CthelMakes

Grips got painted brown with a brush and the screw heads picked out in gunmetal

Final paint details on the power cells, followed by drybrushing to add some contrast.

Coat of rattlecan varnish to seal everything

Side vents got and airbrushed blue glow, then I used artist's masking fluid to mask them off before airbrushing the main section metallic black.

Forebody & upper section airbrushed gunmetal

Masking removed!

I'm not sure I can recommend the artist's masking fluid - it's very fiddly to use.

Trying out masking fluid chipping using a resin cast I had lying around

Primed black and then all the metal areas undercoated silver for the chipping.

Since this is an Eldar weapon, I didn't want to do too much weathering - just some brown wash to lighten up the grooves on the handgrip and accentuate the detail on the top piece

The gems got a basecoat of metallic red with a brush, before I remembered that blu tac can be used to mask weird shapes for airbrushing

After removing the masking, the gem mountings were tidied up with a brush before painting them gold (still using a brush)

The big gold areas were painted with an airbrush, then given some drybrush highlighting with the masking still in place.

The trigger and energy connector were painted gold with a brush, and the remaining black details got a drybrush highlight

The ammo core was nice and simple - drybrushed white highlights on the base and the actual core painted black.

The muzzle interior and the bottom of the mag well got painted black with a narrow brush

The gems got a coat of gloss black primer to try and fill any remaining grooves. Then, the recessed details got a coat of Administratum Grey to accentuate them, along with the join between the grip part and the main body.

After drybrushing with white to add edge highlights, everything that wasn't going to be white got a couple of coats of black with a paintbrush.

After carefully glueing the two halves back together with superglue, there was still a crack.

The crack got another pass of filler, and since everything was going to get another coat of filler primer I took the opportunity to do some more filler on the detail at the back.

After filling comes even more sanding 🙃 Then another coat of filler primer (not photographed)

Finally - everything is ready for a coat of regular primer! (two coats of light grey primer with an airbrush)

First sanding pass shows the places where the joints weren't quite filled properly...

...like the trigger guard or mag well. They get another pass of filler and sanding, before the whole thing gets another coat of filler primer.

Things are looking better, but there are still parts with obvious layer lines (the joys of FDM printers)

this time, obvious cracks got filler before sanding

After the filler (and everything else got sanded down, it was time for the last coat of filler primer. Unless...

...well that's a problem 🙃

Even with the clamping and careful aligning, the gap between the two subassemblies needed filling

Then the filler got sanded, along with a rough sanding of the rest of the build

New project time! (starting with a test fit using masking tape)

Because of the arch shaped overhang, the mag well needed sanding and filling to clean up the surface.

Because it's a test print, I didn't add any registration keys so to give time to get the alignment right, the pieces were glued together with epoxy.

Then the two halves got epoxied together

From L to R: Mk1 Power Cell; Mk2 Power Cell; Small Power Cell

The small power cell makes the laspistol easier to holster

All finished!

Once the painting was finished, everything got a coat of satin varnish to seal it before weathering. OR THAT WAS THE PLAN

Spoiler: It turns out I didn't use enough varnish...

...so when I tried to wipe away the excess oil paint I was using for weathering, I ended up taking the varnish off as well 🙃 In some places, when I used IPA I ended up taking the paint off down to the primer 🤦‍♂️🙃🤦‍♂️