Flying Ships

Having undercoated the Britannian Flyers the next stage was to paint the base coat. I have been thinking about the colour scheme for my two large Dystopian Wars Kingdom of Britannia airborne models, the Illustrious Class Sky Fortress and the Eagle Class War Rotor.

I thought very early on that I didn’t want to follow the same colour scheme I had used for the naval vessels. They had a dark grey basecoat, followed by a dark brown wash and then successive light grey drybrushed onto the models. I was quite pleased with the end result.

The Illustrious and the Eagle though flew in the air, they did not sail in the sea. Even though the “fluff” from Dystopian Wars talks about a combined armed forces for the Kingdom of Britannia, I still liked the idea of a slightly separate naval air corps. I was inspired by a conversation I had with Simon about the current US Navy where the East Coast Atlantic Navy think the West Coast Pacific Navy are beach boys who can’t handle cold weather and are too relaxed, whilst the Pacific Navy think the Atlantic Navy need to loosen up and chill a bit! In a similar vein many in the British armed forces in 1914 thought that the Royal Flying Corps was full of crackpots and madmen.

I have this idea that though there are combined forces in the Kingdom of Britannia, there are still issues and there are those who command the naval ships thinking that those who fly about in the air are a little “weird” and not quite right in the head!

On the Spartan Community forums there are a fair few pictures of painted models, which have given me a few ideas.

Initially I did think about a camouflage scheme as used by the RAF in World War Two, light egg blue for the under surfaces and khaki and dark green two tone camouflage on the top surfaces. I then did consider using the RAF night camouflage, so with black under surfaces. However upon reflection I did wonder if this was too “modern” for Dystopian Wars and so went back to thinking.

I then remembered I really enjoyed reading The Ministry of Space comic, which describes an alternate reality in which the United Kingdom won the space race.

The Ministry of Space

It is written and drawn in the style of Dan Dare and the Eagle Comics.

The Ministry of Space

As a result I am now thinking bright shiny aluminium with aircraft markings. So for the basecoat I used Citadel Boltgun Metal.

Painting the Britannian Flyers

Painting the Britannian Flyers




Undercoating the Flyers

After constructing the Kingdom of Britannia Eagle Class War Rotor and the Illustrious Class Sky Fortress I gave the models a white undercoat using a Citadel White Skull spray can.

Kingdom of Britannia Eagle Class War Rotor
Illustrious Class Sky Fortress

I also gave the two Doncaster bombers from the Naval Battle Group an undercoat too.

Doncaster Class Bombers

Eagle Class War Rotor Workbench

Illustrious Class Sky Fortress Workbench

Naval Battle Group Workbench

 

 

Putting it all together

Putting together the Kingdom of Britannia Illustrious Class Sky Fortress was not as simple as I thought it was going to be and certainly not as simple as other Dystopian Wars models I have made.

Kingdom of Britannia Illustrious Class Sky Fortress

The rotor pylons and the rotors themselves were quite fiddly and I even needed to do some drilling.

Kingdom of Britannia Illustrious Class Sky Fortress

I am not as much of a fan of this model compared to the Eagle Class War Rotor which I do like a lot. I might think differently once it is painted.

Kingdom of Britannia Illustrious Class Sky Fortress

High above the waves the Illustrious Class Sky Fortress grace­fully glides into battle, held aloft by six gigantic manoeuvring rotors and the Royal Engineering Corps’ most advanced Sturginium Gravitation Generators.

The model itself comes in a blister. It mainly comprises one large piece of resin.

In addition to the engine pylons, you get an ‘island’ and aircraft flyer tokens.

Next stage after washing the resin will be putting the model together.

Kingdom of Britannia Illustrious Class Sky Fortress

High above the waves the Illustrious Class Sky Fortress grace­fully glides into battle, held aloft by six gigantic manoeuvring rotors and the Royal Engineering Corps’ most advanced Sturginium Gravitation Generators. But do not let the majes­tic soaring fool you, this is a beast born for war, with a host of deadly and devastating weapons that it brings to the fight. It can pummel you with turret fire while deadly squadrons of fighters and fighter bombers launch, ready to bring even more death and destruction to the fray. Illustrious is the name of this model, but its enemies may perhaps rename it to Infamous once they’ve felt its wrath in battle.

This is how it looks from the marketing material.

The model itself comes in a blister.

The first stage will be washing the resin model and giving it a white undercoat.