Obiwan Sherlock Clousseau - Rogue Trader Inquisitor

I've been following (and contributing to) the "Inq28" movement (essentially 28mm scale Inquisitor warbands, using Necromunda and other systems) for about a year now. I've been trying to complete an Inquisition themed miniature each month for a community movement on Instagram, 'Inq28th', in which people post pics on the 28th of the month.

I did a quick survey of my collection of unpainted Inquisitors and I discovered I have over twenty-four of them, ranging from Rogue Trader era to the new ones like Eisenhorn and Greyfax. So, I decided to do a back-and-forth and am going to paint the oldest, then the newest, until I meet somewhere in the middle.

I started with the earliest release I have unpainted, which was the famous Obiwan Sherlock Clousseau from the original Rogue Trader 40K book. I had painted one before, many years ago, but nowhere near this well.
 

I believe Obiwan Sherlock was the first named Inquisitor. I recall being perplexed by his weapon, and I have to say I'm still not sure exactly what it is supposed to be. I think he has a power sword in his description, but he is labeled as 'Lasgun 1' in an old Citadel catalogue.

I ended up deciding it was a xenos weapon and used a small piece of a Necron decal to add some subtle circuitry.

The next Inquisitor will be the most recently released: Gregor Eisenhorn (sadly, Finecast, but still quite nice).

40K Rogue Trader Adventurers - Space Pirates

In the ancient times, when I was first getting into Rogue Trader Warhammer 40K, I chanced across an advertisement in White Dwarf #99 that showed a variety of characterful civilian figures. They captured my imagination immediately and I managed to acquire a few. Sadly, it was fairly hard to find the 40K Adventurers figures in Omaha, Nebraska in the late 1980s.

 

After a few breaks from GW over the years, I decided around 2010 to make the final push to collect the entire range and managed to score the ones I was missing on eBay. Every year I tell myself I'm going to paint them, and then the year rolls over... However, this year, my resolution is to paint them all by the end of the year!

 

 

First up were a few of the Pirate types from the advert: the Pirate Captain, Old Pirate, and Space Pirate. I also decided to tackle the Space Pirate from 40K Talisman set, 'Loritta' (aka Cybergirl) from the Space Pirates range, and three other ne-er-do-wells from yet another range of pirates and adventurers. My color inspiration was some spice pirate concept art by Moebius for the legendary Jodorosky Dune movie that never happened.

These figures are crude by today's standards but I have to say they are straight up FUN to paint.

Wodewose

When I was preparing to paint some Powrie I'd received from a recent Kickstarter, I decided to include a Wodewose miniature I acquired in another Kickstarter (Tabletop Fantasy Miniatures by Ana Polanscak, produced by Wally Harwood).

He seems like a spiritual cousin of the malevolent Powrie, perhaps more ancient and feral but not as straight up malicious.

Cauldron Born Miniatures Powrie

Some of the first miniatures I completed this year are the Powrie, produced by Cauldron Born Miniatures in a recent Kickstarter. They're meant to be a variety of Redcap, a nasty faerie type creature that smears it's hair with the blood of its victims. They have very pronounced detail, so I decided to use a lot of Games Workshop Contrast paint to see what it was capable of. I used normal paint for some detail work on eyes and teeth, and some technical paint for corrosion, rust, bronze patina, and blood.

Interesting figures with an oldschool vibe, they're well crafted with very little cleanup. They will work great as alternatives for ghouls in games of Rangers of Shadow Deep.

40K Inquisition Cyber Cherubs

The new Adepta Sororitas codex includes a variety of cherubs that can enhance attacks for squads they're included in, so I decided to get my four Inquisition cherubs painted up ('Familiars' in the old Witch Hunters Codex).

Crusaders - 40K Ministorum and Gotfret De Montbard

I've been working through my backlog of old Witchhunters figures (many acquired over 15 years ago) and settled on the Crusaders. Blackstone Fortress released a updated plastic version, Gotfret de Montbard, so I decided to do them all at once and painted them so they appear to be from the same crusading order.

Gelida The Frozen Expanse - Inq28 40K - Tanks!

One of the projects I took on last year was out of the blue. The fan-based "Gelida: The Frozen Expanse" 40k community (started by Magos Buer on Facebook and Instagram) caught my interest almost immediately. I quickly built a walker and pilot. Shortly after I found myself making more figures and vehicles, even though I never wanted to do a snow table or figures for such a table :)

Tank WIP shot. Modified 'Half-Ute' from Ramshackle Games, a Dollar General toy snowplow, and a 'Rhebok APC' from Ramshackle.

 

The following shots are all after the snow effects have been applied. 

 

 

 Couldn't resist doing a little Photoshop.

 

This has been a fun project, with some new challenges. I do have a few more things I'd like to make for the Gelida setting, so more to come...

End of Year Randomness - 2019 Edition

I don't have New Year Resolutions in the classic sense, but I do have an end-of-year tradition I try very hard to hold myself to: Avoid going into the new year with anything primed and waiting. As in the past I nearly made it, using Jan. 1st to finish up painting a set of 3D printed terrain for Blackstone Fortress. Other than that, I managed to knock out a variety of terrain and miniatures that have been waiting in the wings for a while.

Crashed Aquila Lander from the 4th edition (I think) Battle of Macragge set, a Cargo R.A.T. heavy hauler from Ratgard, three vehicles for the Gelida snow world project, a little cargo cart, plus a host of 40K Inquisition and fantasy figures and other random terrain. Most of these will be getting their own blog entry someday.

Cyber Cherub. I wanted to paint something cool on the scroll, and decided to do a 40K version of the Mandylion. I Googled "Emperor of Mankind" and went with the first image that came up. Original by the artist "Genzoman":

 

The Inquisition Daemonhosts are perhaps my least-favorite miniatures from the whole range (vying with the Dialogous for that dubious distinction). I don't mind them as much painted.

The statue was intended for my Warriors of Doom LPL entry but I didn't have a sensible way to fit it in the picture. It's available from Forge of Ice. The RAFM chaos warrior is a figure I owned about 30 years ago and decided to snag of eBay for nostalgia's sake.

 

Two sister superiors that I hadn't finished along with their squads.

I didn't keep a record of what I painted last year (looking back, some didn't show up on the blog) but I'm guessing around 400 miniatures! (EDIT: After a quick count it is closer to 350. Still a bit insane.)