Vendetta With Aquila

This Vendetta was another commission.  This is the first IG vehicle I've ever painted.  The client requested tabletop quality with an Aquila on the wings, leaving the colors up to me.  I didn't build it (you can still see some mold lines), just painted it.  The canopy is also a bit crooked as the pilots are a bit off, but the client said he'd fix it.

I went with the blue and gold because I had accidentally bought a pot of Necron Abyss and figured I might as well get some use out of it.  I highlighted it with Royal Blue and Ultramarine Blue (another accidental wrong color).  The Aquila is Shining Gold with Burnished Gold highlights.  By the way, don't try and paint gold over blue without some kind of basecoat.  I should have basecoated it either Iyanden Darksun or Tausept Ochre.  It took about 4 coats to get the gold on right, and it still is patchy in places if you look up close, though it looks fine at tabletop distance.

I didn't use a stencil, I just freehanded the Aquila.  You can see that the left side is slightly different from the right.  Were I going for a higher standard I would have corrected it.  It was very difficult.  I'm no stranger to freehand but this goes down as possibly the hardest I've done.  A lot of the difficulty was the symmetry and the fact that it's such an established symbol.  It probably needs more pinions but I couldn't really fit them.  The other thing that made it difficult as I said before was the fact that it took many layers to get the color on.  If I ever do another freehand metallic on a strong surface I'm going to be sure and do a proper basecoat.