Having painted two Space Pirates, Paradox Zeeman and Nebuli Tsar, for Choose Your Own Adventurers, I wanted to grow my pirate gang.  Here’s Trooper Altryn Greymore, otherwise known as Banzai Jones from the Ironclaw Space Pirate range.

He was a lot of fun to paint – as with all Ironclaw figures it features Bob Olley’s hypnotically flowing cloth details, texture switching (look at the how the cuffs vary from the sleeves) and pronounced facial features.  What turns a lot of people off these figures is they’re not recognisably 40K – the weapon, armour and equipment designs only appear in the IC301 Space Pirate and IC501 Squat ranges, and didn’t get absorbed into the main 40K universe design.  Bomber jackets with fur collars were issued to aviation pilots to keep them warm before the invention of pressurised cockpits, so the figure looks very twentieth century.  The range is a real curiosity from a time before Rogue Trader coalesced into a coherent universe, and that only helps the Space Pirates look of being exotic outsiders on the fringe of the known universe.

Ironclaw IC301 range from the Book of the Astronomican.

I reckon it was this unrecognisability, and perhaps Bob Olley’s trademark flared monkey-nostril sculpting that made Altryn’s previous owner paint him green and call him a Space Ork.  Consequently he was a bargain.

“2x Preslotta Propainted Games Workshop 40k Space Orks 1987 Metal OOP”

I did originally plan to paint the bomber jacket in black-and-orange camo, but after all the highlighting the orange there was enough visual interest.  I still fancied some freehand so I did Vietnam-style helmet graffiti.

His helmet has a quartered design sculpted on, which I painted with my old school crest – the red and yellow tying to the autumnal palette.  The graffiti is an adaptation of the school motto “LABOR OMNIA VINCIT” (work conquers all), reading “PRIVLEGIUM OMNIA VINCIT” (privilege conquers all), which more accurately reflects how our education system works.

PRIVLEGIUM OMIA VINCIT

The Claw Nebula Pirates are off to play Shadow War Armageddon with the lads this weekend – I just need to decide what his gun actually is.  They’re using the Astra Militarum list.  Three models is enough for a legal Killteam, but they’ll be reinforced by my Godbreak 84th, and anything I get painted before Thursday.

Zeeman’s crew aboard the Argenteum Cocleare.

“Let’s all paint Adventurers!” cried sho3box. “I have almost all thirty-two of those rare expensive miniatures!”

“Yeah!” axiom responded. “I have all of that overly-fetishised and as such difficult-to-collect range.”

“Yay!” Curis said, getting caught up in the enthusiasm of the group project. “I have … er … maybe … one?  But I’ll do a cool retro-mimic logo!”

To reiterate from axiom’s post, our rules are:

1. Paint a Rogue Trader Adventurer
2. Valid miniatures are ones marketed as “Adventurer” in a Mail Order flier, Citadel catalogue or White Dwarf
3. Let the other two bloggers have a turn, then paint another miniature.

As I had practically no Adventurers, sho3box generously jump-started my collection with the donation of a Pirate Captain.

Teenage-era sho3box had modified the Captain by adding an uzi-style magazine to the pistol and a pouch to the thigh.  He’d also removed the sword, as the lumpen sculpting and lead’s tendency to droop made it “look like a floppy dildo”.  This did give me the opportunity to do some conversion work to ham up the pirate angle – a hook hand.

The first attempt at a replacement was a “split hook” prostheses, made from two paperclips filed to points and bent into curves.  It didn’t sit well with the chunky 1980s sculpting, so I added a big goofy Lego claw.

“Hello.  I like money.”

The other pirate cliche I went with was stripey trews.  Disappointingly I realised after I’d painted Zeeman that the Studio paintjob also had stripey trews, so I wasn’t doing anything new or edgy.

A lot of the early Rogue Trader figures incorporate anachronistic fantasy elements (either as a deliberate juxtaposition with the science fiction setting, or sculptors falling back on their established bags of tricks) – leather pouches, medieval boots, landsknecht sleeves, et cetera.  It’s interesting that the Pirate Captain’s boots are anachronistic, but aren’t the cliché thigh-high pirate boots of your 17th Century Caribbean pirate; no no no, instead, they’re boring ankle-high medieval boots.  Makes me wonder if he was sculpted as a generic 40K guy and later designated a pirate.  But anyway, to get the boots away from the medieval leather look I painted them gleaming ice-white, imagining Paradox Zeeman as a space-chav displaying his wealth with immaculate footwear.  (I may have also been thinking of the glorious Spacego cover.)

“Oi, innit blud.  Hit the legs, this is well waffle.”

I am thinking about adding freehand insignia to the back of his jacket, possibly the Crab Claw Nebula symbol.  It’d tie in nicely with his claw.  But that’s a finishing touch for another day, when I’ve collected the other Space Pirates in the range and rounded them out to a little trio/squad/army/formation/Apocalypse detachment.

“Feds have landed up, wiv me in charge. You’re merked.”

Next up in Choose Your Own Adventurers – sho3box!

If you missed it, axiom’s excellent first episode is here!