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Here's my little project log so far of my thunderbolt I wanted to show off.

I've been getting shot up as of late by a pesky ork fighta bomba so I'm bolstering my forces with a thunderbolt. Here's the WIP as of tonight. I still have to add more rivets and get the weapons put on. The underside has 4 hunter killer missiles. The engine tubines need some green stuffing as well. Anyway I always like sharing my scratch builds and I'll probably pick someone's brain on a good flying base design (my remora's coat hanger/cd base doesn't cut it).



Here's some more work on it. I chopped up a lot of about 100 little discs from a rod of plasticard to make rivets and scattered them around the aircraft as you can see in the photo. I'm fairly certain I have enough on there. I might put them around the wing tip panel as well (the angled portion) but I didn't want to over do it. I guess on Imperial vehicles it's hard to have too many rivets. Still waiting on the weapons I'll probably get them thursday.






That big goober of glue on the wing is just a bad reflection and I'm hoping the primer will cover that all up. I should drill out those barrels too.

I primed the thunderbolt grey. Looks almost resin! I think I'm going to start painting it tomorrow and see how much I can get done.

now that kicks ass!

as for a stand, can you get hold of any perspex?
its a thin ish (5mm) clear plastic, pretty solid.

cut a thin strip (about 2 inches at the top, and around 4 inches at the bottom) and about 20 inches long.
do the same again so you have 2 strips, both 20 inches long, 2 inches wide at the top and 4 inches wide at the bottom.

cut a slit in 1 (5mm thick) running down 9 inches front the top (keep it in the center)
then do the same again with the other one, but cut from the bottom upwards, and make the cut 9 inches long.

sloth them together to for a X shaped support (20 inches long)

seems like alot of work, but its very stable.
the X shape stops it bending, and as it gets wider at the bottom it gives it plenty of support.

the new valk box comes with this type of stand, i just summed up how to make one

sorry for the long and complex post, but hope it helps.

That's sounds like a great plan idea, thanks for the detailed description as well. Now what about the base?!

I'm hopeful the valkarye flying base is available as a bits order, that would solve a lot haha.

well, if you have a sheet of perspex you could allways double it up in thickness and cut a round base from that.
you may have to pin the support to the base aswell and use plastic glue on it, but it should then be very sturdy.


im hoping the valk bases are sold on thier own aswell.
fighta bomma's need some strong bases.

Nice work!

I'm looking forward to seeing it all painted up pretty.

Very nice - I particularly like the fixed gunsight. Good stuff.

That's a fine piece of modelling work, however I've never understood why the 41st milennium is using 19th and 20th century technology. Even now we have unmanned aircraft, I intend to make my own look similar to yours however a little more remote controlled in its operation.
9/10, I hate rivets.

I started painting the plane yesterday and I just ran a wash over it (you can see it's still wet on the tailfin) and thought it was a good time to post since I was showing a friend anyway.
So what do you think?


There are some spots that still need touching up, like the fronts of the engines.

now that's some awesome use of, would i be right on thinking it's plasticard? still, some awesome skill you've got there

Very well done.

your plasticard-foo is excellent

where would you get plasticard from?

Nice T-Bolt. One of the better scratch builds I've seen!!

How many hours did it take you? I really want to get three of those boys for APOC games, and to make them from scratch would be great.

Keep the progress pics coming!! and can we see a pic of the underside?

good scratchbuild, I take it you used Lackofs templates though? As good as they are it gives you an undersized thunderbolt.

Still cant fault your execution, I just ordered a load of plasticard today.

I buy this stuff: http://www.evergreenscalemodels.com/ It's stocked by a local hobby store for model train supplies.

Yes it is Lackofs templates, and I've talked to him about it and he also told me it was undersized, however it shouldn't ever matter unless someone happens to have a real one that I play against.

As for timing, it probably took 3 hours to put together, another few of green stuffing, and a few to paint. Since it is a smaller model, the forming didn't take as long as say a plastic warhound, and I've done other scratch builds that took 20-40 hours so this was a walk in the park. I may eventually make 2 more, we'll have to see how it performs.

Here's the unremarkable bottom:


And another from the side:



I did a few touch ups on this but I think I've reached the peak of my painting skill so I'll be hard coating it shortly.

can you direct me to somewhere i can find one of lackofs templates?

TheAmbit wrote:
I did a few touch ups on this but I think I've reached the peak of my painting skill so I'll be hard coating it shortly.

Ok, we should help you out here.

Your modelling skills are excellent, so there is no reason why you cannot be as good a painter too. My reasoning behind this is because the true skill in painting is patience and you must have that quality to get the modelling right. I am not a good painter but I do a good job by following a few basic principles:

1. Be patient, with methodical painting you can always get the good result.

2. Water down your paint, do this for three reasons first because your paint goes further, second because it goes on thinner and third because you can more easily correct errors. Now youir painting style looks very thick and this is part of the problem, thinning down your paints will cure the paint thickness problem straight away, if you wonder about paint sticking use foundation paints. Foundation paints are your best friend.

3. Try out new techniques, ink washing and drybrushing are all very well, but they work wonders if comboed together even with little actual 'skill'.

4. Remember the golden rule: it can end up looking good by starting crap. This is probably the most important lesson. Have you ever seen an artist at work? Sometimes during the piece the artwork looks poor or doesn't resemble at all the desired affect, and you might question the quality of the artists rep but the artist paints in stages and eventually brings the finished work out. The same applies here, when painting your basecoat don't think, "crap its blotchy need to go over", just paint on with one coat even in thin-ness if not in tone. Then apply the second thin layer, you will see the problems take care of themselves. It is fixing blotches that causes blotches, it is trying to get a neat line that causes a crust of paint along that line. Layer the paint up nice and thin and expect it to look crap first time around.

Best example of this, though not topical here regards painting faces. You see some of the staged paint jobs by 'Eavy Metal and you will see the first layers dont look even at all. The initial reaction is to smooth it out, don't fall for that, paint the next layer and so on. your heavy brushwork that we see it very likely because you want to get it right while painting it, and forgwetting that it is suipposed to look right after.

I will pass to the better painters on Dakka to expand on this, but even with this little you will soon be painting with a skill your modelling talent deserves.

Nice work and thanks for the Evergreen link. Why didn't I ever think to go on line for Evergreen Products?

Sometimes the most obvious escapes...........

The Blackadder

The_Blackadder: Not a problem. I'm not sure if it is the best deal around but it is what is sold here locally. Hope it helps!

Orlanth wrote:

TheAmbit wrote:
I did a few touch ups on this but I think I've reached the peak of my painting skill so I'll be hard coating it shortly.

Ok, we should help you out here.

While I appreciate your well thought out comment and advice, it does little to improve this model. Pointing out areas you think need improvement would be far more helpful.
Also I should mention that the model is much much darker than this image, and matches the dakka dakka granite grey more closely. I couldn't get a proper image, perhaps I'll try again later.

PS. Where does the paint look thick? That's 3 thinned coats of foundation paint with 5 more layers of drybrushing. Anyway, not trying to shoot down the comment and in no way do I think it's well painted, I'm just looking for something more useful to me.

Well, like I said someone else should give better further advice.

However yes the paint does look thick especially on the canopy. The fact use used three layers of foundation paint itself is telling. What ratio did you thin the paint by?

Orlanth wrote:Well, like I said someone else should give better further advice.

However yes the paint does look thick especially on the canopy. The fact use used three layers of foundation paint itself is telling. What ratio did you thin the paint by?

Ratio is a useless term as older paint is thicker.

The first coat milk thin adeptus battlegrey, then two coats of very very thin adeptusbattle grey (IE almost water)
The canopy is made of greenstuff and is lumpy by nature because my GS'ing skills are sub par.

Maybe it just looks thicker than it is because of the photo, and the canopy is a little heavy. Ratios are good rather than using a lot or little in a description, yes the terms are flexible. To some watering down means adding a drop of water to slightly thin the paint, I have been known to water down paints as far as three parts water to one part paint in a maincoat. Though I normally add black to counteract the transparency effect of the thinner paint.

Anyway I sound a lot harsher than I am, had I made that kit I would not be ashamed to put it on the table, far far from, and you have a great modelling talent.

I would like to second above requests for templates.

Wow, nice modeling. I was really afraid that this was going to blow, and it totally rocks. Keep up zee good work.

i suck at every thing but if you want to get rid of a lump wait until it drys the cut it off with a craft knife.

I've been working on this off and on for a few months, and thought I'd share with the folks at Dakka. Here's some progressive WIP shots.

The plans I have are fairly basic so I'm going to go over the ton of images on the web of real thunderhawks and try to mimic the plating and doodads.

Here's the frame of the main body with some tau for scale. The thing is huge!



A few more hours of work and here I am



Spent some more time working on it. I wanted to get some detail paneling done so that I wasn't too lazy when the model was finished and leave it out.

The cockpit on the plans was a little crappy so I decided to incorporate a rhino front onto it. Also I spent some time carving out the different panel layers which really give SM vehicles their unique appearance.



The sheer size this ship is shaping up to be is incredible. It's definately twice the length of a land raider.



I put a wing on but ran out of plastic at this stage so here's a shot before starting up again after buying more plastic.

The main body is all finished though, it's gigantic. I brought it out to the local gamestore and we used it as an armour 12 bunker. It was nice to have some LOS blocking terrain for once!




I've had a bit more time and now that my orks are done for the time being I figured I should get back to this project.
I grabbed some weapons off a friend but still had to buy 2 more heavy bolters off ebay. Maybe they'll show up in a week.

I lucked out and won some valkyrie engines for cheap on ebay as well, hopefully those are here this week. For now I'll share the rivets I've been adding and the bolter mounts.

Front view of TL Hbolters:


Front Hbolter Sponson:


Rear Hbolter Sponson underslung:


Rear Rivets:


Front Rivets:


I'm still hoping a guy at the LGS can find his Shadow sword Tubo laser to mount to the top.

As for battle, I used this baby out with my friends in our first Apoc Planet strike game and it was almost overpowered. I think we're going to have to limit aircraft to one per side (as in I'll lend my thunderbolt to the guy without one and the other player will ensure he brings his). It ended up one sided with air support (my side had 3 craft vs 0). It didn't REALLY matter though since we couldn't hold off their ground forces and they won on turn 6 however if I'd been an attacker I think my team would have won by turn 3. Really fun anyway.

looks great man keep up the great work

nice work on the body. I'd cut down the rhino front though.

deadly chicken wrote:nice work on the body. I'd cut down the rhino front though.

How do you mean cut it down?

It seems to tall for me
maybe remove a cm off the bottom?

deadly chicken wrote:It seems to tall for me
maybe remove a cm off the bottom?

I think it just stands out vs the plasticard. If it were shorter it would be near vertical which wouldn't flow well.

Really nice work. Inspiring! Let us know how the battle goes!