And the Winged Hussar arrived!

Apologies but after I found out about that song and the youtube meme it spawned, I had to incorporate it into the blog somehow!  Hopefully the first test paint job won't turn anyone off.  I've historically been a competent tabletop quality painter and don't have the skill nor the patience to learn the advanced techniques necessary to get to that next tier.  In any case, here is the first test model painted up (but not based):

I ended up going with the polish eagle on the tabard as it didn't look like it clashed too much with the aquilla in the end.  Additionally, I felt the model needed a bit of white in the center as well.  I used decal solvent on most of the decals to mixed results.  It worked well enough along with two relief cuts on the shoulder pads although the ravenwing icon kinked a bit on one side (of course facing the front of the model... and I didn't notice it until I was changing the sword on the decal to a sabre!).  The solvent practically disolved the first eagle I put on the tabard literally in front of my eyes to a splotchy dull off white so I had to rinse that one off in pieces; I suppose FOW decals aren't compatible with testors decal solvent although GW ones are.  The air force symbol wouldn't fit properly on the knee cap and was too small to put relief cuts into so I put it diagonally as a diamond instead of the historical square.

I don't expect to change the overall scheme much on the second model although I think I will change the order of painting operations significantly the second time around.  Washing and highlighting the base armor was a PITA after the rest of the models was done so I think I'll do all the steps involved in the silver/chainmail armor itself (base coat, lighter top coat, two washes, cleanup and occasional edge highlighting) before I touch the rest of the parts/colors.  Decalwise, I might switch to the slightly larger sized ravenwing decal for the chapter symbol as there is alot of blank red space on that side as well.

Keeping in mind my slightly better than tabletop quality skill level, I'd love to hear other possible tips that I could use.