While shopping for some storage at my neighborhood Michaels craft store, I passed by the toy section and took a look at the Schleich toy rack. I found a couple of decent sized eagle toys and thought they would size well for T9A. Seeing the price was only $7.00, I thought I would pick one up and see how it would work.
The toy is made out of a semi flexible plastic, so it is quite sturdy and will not break. Being firm, it will hold paint very well. It comes with an interesting paint job already and probably is workable as is, if you glue it on a base for the game. However, I found the paint job a little wanting for my tastes (especially the shiny gold highlights).
I decided I did not want to take too much time on the model so I figured I would use most of the existing paint scheme as a base (I later changed my mind on the white on the lower wings). Now, I use acrylic paints to do my miniatures. As such, one needs a prepared surface. It was clear that the existing gloss finish was not going to work. So I just sprayed the whole model with some Krylon Dull Coat to give a good base.
After the Dull Coat dried (it ended up being a week before I got back to the model), I covered the entire model with Games Workshop Delvin Mud. I set that aside and let that dry. I decided I did not like the white under wing areas and just painted them with dark brown and applied the wash over the new color (which ended up being another week, with life getting in the way….).
Once the wash was dry, I then just dry brushed various browns over the base brown areas, white over the white areas, yellow over the yellow, grey over the wood log (to make it look aged) and some black hear and there. I just grabbed various Vallejo colors that I thought looked good for each.
Once that was all done, I dull coated the entire model and attached it to a base that matched the rest of my army. All done! Maybe two hours of total work and I have a new eagle for T9A!
- Manteuffel
That’s a great use of an existing figure!