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Hello everyone! I am Jon, aka "Bear" to folks here in central florida, and im here to show off my imperial guard...ahem.....astra militarum aircraft fleet.
Now this is not just a bunch of vehicles but in fact a 2k army legal in ITC (and a damned good one at that)

Featuring 4 vulture gunships with punisher cannons, and a pair of bare marauder destroyers rounded out with a shadowsword and some infantry, the fire output can get a little crazy.
These models have been painted to reflect the effects of atmospheric re-entry and high speed flight and dives on a searing hot desert world. The cockpits have been painted with heat shielding when they are not powered with the lights.

Each of these vehicles has an LED light rig to light up the cockpit or headlights/brakelights. The larger marauders have individual light rigs for live fire damage effects. These leds are controlled by push buttons built into the model, requiring no dissasembly to activate, and sections of the model have been magnetized to permit the easy replacement of the cr 2032 batteries that power them. The fire effects have a dedicated button to represent degrading from damage in game.

To see the live fire effects in action check out the included video

Holy cow that looks amazing! Those fire/smoke effects are very convincing.

So sweet

I’m lighting up a Shadowsword too, I had to stop so that I could find my sprue with all the guns.

They look great bro.

The flaming effects on the wings are astounding, brilliant job!

Magnificent job!

Cool. As. Balls.

How did you route the wires in a resin model? Access ports for battery change? Please share us your methods!

Damn this is awesome.

Now glue some wings to that Shadowsword so you can have a coherent theme!

 skchsan wrote:
How did you route the wires in a resin model? Access ports for battery change? Please share us your methods!

I use a 3v coin cell holder with a push button switch and 5mm LEDs. the marauders are for the most part hollow, with a enough interior room to hold all the circuitry and both cr 2032 batteries. The vultures need the entire cockpit to be cored out, as well as the connection to the fuselage. The front of the aircraft is magnetized to come off to access the batteries for replacement

The key to success is knowing how short to trim your wires, and preplanning the position of the components. You likewise need to take into account the placement of the buttons and the necessary bends or twists to get each component oriented properly.
You can see my first prototypes in the photo, the vlutures with dim, poorly defused cockpits. IT helps to spray a small amount of paint onto the bulbs of the LEDs to diffuse, I use about 4-5 LEDs per vulture, 5mm is about the smallest you can go, 3mm isnt bright enough.

I also do commission work and can build these for others

Great looking air force!

Cool to see You did special effects on the heavy air craft!

LED's are wonderful a extra touch to make models unique!

Thank You for sharing! So Cool!

What's the bare minimum? One bear.

I'll see myself out.

That is some crazy, crazy modelling. Kudos.

Oh yeah, thats a pile of win.
Rocking stuff.