what is it about war games that draws us in it's sometimes called childish and for sure
kids can play but really it's an adult oriented hobby i mean just look at the prices but unlike
a lot of hobbies this one is full of toys it's true model kits takes skill and artistry to
assemble and paint but us wargamers we can't even leave that idea unmemed we call our models minis
because ours are different where other models are recreations of real world objects like planes
trains and automobiles our models are fiction wizards robots super soldiers mechs floaty tanks
it's a different thing and it draws those who enjoy a bit of whimsy and playfulness
it's for those of us who like to get away from the real world and into a place of fantasy
hey guys jay here welcome to eons of battle i'm a person who gets easily lost in my imagination
in fact i'm very introverted i enjoy being social but the whole being out amongst a living thing i
find very draining and the way i refill my energy bar is by hobbying alone with my toys getting lost
in the worlds i create this is an automatic process for me it's just what my brain does
i don't consciously think about it my brain just does it however recently i got a model that has
instantly brought all this out of my subconscious and onto the painting table for me to examine
it's weird for a little bit of plastic to make me think
this much but this model has taught me a lot about myself the thunderhawk gunship
a little one from aeronautica imperialis this kit made me feel like a kid again this model i didn't
buy it to play in games i didn't buy it really for the painting challenge i bought it so that i could
have a little toy on my desk to play with and make zoom zoom noises and recreate the epic adventures
of the adeptus astartes this spaceship is a tiny little four and three quarter inch by four inch
drop ship absolutely loaded with detail it's very different from the other warhammer 40k models i've
built it's much more like a classic airplane model kit lots of small pieces and a perfectly
symmetrical design i bought this from my local warhammer store and the manager asked what chapter
i was going to paint it as and instantly i said not black templar which is a weird thing to say
for a black templar super fan i know but i have a love hate relationship with black armor it's just
a lot harder black absorbs light so it's more difficult to get details to cut through and my
mind immediately went to chapters like white scars and imperial fists light colors that'll melee cut
through and make the details pop once i got it home and i started imagining my crusaders loading
up and going on adventures i knew i couldn't betray my chapter like that no matter what i have
to paint at black templars if that means changing the difficulty from easy mode to hardcore so be it
i almost never work in sub-assemblies because i often feel like it's a waste of time but
for these missiles and feet i think it's a good solution and it'll save me time
i broke out with silly putty which is a great tool for masking it's just sticky enough to stay on the
model but will not pull off any paint when removed i shoved it into landing gear leg holes and i also
rolled the putty thin and cut off tiny segments to put over the missile connection points this all
worked together to give me some good connection points when i attached these at the end but it's
important to remember that this took some time and i have to weigh that time spent against the time i
saved during painting now with my model prep you will never guess what color primer i use for this
black templar thunderhawk gunship it's black which means that this black templar thunderhot gunship
is about 90 percent done but it needs a little bit of value so i'm going to airbrush on a little bit
of stonewall gray my favorite color this gray has a little bit of warmth to it and that's why i like
it so much i put vallejo stonewall gray into my airbrush and carefully sprayed lines of this all
over the edges and overlaps in the armor this will add some actual value and interest to the
armor now that it was looking like some kind of weird tron camo i knew i was on the right track
i put gun metal into my engines and you guessed it the guns then it was ready for a washing i covered
the model in one thick layer of gnome oil and let it dry so when you apply a wash typically it looks
fine because you apply it selectively you put like a yellow wash on the hair you put a brown wash on
the boots but when you do something very unsubtle like dunk an entire model in the stuff you end up
with kind of an ugly appearance where you see kind of glossy spots matte spots coffee stains
but it's very very subtle and i think i can fix it by giving the model a quick blast of
some matte varnish after a varnish it was looking matte and all that coffee staining
and shiny spots were gone it was time to do some dry brushing now dry brushing is a
deceptively challenging technique i took my brush and wetted the bristles and it's important to have
ever so slightly damp bristles so the paint stays wet and doesn't dry up and turn to dust
i wiped off 98 of the water and then worked the gray paint into the damp bristles
then i carefully wipe this back and forth over the whole gunship to edge highlight
all the shapes and textures in the armor and there black armor with lots of subtle visual interest
the big thing on youtube right now is to put together build and paint these giant four drilled
models and the reason i don't do that there's two reasons number one i don't have the money
but number two the real reason is it doesn't look like fun but the thunder hot gun ship is the one
that tempts me it's just so cool it weighs 5 pounds it's a foot and a half long and i would
probably take multiple bottles of super glue to keep it assembled i don't know if you'll ever
see a big forge roll build on this channel but if you do it'll probably be one of these i don't just
want a jet black spaceship as cool as the stealth bomber is the black templar are much less covert i
freehanded some templar symbols on each wing when free handing you want thin paint that is watery
so that it flows off the brush easily and has a longer working time and speaking of stickiness
i think some red and yellow checkers are in order and i painted on eight horizontal stripes
then painted over them with black and tried again after my first try of the lions was a mess
then i did my vertical lines to get this pupper ready for a very long free handing session
i took red and yellow paint and mixed them with a little bit of gray to desaturate them
then i started filling in my checkers first with red and then with yellow and then back and
forth more red more yellow until i had everything perfect free handing is a great skill to develop
it's hard really hard but once you have it you will always be able to add anything you want to
a mini and not be stuck with whatever was sculpted originally and speaking of originally nothing is
more original than eons of battle patreon we have a miniatures of the month club this month's minis
are the futuristic elven warlocks the stls are available to our patreon supporters and we also
have physical 3d prints and lots of high quality terrain stls hosted by comics games and things
we also have viewer model critique videos a weekly hobby hangout live stream and more it's the best
way to support it so head on over to patreon and get access to even more eon's a battle
we also have merch link in the description a lot of little checkers but now with the decorations
it's starting to actually look like something when it was just black with the highlighting and
dry brushing it was still looking really dull but now if i can find a few more things to sprinkle
on there to jazz it up i think it'll look really really slick so i got to jazzing some red racing
stripes on the mini wings i painted the wing flaps white which contrasted nicely against the black
armor on the windshield i wanted it to look like the interior was glowing red so i base coated the
windows with a dark red and then used watery red to stipple on lighter and lighter shades
once i had brought it up to pure red i did the same thing again with a light red stippling on
less and less paint each time i think it's looking suitably black templars despite its small size
this has not been a quick paint job but missiles and then done first i base coated the missile body
with gray a second coat to get full coverage then a dark gray on the lower half to add contrast then
a null oil bath to shade the recesses then a coat of red on the missile's tip then a dark red shade
on the bottom half of the tip and then a line of bright red on the top of the tip one missile
down five to go but that took a long time but i think i've got a way to have the rest of them go
much quicker and painted up much simpler first i will xenothough them all then a watery glaze
of bright red and then some white contrast paint boom missile done in seconds as opposed to miss
then it was time to glue them into place i used plastic glue to get the angle of the dangle
just right then i would say the only thing left to do is to paint the rim of the base black
but these aeronautical shapes come on weird bases so i'll just say done the thunderhawk gunship is
the workhorse of the space marine chapters it's an ancient vessel first seen ferrying legions during
the horus heresy now they are revered relics practically worshiped by their tech marines
built with the same robust armoring of the imperial land raider they are deceptively advanced
with a powerful machine spirit and some of the most advanced targeting systems in the empire
when i do freehanding on a regular mini and 28 millimeter scale i'm working in a 1 50th scale
it's what i'm used to but aeronautica ships are an 8 millimeter scale one two hundredth
it's a whole new thing and first are scary at this scale i'm recreating the look of something
far away and i think the way to do that is with colors when you see something from far off it
looks different to how it looks up close colors are a little dissaturated an extreme example
of this is mountains they're further away the more blue-gray they look and i think if i can
bring a little of that into my paint job the more realistic this little ship will be when i hobby i
can recapture some of that childhood fun not in a weird way it's not literally getting back to
lincoln logs on grandma's rug but play and pretend with way cooler toys than i ever had as a kid
i mean i have a job in a car now and well over 10 000 hours of painting experience
who knows that this model will ever see tabletop time it might but i don't need it to
this model is here for me to admire while this box was in my hands at the checkout counter my mind
was rationalizing the purchase as oh i'm getting this for aeronautica well maybe i'll make a video
about it you know working in different scales is good practice whereas in reality the actual
logic behind this purchase was hey spaceship go vroom and you know what that's how it should be
the real reason we play these games is to enjoy ourselves so please don't get hung up on the
game's workshop stock prices who owns star wars legion this week or if x-wing 2.0 is a dead game
don't treat your hobbies like a job something to win out or beat if something's making you happy
go for it too many things in this world are difficult challenging and stressful and your
hobbies shouldn't be so if you'll excuse me i'm gonna go play with my little spaceship bye bye