Opus flight deck extension

So, an update on the work on the Opus Magna. For many years now I have been thinking about the flight deck and what I should do with it. One thing that has been bouncing around the back of my head were what to do with the crenelated sides. These comes from the landing platform sides that are intended to be raised to form a barrier from where the soldiers defending the plattform can shoot. This looks good and ties the Opus into the ascetics of the 40K scenery.

However, once I started work on the flight wing I quickly realized that to fit everything onto the deck I needed to balance the aircraft with the tails sticking out as far as possible over the edge, which meant balancing on the crenelations with big holes in-between. The fact that that the aircraft does not have a modern landing gear set up does not help as there is no nose wheel but a tail wheel, preventing the tail to overhand the edge. So this meant that I would need to close up the gaps in the crenelations, adding some much needed extra space to the flight deck. I always imagined that this would be a quick thing. Just cut out the suitable shapes and glue them in. Well it did not turn out to be that easy. Not all pieces needed to fill the gaps were the same shape, and to give things some details I also needed to att some extra layers to each piece. All in all I ended up doing some 53 pieces, each consisting of four layers. So this to a lot more time than expected, but in the end I think it was worth it. Next thing will be to mount it to the hull and see what this did to the profile (there are still some things to do around the interference with the air defences).

Another thing that has been troubling me with this build is the fact that the original aircrafts are WTOL's, which in principle makes a carrier somewhat obsolete (as there is no need for a take off and landing strip). But on the other hand I think that WTOL operation, from what I have seen on live footage is not a rapid thing and probably not something you would like to do in a hot zone as you become an easier target as you slow down for the landing or is a sitting target as you take off.

Then there is also the issue of moving things around the deck as the original air frames do not have wheels. This probably means I have to remedy this on my builds. And that sort of lead me to the second addition to the flight deck, catapults. As I will have wheels on the aircraft I can also use the catapults to launch them of the deck, and actually use the angled deck for normal landings (when in a combat zone).

I added two catapults to the forward section of the deck where I had left some space open as decoration when I build this part. I also added a slightly longer catapult to the side of the angled deck to launch heavier crafts. Each catapult has a small runner that I can move along the track depending on what action I want to portray in the future. I also added two horns to the front. I am not sure they look good. They are a bit on the skinny side. The hone on the angled deck is lager, perhaps on the large side. I will have to think about what I do with these...

All this has taken a lot of time and it is not done yet. Now I need to go in with GS and seal any gaps, which I dread as I know it will take forever. But before doing that I will paint some normal models just to clear my head.

Crusader and Sergeants done

Well that to more time than I had expected. From the beginning I thought this would be a straight out of the box build. But it has taken years to plan and execute. In the end it did not turn out anything what I had imagined but I am still happy with the outcome. I love these chaos models. The detail and character is great but they are horrible to modify due to all the details. This is why I could not make it as first planed, it would have required so much cutting and re-sculpting that I do not think I could have done it justice. So instead I went with what could be done with the models. I am really happy with the scratch build cannons on the back, even though I think it would have looked better with a more traditional shoulder mount. Thar would however have meant that I could not use the spikes and horns on the back. The arm mounted rotary cannons also turned out nice, giving an older and more intricate design than the original which I think goes well with the knights over all estetiks.

I am also really happy with how the paint jobb turned out. It is the first time I painted a large model using stippling weathering combined with my usually rusted metal and sponge weathering. I think this works best with a lighter colour that contrasts well to the darker metal, which means that the Northern Knights will probably not get this treatment.

Next up will be some mechanicum models I got from my wife, so back to green it will be.