Centurion Vehicles: Land Raider

I had an original Land Raider from a long ago time. I never built it because I lost interest in the game right after I got it. It was part of a Christmas ensemble of Rhino, Predator and Land Raider. I made the other two, but I gave my original Land Raider to Caius when I saw the new Land Raider was coming out.

The new Land Raider is a great little kit. It looks much much much more realistic than the original Games Workshop disaster. There are cool doors that open in unison and rotating turrets. There’s also a compete interior.

I went ahead and painted the interior of the tank a light green mixture I concocted from my stable of Liquitex paints. I wanted it to look military and subdued. I painted all the details inside even thought I wasn’t sure I was even going to have a way to see the interior at all. I considered gluing everything shut to avoid breakage during game play. As is, I glued down the side doors and all the top turrets and do-hickies but left the front door able to open. The side lascannons swing and turn though.

The pictures of the interior are from the construction phase, since I couldn't get enough light in there for photography after it was finished. Nevertheless, in good light, the interior can be seen through the front door.

I decided to forgo the camouflage scheme I’d used in my other vehicles and make this a definite part of my Centurion Space Marine chapter by going all out with purple. I used my Sotar 20/20 airbrush to evenly paint the parts. I found that I needed five or more coats to get the deep even purple I wanted. I guess my paint was too thin or something. I painted it, and the sub-assemblies, for what seemed like weeks.

After the color was finally uniform, mixed a slightly lighter color and highlighted the raised areas with the brush. I used a thin black wash in the panel lines to deepen those.

The tracks were actually a bit of a pain. I went with a black undercoat and drybrush of steel, but I was impatient and kept mucking it up, losing all detail and obliterating the underlying black. I finally settled down after a while and got it done.

I considered weathering the piece a bit, but I was lazy and liked the clean purple. It actually fits with the history of the Centurions; the Land Raider is a brand new edition to the army having been cut off from resupply so long. I painted the Centurion Technical emblem on the side (a wrench under the winged Centurion C) as a throw-back to the earlier edition. I haven’t decided what to write on the scroll emblem on the front. I’ll think of something in Latin and add it later.

The piece is another one of those models which doesn’t look like much from certain distances, but I like. It may look like a big purple lump, but the shading is subtle and effective. A fine addition to my model collection and army list.

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