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About Me
The current project: Rogue Trader
Inspiration And Goals

Lore

So this is the starting point for the main character, the Rogue Trader.You'll notice that the body is from the rotor gunner from the new Rogue Trader sprue- I knew at first glance that it was wasted as a grunt (for me at least), and had SO MUCH potential to be the basis for a main character piece. His armor is a little more ornate, his scale just slightly bigger and bulkier, and of course that pose! That pose is just perfect to convey a certain bold adventurous self assurance that a Rogue trader embodies.

The head is a hit bash of a empire knight for the helmet, a very clean shaved "free guild general" (though pretty sure I picked up that model when he was still but a Empire captain!), and feather come from the alt helmeted option in that same kit. It's been a pretty major kit bash, with a lot of very exact "surgery" going into it.

The ultimate plans for this mini are to cover the cloth areas of the torso so as to encase the belt up in armor, and to go through what I'm sure is going to be an arduous process of finding the right arms to not bee too bulky, or too thin to give the appearance of artificer armor.

But few projects go smoothly, and I'm also currently weighing the pro and cons of cutting the torso at the belt to make him just slightly taller in order to make his proportions that much more realistic. However, that's a big commitment, and I'm still unsure one way or the other.

You may also notice the shoulder pad in on at an awkward angle; its just tacked on with some poster blue tack, and you can see where a magnet is clinging on to its brother. Because I'm terribly indecisive at weapons load out and poses for main characters the arms will be magnetized. It also seems like a wise move for potentially playing it in a gme where new equipment might be able to be gathered.

I welcome any feedback or suggestions you might have!

Excited to see where this will go~

Real life has a habit of getting in the way, but as things smooth over I'm able to divert some attention back to modeling. However, I'm moving at the end of the month so potentially no updates until I get settled into the new place. :(

Progress on the primary rogue trader hasn't been huge- I really just glued in the right shoulder magnet, and have about reached a decision regarding his cape. This on ein particular actually comes from the Ahriman present in the prospero box game, a game my friend and I split for access to the astartes and for me, the Custodians.

Otherwise I'm picking through my bits pretty extensively trying to find the right arm pieces. I'm probably going to end up using elements of the Tempestus Scion arms, as despite being associated with carapace armor, the general look of them might be good enough to pass off as artificer armor, and I do like how they have the screens and touch pads built into the gauntlet (if you chose to paint them as such) - I feel like a proper rogue trader has multiple redundancies of everything, and requires access to what ever information they can get, along with communications to GTFO if a situation gets too hot planetside.

However, you can see while taking my time with him I've been busy! I'm re-purposing some kit bashed stormtrooper meant to be a little Solar Auxilia type project into being his household retinue, with the sword and pistol commander being the direct inspiration for the rogue trader himself. I had always planned (if I ever got into actually playing 40k to use them as an inquisitorial force, hence the bolters. Who knows if they will ever have valid rules now, but at least the grunts look cool Still working on an exact name for the regiment, but probably some thing like "The Volterran Lions" or something very thematically Tuscan.

You can also see the medic has had her surgical clay removed, and replaced with a las pistol from one of the voidsmen- I feel like its a better, more realistic look.



But There's More!

I also got the inspiration to stretch y legs a little and try making a rival Rogue Trader and Retinue. Here you can see the main trader of that house kit bashed out of the torso of the empire general on the big gryffon mount (found it by chance on ebay not long ago, and knew I w ouldnt get another opportunity to get me hands on it), along with mostly skitarii bits, though the boots come from the scion kit. You can see a naval officer of some sort with hi, and under them examples of the his household troops, a mercenary commando unit I call "The Deaths Heads Regiment". They take thier direct inspiration from the Sci-Fi Channel Sardaukar from the Dune miniseries from waaay back.

Carlovonsexron,

Good luck with your project.

Cheers,

CB

It is alive!

So my move went well, but its been a few busy months of (mostly pleasant) distractions related to settling into a new apartment, and then having a succession od visitors from overseas in the apartment for an extended period cut into the hobby time a lot.

But there's never been any worry of project abandonment, indeed after the release of Blackstone Fortress I now have a much more specific goal- to craft a customized retinue of adventurers.

To this end the rogue trader himself, Escalus Saturno is nearing completion. Some more uanced work nees to e done to how his left hand rests on the handle of the gun, and some more putty work at various small gaps on the armor (mostly around the left arm) - and of course the upcoming headache that will be the cape...

He is flanked by a trusty doctor and an assassin who have not yet been named, as well as in the distance some initial experiments with perhaps as Astartes ally forwarded from a chapter with friendly ties to House Saturno and a debt to pay.



I apologize for it not being the best image quality, but one other reason why its been such a long wait between updates was because I'm still waiting to get myself a nice photography set up. But I also reached a point where I really just wanted to upload the progress I have made so far. So hopefully the next images will look alot more crisp!