Tuesday 17 November 2015

In the navy - Fleet officers of the Imperium

I find variety helps with keeping up the pace of painting figures. Sometimes this means pulling out some figures to paint for no rhyme or reason other than because I like them. And that's why I painted my most recent pair of figures - because I fancied it!

The Imperial Navy has long an integral part of the 40k universe, particularly relating to the ship-to-ship space battle games of Spacefleet and Battlefleet Gothic. Unfortunately, Imperial Navy figures have been sadly underrepresented in 28mm figure form, with the singular exception of the Officer of the Fleet from the Imperial Guard Regimental Advisors set.

Imperial Naval Officer concepts by Jes Goodwin for the Spacefleet game.


My pair of officers will probably represent the Imperial Navy presence associated with a planetary starport - administrators rather than space-faring fighting men.


First up is my starport commander, Commodore Walmer Chance, using the Officer of the Fleet model. He's an arrogant man, from noble stock. He is also a keen political operator, with ambitions to increase naval presence in the sector by the creation of new orbital dockyards (and correspondingly, increase his political sway).

 

I didn't deviate too much from the standard approach to painting naval officers - a blue uniform with white accents and plenty of gold braid and adornments.


Commodore Chance's personal assistant is Lieutenant C.B.G 'Smokes' Pender , who also holds the administrative title of Port Warden - effectively overseeing the day-to-day operations of the starport. Universally disliked for his grey, humourless style and complete lack of empathy. Lieutenant Pender is nicknamed 'Smokes' by naval personnel for his habit of chain-smoking low-grade narc-sticks. If you speak to the right people in the right bars, you might hear far-fetched rumours that Lieutenant Pender is part of an Inquisitorial conspiracy to make deals with xenos civilisations to colonise Imperial worlds. Of course no sane person would believe such things...


 
Lieutenant Pender is actually from the Black Tree Design Doctor Who range, representing The Marshall from the Tom Baker era. I painted him up in exactly the same way as Commodore Chance, and I think he works pretty nicely as an Imperial Fleet officer. I added the narc-stick from a small piece of thin wire because Asslessman made me!

Lieutenant Pender makes his report on the condition of the fuel tanks.

20 comments:

  1. Love the nod to the Xfiles ;)
    They're both wonderful models !

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  2. Nice one! I do like the official fleet officer, it's a lovely sculpt, and his smokey pal goes perfectly. Cracking job!

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    1. Yes, all 3 figures from that set are great. I must get round to painting the astropath. Sadly I don't have much use for the IG figure.

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  3. Hmmm, interesting! Both minis have the same vibe, each one on its own manner, I like what you did here!

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    1. Thanks Suber. I'd love to make more of these, but haven't sourced suitable figures (yet!).

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  4. I think face on the Commodore has been sculpted quite realistically. Not a bad effort, considering it's a 28mm mini....or has it been sculpted in a larger scale & then "scaled" down?

    Either way, it's a cool mini and you've painted him & his chum well.

    Cheers :)

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    1. I agree - I think the face is exquisite. I believe it's a Juan Diaz sculpt. As it's metal, I would think it was sculpted at scale.

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  5. They look top notch. Will there be further rum, sodomy and the lash?

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    1. I suspect there might be more naval personnel, if that's what you mean ;)

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  6. Great work on these figures. I particularly like that you did not go with "navy" blue, as it somehow adds something to the characters to have the lighter blue and the piping.

    I think that you could make use of the artillery officer by converting him in to some sort of minor level mechanicus functionary. Replace head with servo skull, replace right hand with hand holding an axe or auspex and add a hood, and you now have a techno imports inspector.

    Rum Sodomy and the Lash seems like either a band name, or a star port bar in a less salubrious area.

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    1. I'd like to claim that going with a lighter blue was a deliberate decision, however I'd planned to use a navy blue, only to find my paint had dried. Nonetheless, it appears that was a happy circumstance ;)

      Good idea on the mechanicus. I'll look again at the figure perhaps.

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  7. As for future officers, with a little bit of braid, you should be able to add these fellows:
    Edwards
    Michaels

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    1. Great suggestions. I'll pick them up I think :)

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  8. Those are wonderful Axiom. The GW figure is a fabulous sculpt, as already noted but the Doctor Who figure works brilliantly. I love the bit of flavour text for Smokes too :)

    Like many things, I have a box of unpainted miniatures in it labelled "Fleet". I do have three figures painted for it though, two of which are here:

    https://sho3box.wordpress.com/2013/09/20/imperial-fleet-officers/

    I do have to go back and repaint that astro-parrot though.

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    1. I should have guessed you'd have visited the Fleet officers already cheetor - is there no end to the depth of your collection?

      I suspect that I'll keep future additions a little less exotic than yours for now...I like (most) things to be restrained and understated in contrast to your preferred brand of flamboyance :)

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    2. Each warp capable Imperial starship is essentially it's own nation in terms of culture anyway. I imagine that Admiral Leopold Horatio III and Commodore Thaddeus Borlase-Arlington regard Chance and Pender with reciprocal suspicion :)

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  9. Both officers look good but the one of the right is simply exceptional. Awesome job axiom ... truly a very good paint job! :)

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