IC301 - Iron Claw Pirates Part 5

Greetings, our recent house move is complete and painting projects are recommencing, various boxes of Oldhammer are being raided in loft on a daily basis.

I did eventually manage to finish 3 more of Bob Olley's 1988 IC301 Iron Claw Space Pirates miniatures, only 4 miniatures to paint which I might add are half done and that will be another miniature range complete.  

The latest trio

Here's what I have done so far if you have not been following:

Iron Claw Pirates Part 1
Iron Claw Pirates Part 2
Iron Claw Pirates Part 3
Iron Claw Pirates Part 4

Today's first miniature is Captain Dunbar, this sculpt is really nice, I like the helmet of this miniature and again I have went for a Volgan helmet in the same vein of Attitude Gorman, the weapon is really nice, I went for striped pantaloons in true pirate captain fashion. 

Captain Dunbar - front

Captain Dunbar - side

Captain Dunbar - back

Next we have Zandar, another strange alien, paint job I went for blue skin again being faithful to the original advent in the Book of Astronomican and shades of blue clothing, I love this ones gun and I am sure his weapon is a miniaturised version of Nemesis the Warlock or his living symbiotic vehicle Blitzspear both are very similar depending on which art you look at and both spit fire from their mouth grill, everything 2000ad was very popular with Game Workshop staff at the time and I like to think this was a little nod to it.

Zandar - front

Zandar - back

Blitzspear

Nemesis the Warlock

And finally we have Verrington Khosht again an alien, in typical Bob Olley fashion he has sculpted a bizarre wrinkly extra-terrestrial head, nice body armour and a bolter type gun with attached combat blade, a common feature on these space pirates is having a hose attached to a pouch on the characters back leading back to the gun.  I went for a lucid green skill tone, natural tone armour scheme.

Verrington Khosht - front

Verrington Khosht - back

Work in progress pictures #IronClaw plus other wonderful stuff from other #Oldhammer tweeters can be found on my Twitter feed get following.

cheers
J

IC301 - Iron Claw Pirates Part 4

Hello again, much Oldhammer littering my workstation as well lots of 'Newhammer' (is that even a thing?).  Now I am really loving the miniatures being released for Warhammer Quest Blackstone Fortress and am slowly working on these in the little spare time I have.  Lots of this modern plastic 'tat' will be shared on this blog soon.

I did eventually manage to finish another 1988 IC301 Iron Claw Space Pirates miniature and here he is, still have four more on the go, only one miniature outstanding on the entire range.  Work in progress pictures can be found on my Twitter feed.

Here's what I have done so far if you have not been following:

Iron Claw Pirates Part 1
Iron Claw Pirates Part 2
Iron Claw Pirates Part 3

Today's miniature is another Bob Olley fan favourite 'Nightwing', one of two human cyborgs in the range, Loritta (Cyber Girl) being the other one.

Nightwing looks like he has been through the wars and these have left him with a cyborg torso, a head with cool eye grills and mechanical left arm. I went for camouflage with squares (multi-scale?) on his lower armour pieces, he is also armed with the same gun as 'Little Rico' a sort of pseudo plasma gun.

The back of the miniature is a pretty basic sculpt with a cloak that has what looks like jester dangly bits, I am sure there a practical reason for them?? I was really excited about painting this miniature but that didn't continue I felt the sculpt was a bit flat. The miniature is tagged as 'trooper'.

I used Games Workshop's Barbed Bracken on base painted in a variety of colours, I have always tried to make my bases as generic as possible, one so not to take the attention off the miniature and two to help the miniature fit in with any game but lately I have been really impressed with the new basing kits so I couldn't resist adding a bit here and there, the box of Games Workshop's Skulls is one of my favourites.

IC301 Iron Claw Space Pirates 'Nightwing' - front

IC301 Iron Claw Space Pirates 'Nightwing' - side

IC301 Iron Claw Space Pirates 'Nightwing' - back

IC301 Iron Claw Space Pirates 'Nightwing'

Old photos below.

IC301 Iron Claw Space Pirates 'Nightwing' - front

IC301 Iron Claw Space Pirates 'Nightwing' - back

Photos trying to get the base in better.

IC301 Iron Claw Space Pirates 'Nightwing'

IC301 Iron Claw Space Pirates 'Nightwing'

Thanks for stopping by again, I think I'll show you some of my more modern miniatures next time.
cheers
J

IC301 - Iron Claw Pirates - Part 3

Hello, well recent my 1988 Iron Claw Space Pirates posts (part 1 & part 2 for a bit more history) were well received by friends and followers so I decided to soldier on and paint a few more. 

My latest batch of Iron Claw Space Pirates

Firstly we have the weird and wonderful 'Star Raven' who I assume is a Rogue Psyker, wearing strange armour and helmet and carrying a dragon headed staff.  He is nicely sculpted miniature with a cloak adorned with a star and a moon faced gorget, he would make a excellent henchman for my Bolt Thrower miniatures Bob Olley Space Viking.

One thing I found interesting is his miniature tab states 'Timelord' which made me think was this miniature sculpted earlier when Games Workshop had a Dr Who license and never made it to that range thus being put here or did Bob Olley use a metal timelord as a base for his sculpt? who knows....

I wanted him to look supernatural so for the armour I painted all the metal with Vallejo Natural Steel and washed with a wash of 50% Lahmian Medium with 50% Waystone Green/Soulstone Blue mix which gave a nice blue green glow and for the staff washed with Lahmian Medium/Spiritstone Red mix for an interesting red copper look.

Star Raven - front

Star Raven - back

Next we have 'Dambo Kweltz' a human holding what appears to be a Armalite Rifle from a lost age of technology, I based my colour scheme on the original advert paint job, pinks and purples and had a couple of disasters with this choice and that's where @Curis of the excellent  ninjabread blog gave me excellent advice which helped recover the paint job. Tab says 'mercenary' I imagine him as a Royal Hive Guard Deserter or maybe a arms trader or both :D

Dambo Kweltz - front

Dambo Kweltz - back

Next is 'Little Rico' armed with a crazy heavy gun that two grip handle in shield pods (you tell me?) I am going to use it as some sort of Plasma gun, this isn't the only miniature from the range that is equipped with this gun (coming soon). I gave him a big ginger beard and a drinkers nose, the skull on his helmet reminds me of someone out of 2000AD's Bad Company. It looks like he has some sort of comms unit on his back.  

Little Rico - front

Little Rico - back

Little Rico - side

Lastly we have 'Attitude Gorman' I found this one a fun miniature to paint and went for a full military paint job as his helmet with 'V' emblem screamed Volgan from 2000AD's ABC Warriors and Invasion!/Savage stories (which are now crossing over).

Attitude Gorman - front

Attitude Gorman - back

Attitude Gorman - side

Blue background didn't work so well today

More Space Pirates coming soon including the infamous 'Nightwing'.

Thanks for stopping by.
J

IC301 - Iron Claw Pirates - Part 2

Hi, my latest Oldhammer project is coming along nicely, Bob Olley's 1987 IC301 Iron Claw Space Pirates.  I wrote in my last blog post about how much I love these Iron Claw Space Pirates as they are a bizarre mix of characters with mysterious equipment and today's post is covering another two pirates, both interesting miniatures who appear to be aliens or xenos to all you grimdark fans. Let me introduce you to ‘Ooglorg the Cruel’ and 'Col. Vlad'.

Ooglorg the Cruel & Col. Vlad

First up we have ‘Ooglorg the Cruel’ who certainly appears alien in name and appearance with bulging eyes, massive ears and horns on his wrinkly head, I went for a blue skin tone to match the skin colour in the original advert with white hair reminiscent of 2000AD's Rogue Trooper.

Ooglorg wears an armoured gorget/pauldron combination adorned with skulls all appear to be of alien origin, he is armed with one of the strangest and most impractical of all of Olley's weapon sculpts I have no idea what it supposed to represent it looks very top heavy with two barrels and it's trigger appears to be like that of a medieval crossbow, I gave it fiery glows around the barrel area and green glows around the trigger area.  Unpainted his tab identifies him as mercenary.

The resin base might be from Black Cat bases I can't remember and the skull I think was supposed to a horses but with a bit of a purple wash I think it looks like a decent alien skull.

Ooglorg the Cruel - front

Ooglorg the Cruel - front

Ooglorg the Cruel - back

Ooglorg the Cruel - side

Ooglorg the Cruel - side

Ooglorg the Cruel - side

Ooglorg the Cruel - alien skull at his feet

Today's second miniature is 'Col. Vlad' Col. is an abbreviation of colonel so this alien has a rank maybe amongst his space pirate band or maybe from a previous occupation, he reminds me of the alien in the superb 1985 s movie Enemy Mine, I steered away from the original skin colour depicted in the advert for this one as it appears that the painter of this range just painted most of the aliens characters blue although they are clearly of different alien species I would of liked more colours, I went for bright greens and yellows including original Citadel Colour Bilious Green.

Col. Vlad has an armoured vest and shoulder pads that is a reoccuring theme on many of Olley's Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader sculpts and again a strange alien weapon with a weapon butt that looks like Viking design and could tie in nicely with Bob Olley's space viking. Unpainted his tab identifies him as mercenary.

Col. Vlad - front

Col. Vlad - front

Col. Vlad - side

Col. Vlad - back

Col. Vlad - side

Colonel Vlad

Blue Aliens everywhere!

Apologies for ramblings on but I feel there is so much more to discuss about these miniatures and am happy to hear your thoughts on these gems.  Still struggling with photography too so expect these photos to be update in near future.

Another six Iron Claw Space Pirates on the workbench at the moment so stay tuned for more to come.

J

IC301 - Iron Claw Pirates - Part 1

Hello, today's post is on a Oldhammer project I have had simmering for a long time, the IC301 Iron Claw Space Pirates, they were released in 1987 and appeared in the fabled Rogue Trader Book of the Astronomican in 1988.  
They were sculpted by Bob Olley, to some Bob Olley is a bit of a marmite sculptor some love his sculpts and some not so much, I love these Space Pirates but was never the biggest fan of his Realm of Chaos Beastmen although I did paint one up, example here, I also have the Bob Olley Limited Edition Bolt Thrower Miniatures Space Viking to paint one day.

Now what I love about the Iron Claw Space Pirates is that they ooze character in a similar way to how the Rogue Trader Adventurers do, have you checked out the characters up close up you have a female cyborg, a sentient robot, a handful of aliens, a space seer, lots of strange and identifiable weapons and unlike the slightly later range of Rogue Trader Pirates not a pirate cliche in there. Some superb naming character in this range too.

Two down 15 more to go.

First up we have 'Banzai Jones' a rugged looking human, he is wearing a flying jacket and helmet adorned with strange markings that appear like a bat or insect, could this be his pirate gang insignia who knows?  Armed with what looks like a classic shotgun. He appears on the classic White Dwarf 100 poster painted by I think John Blanche.

IC301 - Iron Claw Pirates - Banzai Jones - front

IC301 - Iron Claw Pirates - Banzai Jones - back

Next we have 'Loritta' aka Cyber Girl as the miniature tab reads, sporting a little dress, big boots, a cybernetic face, a massive machine gun slung over her shoulder and brawling gloves with mounted claws I pity anyone on a starship when she is on the boarding party.

IC301 - Iron Claw Pirates - Loritta - front

IC301 - Iron Claw Pirates - Loritta - back

IC301 Iron Claw Space Pirates

Bob Olley Space Viking coming soon

Thanks for popping in, lots more blog posts queued up

Stay tuned

J