Dust Tactics Allied Walker Hotdog

Painted this as commission work for a friend in the UK.

The only change I made to the model was the napalm launcher weapon tip.

Gives the model a nice highlight I think. Overall a nice model to paint up.

Horton brings it home for the Wildhost :)

Please go to this link for the full e-magazine.
http://dust-devils.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/DustChroniclesV3I1Dec2013Web.pdf

Many thanks to the Dust Devils International for organizing this competition and selecting my plane as the winner.
Looking forward to getting the patch and wearing it proudly on my Legio club shirt :)

Super year end surprise present :)

Der Galland-Zirkus (Horton HO-347 Der Blitz)

With the discovery of VK in 1942, German scientists found that they were able to push the boundary of aviation technology beyond their wildest imagination. With knowledge and experiments learnt from the their first jet engined fighter-bomber, the Me-262, they were now developing VTOL(vertical take-off & landing) capabilities.

This led to the development of the Horton HO-347 Der Blitz. German famed fighter ace, General Adolf Galland was tasked with recruiting the best pilots and training them for this new aircraft. After months of training, the squadron was now ready to take to the air and defeat the enemies on all fronts.

I initially wanted to paint this aircraft because I was bored with my Skaven project (painting 70 clanrats will do that to you). But then the Dust Tactics & Warfare facebook group organized a painting contest. Their timing was perfect :)  http://www.worldofdust.net/tabid/89/g/posts/t/162/Painting-Contest.aspx

Insipration for this model was the Jagdverband 44 fighter unit led by General Adolf Galland. Nicknamed Der Galland-Zirkus (The Galland Circus), their paint scheme was very eye catching to say the least.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JV_44 
 The red and white striped bottom fuselage is definitely attractive. I reckon this was their way of saying "We're the best! Come get us!" The down side to this is it involved a LOT of masking. 4 colors were masked to be exact. I'll share WIP pictures in the next post.

I was also lucky enough to have bought a 1/72 kit of this squadron a long long time ago. Decals used were from this box set.

I'm very happy with how the model turned out. Now I'll do some weathering. But for the contest I decided to leave the plane clean.

 Also painted the pilot but nothing special.

Many many thanks to Carl Lum for taking all these beautiful pictures. You da man bro!!!

Here's hoping that this will plane will bring home the honors for the Wildhost. Thanks for visiting. All comments are very much appreciated :)
Final two pics showing before and after pics, as a comparison.

Dust Axis aircraft Der Blitz

Nothing stokes the painting fires more than a competition. Especially a friendly competition with just bragging rights as the main prize. And in this case, gives me a great excuse to rekindle my first joy of hobbying...building and painting model aircraft.

Dust+painting competition+aircraft = I'm definitely in!!!

For more information about this event please click on the link below. It's being run by Patrick and the guys of Dust Tactics and Warfare Group.
http://www.worldofdust.net/tabid/89/g/posts/t/162/Painting-Contest.aspx
https://www.facebook.com/groups/217969884881551/
http://www.dust-chronicles.com/
http://dust-devils.com/
All those who are interested in Dust Tactics and/or Warfare should join the fun :)

 This will be my entry for this competition, the Axis aircraft Der Blitz. Paint scheme will be revealed later, this is a competition after all :)

This is a really nice kit. It comes almost fully assembled. You just need to snap fit a few parts like weapon options and such. It's also painted in a dark grey primer textured paint so that's good.

The kit comes supplied with 3 variant cards and all 3 are impressive paint schemes but if I'm going to win this then it's got to be something extra special methinks.

Also I want the aircraft to be in full flight mode and think that the retractable rear skids doesn't look to aerodynamic fully extended.

 So some chop chop work was needed. Let's hope it looks nice when done.

Next order of business was to re-prime the model. The original dark grey is too dark for my liking and would make the final color scheme I have in mind darker. I used Vallejo grey primer for this.

I had to airbrush several layers on the top wing to get rid of the Luftwaffe cross.

Tune in next time for more progress.

Dust on my table

It's time for the 'picture tells a thousand words' again...equals I'm just lazy to write :). Anyway got this done last week and it's a nice model to build up the hobby excitement again.
Axis light panzer Hermann

Axis light panzer Heinrich

Dust Axis Medium Walker 'Ludwig'

Bad lines tonight so am just gonna update with these pics.  More tomorrow.

Dust Axis Light Walker 'Hans' completed

I had super fun painting up this light walker and am officially addicted to the Dust universe. Can’t wait to get my hands on the Dust Warfare rulebook. Although I’ve yet to play a single Dust Tactics game I am utterly in love with the alternate WW2 concept.

Before and after pics so you can see what i've done.

As mentioned in my last post, I decided to paint this walker in the Luftwaffe scheme of dark grey and dark green. I’m using the Vallejo model colors range for this project. The colors I used were: 868 Dark Seagrey and 979 German Camo Dark Green. I’m going for the mid war European theater paint scheme so my Axis units will have be having lots of greens.

 

The swastikas are from a decal sheet set I bought while based in Jakarta in 2001. 10 years and the sheet is still good and decals went on perfectly.  Just goes to show that some product will last the test of time.

When I first saw the model I knew I wanted to make it into an SS unit. So my Dust Axis force will be from the 3. SS-Panzer-Division Totenkopf . The Totenkopf skull decals are from the Flames of War SS decal sheet.  The SS were the elite units of the third reich and would logically be the first unit supplied with the walker  weapons platform. Plus, they’re just bad-assess!!! 

I weathered the model and gave it some paint chips but think I’ve overdone it a bit. What do you guys think?

Overall, I’m very happy with the model. Looks menacing esp with the swastika and Totenkopf logo logos.

Next up, the medium walker Ludwig :)