Wednesday 10 September 2014

Something Smells Fishy to Me - Painting a Piscean Warrior

Back in 1987, GW released its Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader game. Accompanying the rulebook, a small range of 14 miniatures were released in March 1987. The range included a selection of humans and aliens, including a large, rather odd-looking alien with fishy characteristics; a Piscean Warrior:

My original Piscean Warrior - painted ~10 years ago

The original Citadel model will set you back around £100 on ebay, but recently Obscure Creator sculpted and cast a small number of his own modern version of the concept.

Obscure Creator's green
I picked up several copies to form a small Piscean Warrior squad, and last night manged to paint up my first figure:





I spent a bit of time looking at pictures of moray eels before selecting my colour scheme. It turns out there are dozens of different species with different colours, dull black, mottled brown, vivid blue and bright green, as well as patterns of stripes and spots. I selected the one I liked best; this yellow-headed moray eel:

Cute!

Oh, and this Piscean Warrior isn't a small chap either. Look how he looms over a puny human!

Trade negotiations weren't going well. "Thank freck I've brought my sushi knife" thought Darvin

And what about my original Citadel figure? He's in the jar being stripped for a brand new matching paint scheme!

11 comments:

  1. Excellent interpretation ! Nothing like picking from nature to ge ta perfectly strange coloursheme !
    One thing I ha dnot seen on the model is how gracious it looks. The pianted example clearly shows this aspaect. I'm really glad you painted yours first because now I se ethat, I will try to work on that on mine.
    Funny thing is I have taken some photos of Moray Eels during summer in a giant aquarium with the kids, I think painting fish skni will be a real challenge and I'm eager to work on that.

    I really like this one and I'm waiting for the others. Oh and I based mine on 40 mm bases for conviniency :)

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    1. Thanks JB. There were actually so many options to choose from for the colour scheme, I had real difficulty decided. I nearly went for a green moray eel, but then saw the yellow-headed one.

      I'm a little disappointed I couldn't get the scale texture on the tail to be more apparent - it's very lightly incised, meaning it's difficult to paint as a texture. Perhaps you'll have more luck with yours.

      Looking forward to seeing yours on his giant base ;)

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  2. Nice paint job Jon. I am probably going to try glazing with inks over a bright white undercoat for a scaley fishy finish. Probably won't work though :-(

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    1. Cheers Graham. Ink glazing does sound like the way to go...I've never really done any of it so would be a bit nervous attempting it.

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  3. Excellent painting. Using the Moray Eel colour scheme is a great idea, and it gives it an even more alien feel.

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    1. Its amazing how alien something can look, even though its entirely terrestrial and natural, isn't it!

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  4. Lovely and bright. I havent had a good look at my one of these models yet, but are the blue areas clothing or part of the creature?

    He looks like a candidate for a potentially controversial 30mm base to me. I find those bases useful for a number of mid size range models.

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    1. I interpreted the figure as wearing gloves and boots. Not sure if that's what Diego intended but it seemed to make sense to me.

      I also considered a 30mm base - I use them on Blood Bowl big guys. He seemed to be just about acceptable on a 25mm one though :)

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  5. I really do love the result here. The bright scheme looks ace. I'm in fact trying something like that on mine, but I can tell I will not get the vibe you achieved here. Good work!

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    1. I'm sure your figure will look great if the Minotaurs are any indication Suber. Looking forward to seeing what yours looks like :)

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  6. Obscure created a terrific model and you painted it perfectly.

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