Aeronautica Imperialis Skies of Fire Planes WIP - part 1

 

Greetings and welcome back.  Today I'm sharing progress on my Skies of Fire project for Aeronautica Imperialis.  Last week I shared the finished bases.   This week I am working on the planes themselves.  I chose to keep with the box art and made my best match for the colors using Proacryl paints from Monument Hobbies.

I started with a black primer coat, then dry brushed on the darkest of the three blues I used.  Next, I dry brushed on the second lighter blue as stripes, as shown above.

Then I dry brushed on the third, lightest blue as stripes next to the the other stripes. The camouflage is all done as randomly as possible, while filling out the space. I wanted each plane to look different so I didn't copy one pattern on to the other.

As I was doing the stripes, I would dry brush the whole bottom of the plane in the same color. In the end, this left a nice sky blue color beneath the plane - common as camouflage against the sky to foil visual identification and aiming of anti-aircraft guns from the ground. Effective against primitive cultures, but not that useful against advanced technology with other forms of electronic detection.

The barracuda fighters were done the same.  I built mine as one AX-5-2 leading two AX-5-3 variants.

The final look is basically identical to the Tiger Sharks.  It is an easy and effective scheme.  At some point, I'll document the full color recipe up top with the rest.

The same light blue bottoms resulted.  I pictured these aircraft as all operating up top for the most part and not down on the deck even though they have that capability.

Then I started to look at the Imperial planes. Since they came in the same boxed set, I am painting the navy fighters the same scheme as the Astra Militarum Vendetta carriers.  These guys come in low to support the vendettas and other Valkyrie carriers when they make drops and extractions. I'm planning a green/red camouflage for these planes - but I'm also still considering a shades of brown camouflage instead.  Check back later in the week so see what I choose.

That's ten planes on the road to completion.  The base painting here is the easiest and quickest part, so they move along quickly at this stage.  I hope not to get bogged down in the detail painting where things slow down dramatically.  I really don't want to have to go back and touch up the camouflage much unless I REALLY have to, which means taking it slow and easy on the details.

Come on back when you're free to see where I get to. For those interested, I will definitely get painting recipes up.  I use them too when I need to add new models to and existing painted force.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!