Tuesday 26 May 2020

Rogue Trader - Wolfen

Hello, special post today featuring an unknown miniature to many and a highly sought after Oldhammer miniature to the few, the miniature might as well be made out of unobtainium it's so rare. This miniature has fascinated me for many years, what miniature I hear you cry? The miniature in question is the mysterious 'Wolfen' or my take on the Wolfen, please join me on this journey and you decide.

Rogue Heresy Wolfen
Wolfen or Faux Wolfen?

Rogue Heresy Wolfen
Wolfen

Rgoue Heresy Wolfen
Wolfen - front



Little information is known about this mysterious miniature and for the most part all is internet speculation, I have read that it was made as a prototype alien race for Laserburn or Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader.  The miniature appeared on the 2nd Rogue Trader flyer March 1988 that you received for free when buying miniatures from Games Workshop via mail order.

Rogue Heresy 2nd RT Flyer



These are the only reference pictures I have of this miniature.

Rogue Heresy Wolfen

Rogue Herest RT 2nd Flyer Trio
Wolfen joins his solid-based alien brothers


Well where do I start... I badly wanted this miniature and have never seen one for sale or painted and many serious citadel miniature collectors were on the hunt for this miniature, when Wargames Foundry discovered the moulds for the Sci-Fi Fishmen from the 2nd RT flyer and cast them up I had to have them but alas no Wolfen.

Once I had the Fishmen in my possession it got me thinking did the Wolfen come from the same Citadel Fiend Factory range like the Fishmen did and guess what it did, the FF19 Werewolf so it was a no brainer to me to acquire the werewolf and one of the Judge Dredd sculptors aid JD3 Rifle 1 and voila I would have myself a Wolfen.

The JD3 Rifle 1 proved too difficult to source, the project stalled and ended up in the loft until recently when I was having a chat to Curis on twitter about said gun and was inspired to pick this top secret project back up, I channelled the powers of the great miniature convertors out there like Curis, Axiom and other great modellers, I committed a personal act of sacrilege chopping up a perfectly good miniature. Spitgun Suzi was clearly the best candidate for the chop to relieve her of her 'JD3 Rifle 1', I went for it with the snippers and it felt good I may have to do it again sometime.

What you need to build a Wolfen

Now armed with the gun and the werewolf I was in prime position to create the wolfen, I used snippers and bottle nosed pliers to carefully cut and bent the werewolf arms into what I think is the proper position, the werewolf was so old the one arm cracked and white powder spilt out, oxidation? possibly

Build stage 1

Poor Spitgun Suzi, painted up Suzi will be appearing on next blog post

Then I used superglue to tack the rifle in again what I thought is the correct position.  While working on this project the nozzle of the gun broke off, a common problem for the Judge Dredd minatures, some went in the blisters and some disappear altogether on later versions so I had the fiddly task of reattaching it.  I used green stuff to fill the cracked arm, cover up the hacked chest with fur and nozzle join.

Rifle and Nozzle tacked on




A bit of Das Promo to blend in the preslotta base and I had myself a Wolfen, or as close as I could get to one.

Green stuffed and Das Promo based


Paint job was simple, it pretty flat and early sculpt so I had to paint in most detail.



I was that desperate to start I undercoated by hand!!!



Base coat

Nuln Oil wash

A bit more painting and we are done

The Wolfen Complete

Rogue Trader Stats? well you could go for a Abhuman  Beastmen - Homo Sapiens Variatus (page174 RT Rulebook) that might work.
In true Rogue Heresy fashion I will be working on the copy of the original flyer very soon.
Well I hope you enjoyed this post.
Come back more Judge Dredd perps soon.
J

Friday 10 April 2020

C30 Amazons - Koka-Kalim


Hello, today we are going way back in time for my latest paint job which comes from the Citadel Miniatures 1984 C Series C30 Amazons range, I've had this miniature since my childhood, it came as a single miniature blue blister and it has survived umpteen miniature purges due to it being stashed away in my unpainted sci-fi adventurers box, the lead was almost pitch black when I pulled it out for prepping.

Named 'Koka-Kalim' this miniature was depicted on the cover of the 1984 Second Citadel Compendium (see below) fending off Northmen raiders with her laser pistol/needler in the Warhammer Fantasy Battle scenario 'The Shrine of Rigg'.

I attempted to paint the miniature as what I could see on the cover art of the compendium, all the colourful details were just to nice to resist, the pink 1980's new age haircut, green parrot feathers, blue trim and gold jewellery, the pose is beautiful too, I think this miniature is a real oldhammer gem.  She will fit nicely with my other citadel Amazon's and the punky miniatures of the Rogue Trader era.



Koka-Kalim illustration from the Second Citadel Compendium

Koka-Kalim on the cover of the Second Citadel Compendium

See you soon
J

Tuesday 7 April 2020

Citadel Judge Dredd Perps Part 11 - Businessman

Hi, just a quick post I recently acquired another of my holy grails from the 2000AD comic citadel Judge Dredd miniatures range the 'businessman', it's another miniature sculpted for the Slaughter Margin campaign pack for the 1985 Judge Dredd role-playing game and if you are a regular follower you will know that the Megahound was another of my holy grail's I completed from this same range.

The 'Businessman' is an interesting miniature, I think it was sculpted by Trish Carden (Morrison) and released in 1987 exclusively on the offer sheet for the Slaughter Margin campaign pack where you got three of this miniatures!!! I wonder how many lucky people purchased this offer?, what excites me the most about this miniature is that he makes a great Max Normal Judge Dredd's faithful informant who was sadly missing from the original citadel JD range.

I had all these ideas for painting him and was going to go for a pin stripped suit but I wimped out of this idea for now and had a go with contrast paints, I think the businessman is supposed to be from the old Nip-Cit as the eyes were tiny and oriental in appearance I widened them a bit with paint, not on purpose just my eyes are getting old, I gave him a grey and white moustache like Max appears in the comic now and complete black attire.  He'll be a useful miniature for all sorts games.  I will definitely be revisiting this miniature in the future.



3 Businessmen came in the Slaughter Margin Deal

5 Businessman tokens in Slaughter Margin pack

Well that's almost another range complete and a few more Dredd posts coming up while I am on a roll.
J

Saturday 4 April 2020

C Series - C05 Oriental Heroes - Fox Priest

Today I have an interesting oldhammer miniature for you, the C Series C05 Oriental Heroes 'Fox Priest', this miniature appeared on the Citadel Miniatures June 1984 flyer, I think it was sculpted by Aly Morrison but I am not certain of this, someone had mentioned the Perry T
twins.

The miniature is obviously based on the Kitsune of Japanese legend and every time this miniature crops up that fact is immediately pointed out, a fun fact that always make me laugh is that in World War II the U.S. forces were planning an operation to play on the Japanese peoples fear of supernatural fox legends by parachuting illuminous painted foxes over Japan territories, almost as bonkers as the bat bomb :D 

The paint job is my typical feudal Japanese (Nippon) scheme, patterned and colourful very much in the style of my recent Oriental Ogre (Oni).  It's a lovely little miniature, very old school 25mm in scale, a nice details are the priest's staff which is carved into the shape of a oriental dragon and the priests traditional hat.

Along with my ogre the fox priest will certainly be a welcome addition to a future Nippon warband I am planning, I have all sorts of ideas bouncing around in this space so expect to see something else one day.




Kitsune requests the Oni joins him on his quest to topple the Sun Wukong

Fox Priest - side
Fox Priest - side
Fox Priest - front
Fox Priest - back


Thanks for dropping in, for the next post I am back to Judge Dredd miniatures.
J

Sunday 29 March 2020

IC301 - Iron Claw Pirates Part 6

Hello, I revisited a stalled oldhammer project this week with the current lockdown in progress I managed to complete Psycho, Nixan and Pop Stewart from the 1987 IC301 Iron Claw Space Pirate range, this was a difficult post to complete as two of miniatures were a struggle to paint, they just didn't bring much to the party for me.

Only one more to finish and that's another range complete so stay tuned for 'Venk' who will be coming soon... when I bloody find him in lead pile, praying I haven't mistakenly traded him.

Psycho, Nixan and Pop Stewart

First up is 'Pop Stewart' who to me is an Amos Brearly lookalike and had me chuckling and muttering "nay, nay Mr Wilks!" while painting him, apart from the face I found this is an unexciting miniature and quite a basic sculpt, I find the eyes on Bob Olley sculpts can be bit all over the place which was the case here. I went for a blue colour scheme and painted the assault rifle with wooden components.
Pop Stewart - side

Pop Stewart - front

Pop Stewart - back

Next up is 'Psycho' armed with a machine gun which I am sure it one of Judge Dredd sculptor aids, this miniature has a nicely sculpted head, facial features and Rambo headband and again apart from the head quite a basic flat sculpt.
Psycho - side

Psycho - front

Psycho - back


Finally we have 'Nixan', I never owned this miniature back in the day and had great difficulty acquiring it and when I did my first impressions were that it was a flat and disappointing sculpt, when looking at the original Iron Claw Space Pirate advert I could never work out what was going on with him but when I finally had in my hands it looked like a sort of space arab, it wasn't until I was well into the paint job it started to appear as a space viking which ties in with a lot of features on some of the other miniatures of this range, more space viking raiders than pirates.  In the end I was really pleased with how this miniature turned out and unlike the other two in this post and will be proud to place in the cabinet with the rest of this range.
Nixan - front
Nixan - back


So that's it for todays post, one more to do for this project. Something special coming soon.
J





Wednesday 11 March 2020

Rogue Trader - Jokaero

Hello again, in this post we have another classic Oldhammer miniature, the Rogue Trader Jokaero, a miniature that always give me a chuckle it's goofy looking and makes me think of the 'right turn Clyde' scenes from the classic movie 'Any Which Way You Can'.

When this miniature landed in my hands I had to express my love for it with a paint job, orange of course in true Orangutan style.



Jokaero - front

Jokaero - back


These superior techno apes got quite a write up in the Warhammer 40000 Rogue Trader rulebook (1st Edition) on pages 196-200, for a race that was spread across almost four pages to get one odd ball miniature was a disappointment. 







The Jokaero's technical abilities also gave us the Jokaero digital weapons a favourite of the Imperial Assassin. Snippet below from Warhammer 40000 Rogue Trader Rulebook - age 78






My wife got really excited when I showed her what I was painting and offered good feedback about the hands and face, we are supporters of ape conservation, visit Monkey World in Dorset every year, watch the TV show and even got married there, it's really great place so get yourself down there and support them if you are in the UK, also note the best tank museum in UK is next door ;)

More drafts to complete so stay tuned
J

Tuesday 10 March 2020

Rogue Trader - Fishman 3

Hello, today I have for you Fishman 3, this miniature started as a rumour on the Oldhammer forum back in 2016 where Bryan Ansell said to someone he was going to go looking for the third Man-Fish miniature and convert it to a Sci-Fi Fishman or that's how I remember it, anyway you can buy this miniature now from Wargames Foundry so go buy now. 

I painted the other two Sci-Fi Fishmen from Rogue Trader RT2 Flyer March 1988 and these can be seen here on a previous blog post.

Simple paint job, not much to tell, I went for the same colour palette as the other Fishmen, a kind of aquatic blue green and enjoyed painting his heavy weapon with glowing head.
Fishman 3 - side

Fishman 3 - front

Fishman 3 - weapon

Fishman 3 - back


The weapon is one of the original scultptors aids which I have waffled on about in the past, I was very honoured to be gifted some of these aids a while back, a big thank you to 'you know who you are' :)

Unknown Chaos 40K Weapon 4


Thanks for popping in
J


Saturday 7 March 2020

Slocombe's Warbots - Part 3 - Sprinter

++ GREETINGS FLESHY MASTERS ++

This is my third and final post on the TSF15 Slocombe's Warbot's concluding the project with the MKII 'Sprinter' Assault Droid, released on the Citadel Miniatures October 1987 Flyer and again sculpted by Tony Slocombe who I think now works for Northstar Figures sculpting, casting and has his own miniature range.


TSF15 Warbots

This rare Oldhammer miniature has been residing on my paint station for about 1.5+ years, due to the assembly and sculpting of this Warbot I have been met with disaster after disaster, I managed a base coat then it was all downhill from there, it fell apart even after pinning twice and after my final attempt to fix the pose it just didn't work so I cried as I pulled it apart again and did some even deeper and stronger pinning with steel pins, happy with the final pose I moved back to painting.


MKII 'Sprinter' Assault Droid - side
+

Like the other Warbots it's a difficult miniature to paint due to the shallow details and rough casting, I started with black undercoat and then stippled on Vallejo 'Dark Seagreen' which is actually a nice grey to me then some simple highlights, decals/fix, mig weathering powders, and finishing with some more lighter stipple.  Post varnishing I added Citadel 'Ardcoat to all the light sources which I do a lot now.
MKII 'Sprinter' Assault Droid - side

I like to post lots of WIP (Work in Progress) photos my twitter feed along with disaster photos like the one below so get following for all sorts of #Oldhammer related tweets.

‘Mk II Sprinter Assault Droid - disaster


Originally I was going to put a Imperial Army casualty on the base

My first post on the Slocombes Warbots features 'Sam' Type Light Wardroid and my second post features 'Deathblow' Class Heavy Droid, follow links below



Before new readers start screaming they are Battletech copies, I am aware of this and have speculated on reasons in previous posts.  Their counterparts are as follows:
  • 'Deathblow' Class Heavy Droid - Battletech Archer
  • 'Sam' Type Light Wardroid - Battletech Vindicator
  • MKII 'Sprinter' Assault Droid - Battletech Catapult

BattleTech Archer

BattleTech Vindicator

BattleTech Catapult

Special thanks goes out to @Leaky_cheese over on twitter for his support of this project and this lovely image he did for me of the Warbots before I laboured for hours to produce my own, I am so rubbish at photo manipulation.




Hope you enjoyed this post, another project completed, plenty more on the go.

 J