Ventolin Pirates - BigMrTong - Rogue Trader 40k

One of my all time figure ranges is the 40K Adventurers, shown in White Dwarf 99. Among them, one of my favorites was the mysterious "Ventolin Pirate". I hung on to the one I had acquired in the very early 90s, and manged to snag a few more over the years. I converted a few to get a little variety and finished them up as part of my Adventurers project a few years ago. 

Funny enough, not long after that, the 3D sculptor BigMrTong designed a set of ten as STLs, and also produced them in metal. Naturally, I grabbed a set. They'll be getting some vehicle support soon, at least that's the plan...

 

 

Comparison pic, original from around 1990 on the left:

Inquistion - Karamazov - All Inquisiton Released up to 5/23/2023

This post is the culmination of a three and a half year project- to paint every 28mm Inquisitor Games Workshop has produced to date. Since starting the project in January 2020, I tried to paint one Inquisitor per month, switching back and forth from the earliest release to the most recent.

Today, I finished Inquisitor Karamazov!

 

I ran into a few pitfalls along the way. Games Workshop released two Inquisitors (Draxus and Cartavolnus) while I was on the project. More problematic, I discovered I had forgotten about the Black Library limited edition Eisenhorn- it took a full year to track down a set and came down to “I know a guy who knows a guy”.

 

 

Lastly, I thought I had purchased Karamazov and had him stored, but it seems I was wrong about that, so I had to track down his metal version too. 

In the meantime, I nabbed loose Eisenhorn and Silas Hand minis from eBay, so I have a single of them along with them placed in their dioramas.

The real kicker is I can only say I have painted all the GW 28mm Inquisition for about three days, since they are officially releasing more in the new Kill Team box this Saturday... needless to say I am chagrined!!!

 

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

40k Rogue Trader, Assassin, and Sensei

Over the last week I completed a few of the old 'Forces of the Imperium' range, from the Rogue Trader era of 40k.

Imperial Assassin

Sensei

Rogue Trader

And this completes the set from pack of four, circa 1991.

The Festival of Christophorus - Procession of Skulls

Excerpt from Esoteric Pilgrimage Destinations of the Gothic Sector, Volume 7, by Adept Matthias Laetorius.

"The tenth day of the Festival of Christophorus is the Procession of Skulls. The Ecclesiastic Precinct is closed to all citizens other than Ministorum, and Adeptus with special indulgence.  The nobility of the capitol assemble, bringing forth their ancient servo-skulls, which are tangible evidence of their ancestors. Many of the skulls date from the colonization of the planet. By law, the governor must be descended from the families of the original colonizers brought by Saint Christophorus. As the nobility process into the Via Sancti, citizens and pilgrims beseech the blessing of the luminaries, and children dream of founding their own noble house some day.”

 

 

The Festival of Christophorus - Steersman's Honor

Excerpt from Esoteric Pilgrimage Destinations of the Gothic Sector, Volume 7, by Adept Matthias Laetorius.

"The sixth day of the Festival of Christophorus is ‘Steersman’s Honor’.  On this day, Navis Nobilite display their chapterhouse’s relic in the primary forum. Their conveyance bears an image of Holy Terra, wrought from Terran metal. This symbolically shows their role in spreading humanity from humanity’s home planet.  For the populace, this display is a fraught one.  Navigators are feared by most humans- and particularly the Ophatrans, who believe warp spirits cling to void travellers.  However, the chance to see the sculpture of Terra compels them to observe, and many pilgrims faint from the joy of being near a physical piece of Holy Terra.”  

 

 

The Festival of Saint Christophorus

Excerpt from Esoteric Pilgrimage Destinations of the Gothic Sector, Volume 7, by Adept Matthias Laetorius.

"The rituals and observances associated with Saint Christophorus last twelve days, at least officially. However, centuries ago, the Ophatran Synod decreed that no relics may be sold, transferred, or bartered within the twelve day period honoring the patron Saint of the planet. As a result, the day preceding has become a boisterous market day in which hundreds of relics, books, and religious artifacts change hands. The multitudes of merchants and peddlers hawking their wares, many of dubious provenance, is a sight to behold- preferably from a balcony.”

 

Oldhammer Style Squat Mining Survey Expedition

I've had some squats prepped and ready for priming for a couple of months, and decided I had better get to them. As usual, it takes so long for me to do a thing, GW goes ahead and re-releases the faction. The latest batch is a mix of Black Tree, a Kromlech medic, an old GW squat from the Rogue Trader era, and a new squat on a powerboard from Satyr Art Studio.

They are joining my existing group which is mostly Rogue Trader era miniatures, with two from Astropolis, some dome robots from a Facebook group, a big warbot from Satyr Art Studio, and a pilot from Simtac.

40K Strategium and Oldhammer Servitors

This strategium holo projector is a model I found on Thingiverse quite a long time ago, right when I first got interested in 3D printing. I also found a modded version, and I ended up tweaking both of them to make mine. 

This was a project that took way too much time, and certainly more money than was necessary. I wanted to try a light effect which required transparent resin, and ended up tweaking almost all the parts in Meshmixer and Tinkercad. I printed the hive city three times to get the scale right. The light source is a LED tea light- I replaced the LED with an ultra-bright one I happened to have in my stash.

The shields display the sigils of three forge worlds- Ryza, Stygies, and Mars. The idea I had is that strategium projectors are rare devices requiring specialized components from multiple forge worlds, none of which want to share their proprietary recipes. One icon is a decal, the others are freehand. There are probably twenty other decals on this thing :)

I'm also plugging away on my servitor project, the latest being these old-school sculpts from the late Rogue Trader era.

Here are the source files:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3744307

https://www.thingiverse.com/make:857433

 

 

 

40K Space Vampires

I had a metal Cobalt-1 miniature primed up along with another batch, with no real purpose in mind. He looked like a half-Eldar rogue trader type, and as I was painting him I thought he might make a good 40K Vampire from the old Rogue Trader book. I held off finishing his clothes as the project grew in scope and I had the idea to make a pair of vampires and their natural forms.  

 

At that point I decided to start looking for a good feral vampire for the 'bat' form, and after some research I settled on some 3d printable STLs from the Masons Miniatures "Werebats vs. Werewolves" Kickstarter. After a short wait I got my hands on those and printed a couple off. I had also decided on watching the old Buck Rogers TV show from the early 80s to do some research, since they had a Space Vampire episode. I was reminded about my early crush on Erin Gray :) I watched the entire first season, funny how things I had forgotten all about came flooding back.

It took a few weeks to get anywhere on the project, and it got a little more complicated when I got the notion to work my #servoskullsaturday project into this one. I found a vampire bat skull STL online and printed two off. I used some greenstuff and styrene to '40K' them a bit. 

It was coming down to a deadline so I needed to commit to a figure for the female vampire. After printing a few contenders, I ended up using a Fenryll courtesan I had in the stash. I added a little reliquary and a skull to her.

In the end I opted to paint them with their hair color in mind, I like the contrast of the pair. The pale male reminds a bit of Lucius Malfoy from Harry Potter. Hope to have them causing some trouble on the tabletop soon!

Jokaero 40K Xenos Acolyte

I painted up a Jokaero for the 'Inq28th' in February. I was pretty thrilled when GW released this guy many years ago... little did we know he would herald a bunch of Rogue Trader era stuff coming back into modern 40k. Also, I was never willing to spend a bunch of money on the old version!

Almost done painting all of the metal 2000s Inquistion acolytes and followers now. Just a bunch of gun servitors and the metal Stormtroopers!

Colony 87 Waves 1 and 2

I really love the Colony 87 sci-fi range. I was a backer of the very first Kickstarter as well as the 'Return to Colony 87'. I was happy to see the range picked up and expanded by Crooked Dice.

Having painted all the figures, Crooked Dice approached me to paint another set for them- what I ended up doing was trading my painted set off... I knew I wasn't going to have time to paint another set up to standard by the date needed.

I really don't enjoy re-doing a project... so the replacement unpainted set took me a long time to get finished up.

To celebrate I decided to create an old-fashioned Rogue Trader era White Dwarf ad. Hopefully it looks legit! 

Rogue Trader Inquisitors - Group

Here's a group shot of all the Rogue Trader era Inquisition, done in the style of an old White Dwarf advertisement. I may redo this with their names- a lot of the old ads named all the miniatures :)

Inquisitors - Ordo Malleus, Barbaric Inquisitor, Jac Draco

Looks like I got behind on posting my monthly Inquisitors... I've been painting one per month for about a year and a half now :)

Anyway, here are the Inquisitors for April, May, and June. First up, the Rogue Trader era "Ordo Malleus in Terminator Armor".

 

 

Next up, a Daemonhunter from the 2003 range. One of my least favorite of the GW Inquisitors, after painting him I like him a lot more. I went for a barbaric, feral vibe. I decided he’s been stranded on a feral world for too long, picking up some of the cultural practices of the locals :)

Lastly, this month’s inquisitor is the last of my Rogue Trader era for this project. He’s one of my all time favorites- the “Inquisitor in Terminator Armor”. Often referred to as Jaq Draco, as this model has a very faithful representation on the Games Workshop novel “Inquisitor” by Ian Watson. I decided to go out with a bang and did the banner shown on the book cover too. Started painting and finished in about 24 hours so I could squeeze into Inq28th.