Primaris Space Wolves part 7: Impulsor

A little overdue, this monster tank has been up on my Instagram for a while now, but here's a detailed run-down of the Impulsor I built for my Space Wolves force.

What a kit! The last time I built a tank, it was the old Rhino kit. GW's model design has improved so much since then. It was a lot of fun to put this together.

 

 

The only real modification I made to this kit was forgoing the canopy attachment and putting the shield dome in the place of one of the hatches. The dome's mount piece fits snugly there and I suspect the designers anticipated people might go for this alternative placement.

I like the look of the vehicle fully open-topped, and the position of the shield dome over the cabin allows the suggestion that there's more machinery underneath it, contained in the hull. Placing the dome (or the other attachments, such as the stubber gun) on the canopy means there's nothing directly underneath them, which looks insubstantial to me.

 

I had difficulty getting the plates to fit together snugly at the back of the model. I expect I could improve on this if I ever build a second one.

It's also very tough to paint the interior! There's plenty of nooks that are almost impossible to reach with a brush. I painted so much of this model in sub-assemblies, but the way it's built means the interior plates go into the main structure right from the start.

Those little gripes aside, the model is lovely and everything connects very cleanly. It has a real solid feel. And it definitely looks like a next generation Rhino buliding on that classic design.

I extended the metal techniques I used on my Redemptor Dreadnought here. The gun turrets used the technique of matte black painted over Tamiya chrome, then scratched with a needle.

I left the repulsor plates totally clean. I imagine the dirt simply vibrates right off them. I might revisit this and add a little shading when everything's complete (I plan to revise some details across the whole army at that stage).

The interior flooring got some heavy corroding through stippling, and then a lot of the same mud I'm using on the bases (Vallejo Russian mud effect).

For the engines, I referred to images of real life jet engines which have a light brown scorched metal color. The engine casings are covered in soot (black pigment).

I'm very happy with the shield dome, which was painted with stippled graphite pigment (made by finely crushing an artist's graphite stick. If you prep the area with some matte medium, you can stipple pigment onto it with a dry brush before the medium sets, and the medium will stick it in place. On the other hand if you mix pigment with medium in the palette, it'll get clumpy. Both are useful effects.

The front of the hull got some heavy battle damage and scorch marks. While I'm painting the rest of the army with my headcanon in mind that Astartes power armour doesn't chip, I think the very front of an assault vehicle is going to be subject to the heaviest enemy firepower and it gave me an excuse to go to town with some proper battle damage effects.

I'm catching up on posting some of the completed models that have already gone on Instagram. Follow me there if you want to be a little more ahead!

Hek