in second place I give you my fairly cheap armada. Many months ago my wife and I came across these neat little two packs of "spaceships" at the Dollar Tree. Needless to say I picked some up. Looking at the packaging they're not actually spaceships, they're just weapons for spaceships but I think you'll agree they make cool spaceships. So I did say I bought a few. After using poster putty to cover the crystals on a few of the ships I attached them to slats and primed them. Sitting down tonight I thought I'd begin painting until I realized I had forgotten to greenstuff over all the screws in the plastic. So I spent about an hour doing that instead. I did however get to paint a bit, the eagle eyed may have noticed there was a figure amongst all those primed ships. Turns out this particular toy line also has a few Captains, though I've only ever found one. I think it doesn't even look that bad and I really considered just rebasing it as is. As you've already seen it primed however you know I fought that instinct. In less than an hour I ended the night with this. There is still a lot to be done but I think it's off to a good start. With any luck I can finish this tomorrow and begin painting the spaceships. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rat13 Posted January 26, 2021 Author Share Posted January 26, 2021 Aside from a few touch ups and the base I think the captain is mostly done. The darker suit and harness was definitely the way to go. Even with the added color pops I think the suit looks a little more natural, an almost lived in look. Unfortunately my first ships didn't fair as well. My intention was to paint a couple medical ships but the results weren't great. Between too much wash and a heavy handed drybrush I think it's back to the basecoat for these two. The next batch faired a little better however. These were really just an excuse to use the excess paint from my palette but somehow a nice color scheme seemed to present itself. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rat13 Posted January 27, 2021 Author Share Posted January 27, 2021 (edited) Got quite a bit done tonight including finishing the first two ships. I even went back and redid the medical ships. This time I opted to leave them in their very dirty post wash condition. I also finalized a color scheme for the remaining ships of that type. Edited January 27, 2021 by Rat13 Dang autocorrect... 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rat13 Posted January 28, 2021 Author Share Posted January 28, 2021 Apparently locking in a color scheme really helps a batch painting project. With the scheme in place the remaining three ships painted up really fast. After some thought I even decided on a base for the captain. The plan is to paint the sand red giving it that Martian/alien world appearance. Honestly I'm just reusing the same basing scheme from my Imperial Guard conscripts. With some leftover paint I even started the next two ships. At this point I'm considering a white and blue scheme but I'm still deciding which blue. Although I have a few options I've found myself consistently grabbing the same couple of bottles time and time again. For these ships I'm going to try avoiding those familiar bottles however. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rat13 Posted January 29, 2021 Author Share Posted January 29, 2021 With the Captain's base done the figure is now finished and awaiting sealer. For the white and blue ships I did manage to use a different blue (90317 Moonstone Blue to be exact). Unfortunately the use of a blue and then black wash almost canceled out the choice entirely. Honestly those two washes actually brought the blue really close to the color I usually use. That's not to say I don't like the final result it was just funny the roundabout way I ended up so close to my usual blue. The next two ships painted up really quickly. Once I had applied the Dragon Bronze to the sides and fins black for the remaining sections seemed like a natural choice. I'm starting to think that limited color schemes are the way to go with these ships, they just seem to let the ship's designs speak for themselves. Then again something can be said for a garish or ramshackle appearance. With only one of these ships I decided to try something different. As this one is sleeker and is missing the obvious weaponry of the others I thought this would make an excellent racer. I also started on the last single ship. Taking cues from the crystal on top I plan to use purple and a metallic exclusively. This seemed like a good point to stop for the night as I'm still deciding which metallic to use. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rat13 Posted February 1, 2021 Author Share Posted February 1, 2021 Took a couple of days off to start a campaign of Rangers of Shadow Deep but now I'm back at the painting desk. I guess I felt the need to make up for that lost time because I got quite a bit done in just a couple hours. I finished the purple gunship before moving on to the last batch of ships. I quickly decided upon a paint scheme and even finished two of the ships. I even finished the green basecoat on the other ships and the metallic of one and a half. Looks like sealing and final pictures aren't that far off. Guess I better start thinking about the next project. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rat13 Posted February 2, 2021 Author Share Posted February 2, 2021 (edited) Everything is painted and sealed so I guess it's time for those final pictures. There are a few more ships than shown here but there is so little variation between individual ships of the same color scheme that it seemed redundant to show them all. Two however seemed like a good sampling however. Last but not least the lone Captain we found from the set. All in all this was quite a nice little batch project to paint. I'm not sure I'll ever have a use for them but it was fun to work on something different. They may not be the fanciest ships but they have the lived in feel I enjoy seeing in sci-fi. So as far as a twelve dollar investment goes I believe this project was worth every penny. Edited February 2, 2021 by Rat13 Dang autocorrect... 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glitterwolf Posted February 2, 2021 Share Posted February 2, 2021 Looks good 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darcstaar Posted February 3, 2021 Share Posted February 3, 2021 Those have a lot of character. I really like the gunship with the dodecahedron in it. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rat13 Posted February 3, 2021 Author Share Posted February 3, 2021 24 minutes ago, Darcstaar said: Those have a lot of character. I really like the gunship with the dodecahedron in it. Yeah, I really wish I could have found more of them but just like the Captain figure we only found one. Seeing the finished results I really made the right call masking off all the colored plastic "crystals" during priming and keeping them as is. When I started I was convinced that was a mistake and they'd end up looking awful. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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