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Hello! Long-time listener lurker, first-time caller poster here. I've been dabbling in the small-scale narrative/skirmish end of the 40k universe for a good long while now. My one or two attempts at building a full army list let me pretty burnt out almost immediately; building one-off miniatures, or small warbands, with a real narrative feel to them is where my passion for the hobby really lies. Sticking closely to the rules isn't a huge priority, so don't expect to find too many tournament-legal models here, haha.

Thing is, I have a tendency to get most of the way through a given project, then run out of (a) inspiration and enthusiasm, (b) free time, or (c) money, so my desk is littered with countless partly- or mostly-finished projects. I've decided that this is the year I start doing something about that, and actually get some of those projects completed. This blog (along with its companion blogs on Ammobunker and YakTribe) is part of that effort, both to try and hold myself accountable when I'm deep in the sprue mines, and to get that heady rush of endorphins when I'm actually able to share a finished project.

As you can see, I'm starting this effort right here at the top of the year; we're not too far out from January 1, right? I refuse to consult a calendar to confirm or disprove that statement.

Enough babbling! You're here to see miniatures, and I'm here to oblige.

The first project from the backlog is a rogue trader and her crew. This one's been in the works for a while; I was getting close to finished toward the end of last year - but then, of course, Kill Team: Rogue Trader happened. That thoroughly derailed me, but I've managed to haul myself back on track for long enough to get some of my crew finished! So here you have them:

Rogue Trader Aurelia St. Lucia and the crew of the Cerulean





The Rogue Trader



I had some fun making the rogue trader herself. Her body, right arm and telescope, and hat are all scratch-built; I'm pretty proud of the GS work on the body in particular. I backed the Raging Heroes TGG Kickstarter a while back, her legs (and coattails) are from one of those kits. In the bit of fluff I've written for her, she served in the Imperial Navy before inheriting her Warrant of Trade; the bionic arm is a memento from a naval boarding action that got a bit dicey, and along with the sword, I thought it made a nice utilitarian contrast with the otherwise pretty ostentatious outfit.

The Voidsmen



The two regular voidsmen were the first members of the crew that I built. I got hooked on the idea of a ship's crew wearing voidsuits styled after 18th/19th century diving suits. I'd backed Andrew May's "Meridian Miniatures Steampunk Army", and had some of the diving helmets from that to hand; I paired them with GSC bodies and Skitarii weapons. I liked the outcome so much that I decided to build a whole Necromunda/Inq28/Kill Team gang around them.

The Quartermaster



Next up came the crew's heftiest member. Once I'd settled on a diving-suit look for the crew, the idea of adding a Bioshock Big Daddy was too fun to resist. A Goliath body really didn't need much modification at all to fit the part, and a GSC seismic drill seemed like a good 40k take on the drill-arm weapon. Most of the work on this chap went into his helmet, which is 100% scratch-built; I sacrificed the end of a pipette I used for paint thinner for the dome, added some thin slices of brass pipe for the lenses, and some carefully bent brass wire for the cage. A green stuff mantle around the helmet and a flamer-canister air tank finished the build off.

I'm not entirely sure what to call this chap. For the moment, I've gone with the title Quartermaster, in the old piratical sense - the biggest and meanest of the crew, responsible for maintenance and discipline aboard ship, and for leading boarding actions in combat. Otherwise, I considered simply going with “Protector”, the original titles of Bioshock’s Big Daddies – or possibly referring to him as a Delta-grade voidsman, in reference to Bioshock 2’s Subject Delta. Thoughts welcome!

The Navigator



I knew I wanted a Navigator for the crew. I was originally going to repurpose the Astropath from the Regimental Advisors kit, but in the end I couldn't bring myself to hacksaw that mini apart as extensively as I was planning, so ended up recreating his robes from scratch in GS. After that, he came together pretty quickly - GSC torso, Skitarii arms and pistol, and a staff made from some styrene rod and the ubiquitous but still wonderful Empire Wizard staff topper. The glass dome helmet is just a ball-ended push pin.

The Medic





The crew's medic is almost completely GSC parts, and as I was building him, I started shaping his character around that bits choice. I imagine him to be more or less what he looks like – a fourth-generation Genestealer hybrid, an affliction concealed from the rest of the crew, perhaps unknown even to himself. The freehanded tattoo on his forehead might conceal surgical scars from the removal of some betraying cranial ridges – and it’s a nod to Dr. Yueh of the Dune books, another treacherous medical man with a forehead tattoo proclaiming his loyalty.

The Tech-Adept





The final complete member of the crew so far is a lay tech-adept – I was thinking a technically-minded member of Cerulean's crew, inducted into the outermost mysteries of the Martian Cult. I was picturing him carrying out the ship’s more hands-on upkeep and maintenance; tasks too important (or requiring too much dexterity and coordination) to entrust to servitors, but too menial for the true acolytes of the Machine God. So, I’ve scratch-built him a fairly basic and utilitarian servo-arm, and given him a profusion of tools, wire, cable, and an auspex. I’m sure he clatters as he walks.

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And that's the crew so far! I'm currently working on a proper tech-priest to add to the crew, and I'm planning out a couple other crew members. I might also do some more regular voidsmen and/or Big Daddies, mostly just because they were a ton of fun to make.

But wait, there's more! I've thrown together a pretty quick and dirty site where I'll also be posting my work. Mostly to enable me to put together some custom content that forums typically won't permit, with custom markup and scripts and whatnot. In this case, I've put together a slightly longer-winded version of this post, which includes some extremely fancy 360-degree-rotatable spin-around shots of most of the crew's miniatures! I'm very happy with how those turned out, so do check them out: http://kitxv.com.au/the-crew-of-the-cerulean/

If you're interested, I've also written up a bit of fluff for Rogue Trader St. Lucia and her crew. Take a look if that sort of thing strikes your fancy: http://kitxv.com.au/the-fall-of-house-st-lucia/

That just about wraps it up for the moment. As I mentioned back at the top of the post, I'm not the world's most disciplined and fast-working hobbyist (and work keeps be pretty busy for most of my time), so you can probably expect a pretty glacial pace to this blog. Coming up soon(ish), I'll probably post some WIPs of future members of the Cerulean's crew, along with some of the other projects I'll be rescuing from backlog purgatory. Next on the to-complete list will be finishing up either the Elucian Starstriders, my Eschers from Necromunda Underhive, or an Adeptus Arbites team that I've been building from FW Elysians. In the meantime, I'll look forward to your thoughts on Aurelia and her crew!

I like it! Very thematic and cohesive!

Navigator reminds me of Mysterio...in a very good way!

This is gorgeous, looking forward to seeing what you come up with in terms of tech priest !

Absolutely brilliant stuff! I'm a sucker for Bioshock stuff, so I obviously love your Quartermaster, but I think aesthetically he works in the 40k universe as well. The voidsmen are beautiful as well, the diverhelmets, suits and the baroque-styled rifles fit together perfectly!

My only criticism would be that the white on the Rogue Trader and the grey on her familiar could use more contrast. They look a bit flat compared to the rest of the colors (of course, it could just be the photo. In that case, apologies). Your sculpting work is top-notch though!

Welcome to the site! Thanks for sharing these awesome models. Looking forward to more.

Really nice work. Good luck.in getting the project finished

Thanks for the kind words all, they're greatly appreciated!

SlaveToDorkness wrote:I like it! Very thematic and cohesive!

Navigator reminds me of Mysterio...in a very good way!

I had to look Mysterio up, as I wasn't familiar, but I see what you mean! My navigator has a bit less muscle definition, though

KernelTerror wrote:This is gorgeous, looking forward to seeing what you come up with in terms of tech priest !

Thanks! I'm thinking something at least roughly in line with the Electro-Maester tech-priest from the KT: Rogue Trader box (mostly just so I can use his rules for my own tech-priest, the next time my better half and I are in the mood for a game of KT), but with my own nautical touches. Maybe robes cut away into a tailcoat and an AdMech-styled take on a bicorne hat, similar to the rogue trader, to create a bit of a consistent uniform for the senior officers. And perhaps a servitor lugging an 18th-century naval cannon for good measure

mcmattila wrote:Absolutely brilliant stuff! I'm a sucker for Bioshock stuff, so I obviously love your Quartermaster, but I think aesthetically he works in the 40k universe as well. The voidsmen are beautiful as well, the diverhelmets, suits and the baroque-styled rifles fit together perfectly!

My only criticism would be that the white on the Rogue Trader and the grey on her familiar could use more contrast. They look a bit flat compared to the rest of the colors (of course, it could just be the photo. In that case, apologies). Your sculpting work is top-notch though!

Thanks for the commentary! I was honestly surprised by how well the Bioshock look translated into the 40k aesthetic. I think I'd struggle to get some of Bioshock's more art-deco elements looking right in the extremely gothic 40k universe - but that hasn't stopped me from starting to consider what other Bioshock characters I could conscript for the crew, haha.

That's a perfectly valid point regarding contrast. The photo doesn't quite do the mini justice - I'm an absolute novice with a DSLR, and also my lighting rig might have been a bit bright for photographing light colours. But I think you're definitely right that the whites and light greys could use a bit more contrast. Painting white has always been one of the areas where I'm weakest... I might need to revisit Aurelia and hit her and her pennant-bearer with another layer or two of washes and then highlight back up, to help the details pop a bit better. Thanks for the constructive criticism, keep it coming!

Great work dude.

The diving bell helmets look great

Very nice, love the whole deep sea diver look.

This looks stunning. I very much like the theme. I'll be following this one.