Eagle Transporter

Starting at the front with the cockpit parts. All cut off the sprue and cleaned up ready for some assembly and priming. 

Cockpit parts primed with Mig One-Shot White & Grey on the inside of the cockpit. 

Cockpit back wall painted. Not my neatest work but it won't be seen very well so good enough 😉 

Made a start on cleanup of the back spine parts. If you don't already have a seam remover then get one before you attempt this kit - you'll need it 😄 

Back spine assembled. Very fiddly to add the parts & glue without them dropping back out again but I got there. 

More fiddly assembly with the cages around the pods.  

Pilots (badly!) painted. Again, not too fussed as they'll hardly be seen once they're in the cockpit. 

More fiddly pipework assembling the front & rear pods. Needed to be careful on orientation but the instructions are reasonably clear. 

All the parts assembled so far. Getting close to closing up the cockpit, just have to prepare the windows and then I can look at sticking that together and cleaning up the seam. 

More assembly, this time the side pods. Labelled them so I remember which one goes on which corner 😉 

And the feet to go with them. 

Fiddly, fiddly pipes again! That was horribly fiddly but the engine "block" is all done. 

Got the windows ready. Primed the inside of the bottom windows with one-shot black and masked the front of all the windows ready to glue into the cockpit halves. 

Windows glued in using Micro Kristal Klear. 

Decals added to the pilots and they can be glued in place on the back wall. 

Last part for the cockpit assembly is the four thrusters. Primed with one-shot black ready for a metallic coat.  

Cockpit halves glued together and the seam sanded back. It's not too bad needed a small few bits re-glued with extra thin but it's mostly gone. 

Another coat of primer across the sanded parts. 

Back wall with pilots glued into the back of the cockpit. 

Cockpit fully assembled 😎 

All the parts constructed (sorry, forgot to take photos of the cargo pod going together) primed with one-shot white. You can see how big the thing is going to be!!  

Parts primed with one-shot black 

Engines primed with gloss black 

"Struts" painted with metallic Chrome. 

New technique alert 😉
Trying out C1 metalliser on the struts. 

Yep, that works 🙂 

Engine bells painted with metal color aluminum  

Metalliser is great on the engine bells too 😎 

Metalliser used on all the metallic parts. They all look suitably shiny 😎 

Feet painted with Panzer Dark Grey & Drybrushed with Metallic Steel. 

Cockpit & Engine Tanks painted White-Grey and glossed with Pledge. 

Decals applied to the cockpit and the Engine tank section. I shelled out on the weathering decal set and they are really delicate, fiddly and difficult to apply as they will only come off the backing using hot water and then all they want to do is curl up or wrinkle. Really fiddly but I persevered and only failed with two. Sealed in with another gloss coat.
Here's the top view. 

Side view of the decaling.  

And the bottom view. The middle bottle was one of the decals that folded over so much it was unsalvageable so trashed it and used the kit supplied decal. My "head canon" is that the bottle had been swapped off another Eagle and that's why it's marked different. I'll put that one at the bottom so you won't see it anyway. 

Light pinwash with Blue-Grey, cleaned up with Lacquer Thinners then two coats of Matt varnish to dull everything down. That's the cockpit pretty much done. Just need to add the four metallic 'sensors'  

Cockpit view from the side. 

Cockpit view from below. 

Sensors added and window masking removed. Cockpit is done 🙂 

Engine bottles get a Blue-Grey wash and a couple of coats of Matt Varnish. These are done now as well. 

Matt coated the feet and gloss coated the struts which made them really dark - the metalliser doesn't like anything on top of it but I wanted to protect the struts from scrapes so will have to live with it. They're still metallic, just darker than before.  

Rescue pod gets a coat of white-grey and a light gloss coat to protect it. 

Port side masking, ready for stripes. 

Port side painted with Red to give the stripes. 

The starboard side gets it's stripes and the black "vents" are fitted to the top parts. All sealed in with a coat of gloss ready for decals. 

Decals applied on the pod and sealed in with another coat of gloss. 

Blue-Grey wash and a couple of Matt coats. 

The windows for the Rescue Pod have had their "back" painted black with One Shot primer leaving the part you'll see still shiny but blacked out.  

Used PVA to glue the windows in. Need to leave that 24hrs to dry fully. 

Smoke oil paint weathering on all the Engine Bells. Did that early as that needs a while to dry fully ahead of adding the smaller bells to the bottom of the Rescue Pod 

The main body of the Rescue pod gets the same Blue-Grey wash & a couple of coats of Matt gloss. 

Streaky engine bells and the drybrushed feet are glued into place. 

The roof sections are glued into place.  

Loosely fitted the top but that looks too clean so needs a bit of wash as well. 

Front and back "passageways" and the "spine" painted white-grey, glossed, washed with blue-grey and matt coated. 

Engine bells fitted to the passageways. 

Rear engine bells fitted to the tank assembly and the baffles fitted.  

Rear passageway glued to the spine. 

Engine assembly glued next.  

Added the rescue pod and screwed that to the spine  

Then the front passageway was glued to the spine 

And finally added the cockpit assembly, now it looks like an Eagle 😎 

Side pods have been painted white-grey, glossed and the kit decals have been applied. Weathering decals next. 

Half the weathering decals applied, just the other two side pods to go. 

Weathering decals completed and the side pods were literally "hung out to dry" 😄 after a gloss coat. 

Cages for the sides have been glossed, washed with blue-grey, cleaned up then matt coated. 

I cut the lugs off the side cages as they won't fit as I'd already assembled the front and back sections but.... 

Without the lugs they just clip in without glue easily enough. 

Side pods washed with the blue-grey, cleaned up and matt coated.  

Glued the foot to the side pod making sure the "hinge" on the gear faced towards the back on all four. 

Glued the thruster bells to the side pod. 

Repeated four times and they're all compete. 

Turned the Eagle upside down to glue the side pods on. 

Eagle complete 😄