Rogue Trader Ordo Malleus Inquisitor and Acolyte

Continuing my quest to paint the GW Inquisition miniatures, this month I selected an Ordo Malleus figure from the olden days of Rogue Trader 40K. I never really cared for this guy, but I like him quite a bit now!

I was a huge fan of the Grey Knights army found in Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness, and had painted this fellow up before, around 1992. When I picked him to repaint this time around, I was struck by his "Moebius" style- I wasn't really aware of the artist back then. Since I've been on a Moebius kick lately anyway I picked an Illustration of Arzach to provide color inspiration.

I also painted up an acolyte/henchman from the early 2000s Witch Hunters range.

 An Inquisitorial Acolyte reads from the Litany of Incineration

The Portal Companion Cube is from Shapeways.

Adepta Sororitas - Sisters of Battle - Celestians

My last large unit for my Sisters army is a group of Celestians. I finished these a few weeks ago, but missed my goal of getting them done before new plastics came out.

This group is not the official squad size obviously, but shows all the options I wanted them to have. There should be a heavy flamer in there too... not sure where she got off to. Burning heretics I assume.

Trolls Under the Bridge, a third party bits supplier, sells the halos, the Imagifier's icon, the Superior's power maul, and some of the extra purity seals. A few of them were sculpted from greenstuff. The broken spear point appears in my 40K altarpiece I posted last week and is part of the Order of the Ivory Crown's history.

Adeptus Mechanicus - Skullz Enginseer

Many years ago, GW ran a rewards program called 'Skullz'. I don't recall the particulars of the program. The only thing I was really interested in from Skullz was a very cool set of Adeptus Mechanicus characters.
 

Luckily, at the time I was doing some painting for a GW Outrider and he traded me a set in exchange for painting. Excluding the single figure I painted a couple years ago, I've been sitting on the rest of them for almost 20 years. I've decided to rectify this grave injustice and painted up an Enginseer and a little homonculus from the set (the little guy with the large book), plus two other little tech-thralls. I have no idea where I got them, or who made them- I'm guessing they are Warzone or Demonblade.

[EDIT: I've been told the two little guys (2nd and 4th) are Warzone Dark Legion 'Children of Ilian'. Can't seem to find any info on them though.

I also photographed a couple of the 40K objective scenery items:

More to come!

Plague Doctor - Anvil Industry

I recently painted a Plague Doctor from the 'Sisters of the Burning Rose' range produced by Anvil Industry. Seemed like the time to do it.

I really like Anvil's figures, they have very crisp detail and I've had almost zero mold line cleanup.

Ambulatory Triptych - 40K Altarpiece

I neglected to post my favorite build of 2019, the Ambulatory Altarpiece I built for the Instagram #sentinelchallenge. It was an unofficial community based challenge to make a conversion using a Games Workshop Sentinel. Luckily I had a pair of legs I'd ordered for no particular reason a couple years ago.

The altarpiece is mostly styrene, I added a few extra bits later.

The operator is made from a few sources- I think the torso is a Mordheim Mercenary, I beleieve heads and arms are from the Flaggellants kit. I magnetized the platform and altarpiece so it could be removed.

I wanted to paint the thing in a Renaissance technique, using red under the gold and starting with a 'grisaille' underpainting to establish tones and form, followed by thin glazes to get the Northern Renaissance look.

The image has borrowed from Hieronymous Bosch and Pieter Brueghel with some 40k favorites blended in.

Bosch, Temptation of Saint Anthony, detail:

Bosch, Garden of Earthly Delights,  right panel:

Brueghel, Fall of the Rebel Angels:

Some more views:

 

I've developed a story for the iconography in the altarpiece, as well as why the pilot is installed- I'll probably put that into another post. Thanks for looking!

40K Rogue Trader Adventurers - Space Ship Crew

Continuing at a nice pace on my New Year's resolution, I put the finishing touches on my next installment of the 40K Adventurers today. After completing the last group I asked who I should do next and the majority vote was for the ship's crew.

Three of these are from the Adventurers range- the Halfling Cook, Pilot Lorgar (with his hand on the headset), and the Ship's Officer (firing a needle pistol). One figure is an Astronaut from Talisman, who happens to be wearing a spacesuit nearly identical to the officer. Lastly, I added two more 40K Astronauts sculpted by Bob Olley. They seem a bit out of place stylistically but they're from the period and I added them to the group.

I have painted all of these in the past, so it was fun to revisit them. I still have the three ship crew, so you get to see what an early 1990s Dr. Mathias paintjob looks like in comparison.

My color scheme was inspired by an image by Tony Moore, used on a 'Fear Agent' comic cover. I haven't read it, but saw the image online a few years ago and saved it. 

 

 I also took a couple extra scenic shots. 

The alien beast is a "Dragon Lizard" by RAFM. Looks a lot like the creature Pakrat encounters in this old Atari Force comic from the 80s, which is why I painted it red. I wonder which came first?

Not sure who is up next... 

Gelida the Frozen Expanse - Wendigo Lair

This will be my last 40K Frozen World post for a while, I finally knocked out the remaining ideas I had for the project. I've been wanting to make a terrain item that represented the entrance to a forgotten Adeptus Mechanicus facility, recently revealed by seismic activity. The guardian of the facility is a WΣNDɨGØ class servitor.

Some soldiers venturing into the darkness...

 I found a Fallout Vault door on Thingiverse and printed it out on my Ender 3.  I modified it a bit by adding bark, styrofoam, and some texture so it looked more natural. I wanted it to fit with my Zone Mortalis tiles so it's raised up about half an inch on the interior. Snow effects are a mix of Woodland Scenics Snow, white paint, gloss medium, a drop or two of iridescent paint, and a bit of water.

Thanks for following the project!

Gelida the Frozen Expanse - A Grim Landmark

This is a scenic piece I've been wanting to build for a while. I had the components finished a few weeks ago, and waited until I had several other things ready before I applied snow effects to all of them at once.

 

The snowmobile is a modified 40K motorcycle. Icicles are clear plastic cut from a miniatures blister pack, and layered with acrylic gloss medium. The unfortunate iceman is a Mantic plague zombie body, with a GW zombie head and a bolt pistol. Snow effects are a mix of Woodland Scenic Snow, white paint, gloss medium, water, and a drop or two of iridescent effect craft paint.

City Guards - 40K Gelida the Frozen Expanse

I recently finished up some city guards for Gelida. The base models for these are Wargames Atlantic 'Grognards'. I used GW weapons since I already had a bunch of extras. I also replaced the leader's mask with one from the Necromunda Goliaths kit just to make him stand out a bit more. The comms guy received a greenstuff mask.

I particularly like the bodies and heads in this set- the bearskins are super cool and I'm sure I'll use them on some other projects as well. The kit has a straight-up insane variety of head types.

Naturally, I wanted them to have a ride but all of the many tanks and walkers in my pile of shame are destined for other projects. I hopped on Thingiverse and found a couple different models I could combine to make a wheeled Repressor/Rhino looking APC.

Wargames Atlantic WW1 Germans

I recently painted some 3D printed prototypes of Wargames Atlantic's WW1 Germans, to be used for their box art. The plastic kit, 28mm Late War Germans, should be out relatively soon.

The kit will come with a nice array of weapons and heads- the sprue will be loaded with gasmasks, grenades, shovels,. and even has pickelhauben if you're not picky about the uniform and want to do early war.

 

Looks like it will be a cool set!

Inquisitor Eisenhorn

I'm a bit behind on my Inquisition project (painting all the GW Inquisitors ever released, flipping back and forth between oldest to newest) but I do have a new addition, Inquisitor Gregor Eisenhorn.

I'm quite sure he's the most recently released Inquisitor (2018) and, sadly, GW resin. I don't think they call it Finecast any longer- but it just isn't that great of a material. There were some bubbles, a few areas of excess material that needed to be cut away near the book, and the details just weren't that crisp. But he's done! I love the Eisenhorn novels, so this character was fun to paint none-the-less.

Up next, another Rogue Trader era Inquisitor.