Iron Snakes: Storm Eagle Progress

Hi folks,

As soon as I received my Storm Eagle from the guys at Christmas, I began referring to it as the "Trojan Horse". For those unfamiliar with Homer's works, the Trojan Horse was a large wooden horse the Greeks used to deliver soldiers into Troy by subterfuge, thereby ending a ten year siege.

There have been many depictions of the Trojan Horse in classical and modern art, ranging from the decidedly gummy to the downright sinister:

A grim/dark Trojan Horse from the movie "Troy".

For my Storm Eagle I went with a more classical look, which has more of the appearance of a chess piece in my opinion. I used the artwork below as a reference to make a simple paper stencil, which I could use to transfer the basic shape onto the fuselage of the model. I don't usually make stencils for this sort of the thing, but I was finding the Storm Eagle very hard to hold steady whilst simultaneously getting the dimensions right.

The first step was to tape the stencil to the fuselage as securely as possible, which was difficult due to all of the irregular surfaces. I used green tape which doesn't damage the paint job when you remove it; it does not adhere very strongly.

Next, I pressed the stencil down with the fingers on my left hand whilst I painted over it with my right. I used a large flat brush and fairly dry paint (Enchanted Blue), as I didn't want it to "bleed" under the stencil.

Having removed the stencil, you can see how rough the shape was, but at least the dimensions were correct. The next job was to add a second coat of blue to improve the coverage, add some detail and use white to sharpen up any weak lines.

I extended the neck of the horse down towards the landing gear housing, added another section to the head plume/mane as well as a line between the plumes. This last bit of detail was to make it look less like a living horse and more like a construct. I also added an eye, to make it consistent with the other freehand work I have been doing on the shields (though this makes it look more like a living horse again). I showed it to my muse, who is an avid horse rider, and got her nod of approval. That's good enough for me!

Here is a final look at the Storm Eagle as a whole. I need to repeat the symbol on the other side, but after this test I am fairly confident I can pull it off. Nothing else is anywhere near as difficult as this symbol on the fuselage, so I am feeling very positive about the project now. It's only a matter of time before I'm dropping plasma behind enemy lines...

See you across the table,

M4cr0