Painted Dreadclaw Drop Pod Conversion! Iron Warriors!

Iron within, rust without, that's what I always say! Old School here with a finished look at the dreadclaw conversion I built in October and painted yesterday. This is the first step down the path of getting my armies painted as mentioned in my last post. This dreadclaw took on a few last minute changes before hitting the paint bench so let's look at a few more pics and explore the changes and the paint ...



                                               

Alright taking a look at it since I left it in October's post, I added the chaos symbols and took the retro boosters (the little fans) from the regular drop pod kit an put them on the hinge at the bottom of the drop pod doors. Since traitors come out the bottom of the dreadclaw, the drop pod "doors" are actually just part of the hull on this model and the hinge gives me a great joint for the dreadclaw's retro thrusters, giving the impression that they can move to help guide its direction.

Finally, before adding paint, I took the bonesaw and cut the corner tips of the actual "claw" at a diagonal angle so the ship would have more of a claw look rather than a blunt, upside-down drop pod look (lol). 

When it came time to paint, all I did was give it one coat Krylon Grey Primer, then base coated it in Boltgun Metal with the airbrush, Hit the panels that face the sky with a little mythril silver (also with the airbrush), then I masked of the hull (where the regular drop pod doors are) and sprayed them black, then masked off the hazard areas, first spraying them Iyanden Darksun (yes foundations work in the airbrush, just use plenty of matte medium and windex), then masking the yellow and airbrushing the black stripes in Black Ink.

With that finished I went back with black and added spots anywhere I wanted rust of the hazard stripes, then loaded the airbrush with Calthan Brown(?), the brown foundation and sprayed it into the black spots I made on the hazard stripes. Then I went through the whole model liberally applying rust with the airbrush using the brown.

With all of this done, I sat down with a paint brush and cleaned up the rust using boltgun or back (where appropriate) to tone down some of the areas that really got hosed with rust. With that finished I weathered the black to look like it got scraped entering orbit. Then dotted and dragged Gryphonne Sepia from the bolts and vents to create an appearance that when the pod isn't in use, it sits for long periods, allowing the rust to run from the bolts and such. As a final touch I sprayed black at the bottom of the fins and the hull from the airbrush to give the appearance of burns from dropping through the atmosphere.

All in all, I like it. The rust was one of the things that I really liked when I decided to paint it in the IW theme and the airbrush truly is a painter's best friend for working things like hazard striped and weathering.

This is my first step in pushing through my Chaos legions and the first entry I have for the competition CVinton and I are working out the details of (be on the look out for more of that). Basically, we are challenging each other to paint at least one kill point every two weeks. We are just looking at either posting our progress weekly or posting our work as usual and doing a round up every week or two to show where we are. Others are welcome to join us and we will post photos of your work during the round ups.

We have never done anything like this before, so we are open to suggestions. Anyway, before this post drags on way too long, let us know what you think about the competition OR just let me know what you think of my Iron Warriors Dreadclaw drop pod conversion!