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

Forces of the Imperium - Rogue Trader

Hello, todays classic Oldhammer miniature is the only Warhammer 40,000 1st Edition Rogue Trader character miniature released and I don't recall any other until recent times, the miniature was released alongside some other great characters as 'Forces of the Imperium' in White Dwarf 118 October 1989, I don't know who sculpted this miniature, I don't recall any art depicting him (but I haven't looked that hard), it's just one of those odd bod miniatures that wasn't produced for long and that is why it's quite scarce.

Dressed in a long trench coat with integrated body armour, a cap with goggles and the most amazing Imperial two-headed eagle on chest giving him the protection of Emperor in battle, he appears to be armed with a Power Sword akin to a light sabre not unlike some the RT01 Space Marines have and nicely sculpted Bolt Pistol without magazine clip, I guess the ammo must be in the grip handle. Pretty basic paint job as the trench coat pretty much envelops the miniature so lots of leather tan colour, tried having a go at the light sabre effect it required Citadel inks and a cotton bud to work the colour out.

If you can give me any knowledge about this miniature please chuck it in the comments, speculation is fine too.

Rogue Trader with Power Sword & Bolt Pistol - front

Rogue Trader with Power Sword & Bolt Pistol - back

White Dwarf 118 October 1989 advert

I think you will agree the new Blackstone Fortress Rogue Trader 'Janus Draik' certainly shares similarities with this classic miniature like the imperial eagle emblazoned on his chest, long pointy sword and the long coat.

Blackstone Fortress Rogue Trader 'Janus Draik

Thanks for popping in,
J

LE101 Chaos Renegade

Greetings,
Lots of blog post drafts queued up and here's one that been waiting to finished for a long while, moving house really swallows up your hobbytime but the flip side is that many hobby skills can be adapted for DIY so I have become a bit of a plumber, electrician, etc thus saving lots of money for future projects.

Todays classic Oldhammer miniature is the Citadel Miniatures Limited Edition LE101 - Chaos Renegade Marine released in White Dwarf 101 May 1988 although he was pictured on the cover of White Dwarf 99. 

Sculpted by Michael Perry, this miniature was the Second Chaos Marine Citadel Miniatures released and was eventually moved into Realm of Chaos era Chaos Renegades range along with the other 'not so' Limited Edition Traitor Legionaire and Treacher Marine.

This miniature paved the way for the biomechanical aesthetic of the Realm of Chaos era Chaos Renegades we know and love, sculpted again by Michael Perry with help from Kevin Adams.

The release timeline:

1. Treacher Marine (No. 12) - RT01 Imperial Space Marines - April 1988 White Dwarf 100
2. LE101 - Chaos Renegade Marine - May 1988 White Dwarf 101
3. LE102 - Traitor Legionnaire - June 1988 White Dwarf 102
4. Chaos Renegades - September 1988 White Dwarf 105, this was the main release consisting of Khorne and Slaanesh renegades at first.

I went for the colour scheme that my 2nd edition Warhammer 40,000 Plague Marines are painted mainly in classic Citadel Colour Rotting Flesh and Jungle Green alternating the colour from side to side.

LE101 - Chaos Renegade Marine - front

LE101 - Chaos Renegade Marine - back

White Dwarf 99

I have added some addtional photos of the miniature further way as I think it looks a lot better.

LE101 - Chaos Renegade Marine - front

LE101 - Chaos Renegade Marine - back

thanks for stopping by, lots more to come

J

New-Oldhammer - First Encounters of a 40K kind

Hello, something a bit different from me today as you are well aware Games Workshop products are going through a bit of a renaissance that harks back to the golden Oldhammer age of gaming, big box games, familiar titles, etc, well I thought I would give some of this NewOldhammer, Newhammer, Nu-hammer, Neohammer or whatever you want to call it a go.

Now I considered the last 20 years of Games Workshop products as unworthy of my attention and was a bit snobbish about it all and very blinkered but the last two years or so of released products have excited me very much I had to have a word with myself 😆, the new products scream to me of days of old so what did I do only went and purchased each new game release when it came out, Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower, Necromunda, Kill team: Rogue Trader, etc while yearning for the day my 5 year old and I can play together. These boxed games are mostly still sitting on top of a wardrobe in their shrink wrap except Gorechosen and Warhammer Quest: Blackstone Fortress which I have been doing some work on in my spare time.

Here are some of my efforts on miniatures from this new exciting era.

My fruits of a new age

UR-025 from Warhammer Quest: Blackstone Fortress, a robot (Men of Iron) who secretly possesses AI and is on a secret mission of his own.  It's been a bit of a struggle to get used to snap fix plastic miniatures but I got there in the end with this one, when painting this one I tried to get as close to the box art as possible as not to confuse my boy when we get around to playing the game, the green white effect was achieved with a 50/50 mix of Lahmian Medium and Nihilakh Oxide using modern Citadel Colour paints is totally new to me being a Vallejo paints fan but I liked the results so will be adding others when I need to. I did my usual basing style also adding a skull from the Citadel skulls set as I want to use this miniature more than just in Blackstone Fortress.


I have to apologise for the number of photos of UR-025 but I felt that there are so many little neat details I wanted to show from higher and lower angles plus if you know me my photography stinks, I am really impressed with the design.

UR-025 - front

UR-025 - side

UR-025 - side

UR-025 - back

UR-025 - gun side

UR-025 - front

UR-025 - front

UR-025 - Flamer side

UR-025 - back

Next up is 'Fexgor the Flayer' a Khornate Slaughterpriest with Hackblade and Wrath-hammer (what a mouthful), he came free with White Dwarf and the brilliant price of Gorechosen lead to my purchase for the game.  I went for typical Khorne colours and jazzed the base up a bit.

Fexgor the Flayer - front

Fexgor the Flayer - side

Fexgor the Flayer - back

Fexgor the Flayer - side

Fexgor the Flayer

The final miniature of today post is ForgeWorld's Necromunda 'Belladonna' the Noble Bounty Huntress, when I saw this I just had to have it as I have great love for John Blanche's work. This miniature is a homage to the Amazon Gothique painting and Chaos Amazon (LE15), I did a blog post discussing this miniature and it's influences here.  My paint job is my attempt to copy the image on the blister and that was a mistake as this miniature is bloody difficult to paint, the level of details is immense I don't think I touched a brush bigger than 5/0, my head hurts when thinking about how the Forgeworld painters achieved their final painted version.

Belladonna - front

Belladonna - side

Belladonna - side

Belladonna - back

Belladonna - side

Well I hope you have enjoy the start of my journey into the modern age, I am currently working on Thaddeus the Purifier for Blackstone Fortress so you will be seeing him soon along with many posts of the usual stuff.

thanks
J

BC5 Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion Part 1 - Corum Jhaelen Irsei

Hello, short post today of a draft that has been sitting around for ages, if you are a twitter follower you may have seen I painted this Oldhammer miniature last summer.  I have always loved the Moorcock's novels, his conception of the forces of Chaos and the blend fantasy with sci-fiction so due to this I have painted the BC5 Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion many times since 1987 but I was never really happy with the finished miniatures, periodically stripping them. 

Now when choosing miniatures to paint I like many of you often try to get the miniature to fit as many gaming genres as possible, not just Warhammer and the Corum, Hawkmoon and Jerry miniatures from the BC5 set are ideal miniatures for this, Corum for instance could be a fantasy Warlock, Chaos Champion or a Sci-fi Cult leader with power claw and bionic eye, this increases their chances of an outing on the gaming table.

Here is the first miniature from this mini project 'Corum Jhaelen Irsei' from the 1987 Citadel Miniatures 'BC5 Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion' boxed set.  I went for a dark muted colour palette that I think really works on the Eternal Champion miniatures, I couldn't paint a plain metal plate covering his empty eye socket it was just looked too boring so I attempted to make it represent the Eye of Rhynn which he gave up to the Lost Gods, I used Citadel Soulstone gem paints on the jewels of the Hand of Kwll.  I was tempted to add some gold thread patterns to his scarlet robe but I resisted as it might have brightened the miniature up and ruined the effect I was trying to achieve, I am quite happy how he turned out.  There are 7other miniatures in the Boxed set and I think I'll have another crack at Hawkmoon soon.

Corum Jhaelen Irsei

Corum Jhaelen Irsei - back

Corum Jhaelen Irsei - front

Corum Jhaelen Irsei - front

Corum Jhaelen Irsei - back

Thanks for popping in
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