Nephilum Jetfighter WIP

Greetings.

It's been quiet here of late so I wanted to catch up with some projects on the backlog.  Here, I have the start of a Nephilim Jetfighter for the Dark Angels. It has sat in the box for too long and with the release of the new Death for the Sky supplement, I felt I needed to get some of my fliers done.  I have a Grey Knight Storm Talon to paint as well as a Vendetta for the Death Korps of Kreig.  But today I'm showing off the initial cockpit work for the Dark Angel's Nephilim Jetfighter.

Unsure that I would find the time for this work, I had come very close to assembling this unpainted with the goal of painting over the cockpit, as some folks do, to obscure the nice details and simplify the overall assembly and painting task. Then I said, "Naw, let's just go for it!".  And so the cockpit assembly sat half assembled with the pilot in two halves waiting to be painted for a month or two now...

Then last night I stuck in, driven by a desire to practice painting black in preparation for the onslaught of Deathwatch being released this month!  This 40K hobbyist has been waiting a LONG time for an official Deathwatch codex and model line...but more of that in a later post.

Here are the WIP shots of the Jetfighter cockpit after initial painting and assembly.

Front view

Rear view

In the extreme close up, the main targeting screen on the dash looks a bit rough.  It's satisfying enough at a normal viewing distance though and will likely be pretty obscured anyway once the canopy is a attached. I can use a lot more work on my free hand, even simply stuff like this...partly my close-up eye sight going and partly that I just cant get even a small detail brush to cooperate when painting lines.  Regardless, I figured this is a case where I just have to leave it alone and not keep fidgeting at it....numerous repaint attempts will only leave the screen piled in paint and blobby looking anyway.

That criticism aside, the front view is the money shot for me.  Definitely a decent table top standard, with enough extra effort to leave me feeling like I did good work there and didn't rush to finish things. One thing I cam away with is that in addition to having trouble with freehand target screen painting, I need a lot more practice with edge highlighting black.  I found this very difficult and had to repeatedly fix blobs where fine lines were desired. Between the Deathwatch and my 30K Dark Angels build, I'll get plenty of practice no doubt...

Happy Gaming!