Tuesday 18 May 2021

No More Sushi Jokes Please! - Rogue Trader Piscean Warrior

Back in the early 2000s I started to get interested in revisiting some of the oddities and aliens from the 40k universe. I acquired Iron Claw space pirates and ambulls. I built a zoat army and gave one of my Eldar Warlocks a gyrinx companion. I also painted a piscean warrior in around 2004. Ten years later, I bought and painted a piscean warrior homage from the talented hands of then amateur sculptor Diego Serrate Pinilla through the now-defunct Oldhammer forums. At that point in 2014, I put my original RT piscean warrior in the stripping jar and boldly stated that I would paint it up in a "brand new matching paint scheme". 


It is now 7 years later. Diego has since launched a pretty successful miniatures company, Knightmare Games, where you can still buy his fishman sculpt. And I have finally repainted my Rogue Trader piscean warrior!



As a quick reminder, the piscean warrior was one of the very first 40k releases, put up for sale in 1987 before the rulebook was published. They never appeared in any of the background at the time, and no other models were made. 

I painted up the latest piscean warrior broadly to match the paintjob I did on the homage sculpt, keeping the colour scheme that is based on a yellow-headed moray eel:


You'll notice that I chose to render the body as being naked with straps this time round (unlike my 2004 paintjob). It is not clear at all whether the sculptor intended the pisean warrior to be wearing a full body suit, top or even to be naked apart from gloves and boots. In the end, I decided to use Diego's modern sculpt to inform my painting on the classic figure.



In spite of all the uncertainty on the details, I absolutely love this figure. It has a great bulk and fun dynamic pose. The head is beautifully rendered too.



Whilst I kept the colour scheme close to my Knightmare Games figure, I dialled back the brightness in a couple of areas to keep the overall feel more muted. The use of the blue and mustard yellow were a deliberate way of tying the figure to Inquisitor Clousseau's crew, where I think the piscean warrior fits perfectly.



You'll also notice that I stuck the pisecean warrior on a nice new chunky 32mm base to avoid the legs looking cramped and restricted! All in all, I'm pleased to get the figure painted, even if it is embarrassingly long overdue!


Market traders are very suspicious when piscean warriors start inspecting the latest fishing catch!

20 comments:

  1. Great job Axiom, that's a fine repaint, even if it did take a few years. He looks great alongside his younger colleague.

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    1. Thanks Mr Saturday! I'm pleased to have got around to it, and even more pleased that I've managed to improve my painting in the intervening period!

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  2. Vibrant looking fellow and he matches well with the homage for sure. Never seen that sculpt before, it's a shame he never made it into the rules. I think with the Tau and how their empire is supposed to be made up of all sorts of various alien species, races like this Piscean would find a great home for gaming purposes outside of random Ordo Xenos team members.

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    1. Thanks Dai! I think the piscean warriors would have made a fun and distinct alien race in a way that space elves, space orks and space dwarfs never really managed. He absolutely would feel right at home alongside a Tau force, I agree.

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  3. Even though you based it on a real life eel, the vibrant colors really give it an alien feel to me. It looks like a character I wouldn't want to run into on the great space lanes...

    I'm also guessing the tie in to the inquisitor's crew is a bit of a preview? :)

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    1. Thanks Hobbs! I've used quite a lot of colour schemes based on real-life animals for aliens - there's some exotic-looking creatures out there :)

      Funny you should say that about the Inquisitor crew - those 5 models are from a year or two ago, but I'm in the process of adding to them!

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  4. I like your repainted Piscean Warrior more than the 2004 scheme, something about the older version doesn't look right. Shame there were never a few more sculpts, you can never have enough quirky xenos.

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    1. Thanks ellesse, glad you like the new paintjob! I'd love to have a another couple of these - it's a great concept for an alien species.

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  5. Splendid stuff! The more muted colors work very well indeed. It's a great take on a classic. And I feel your pain with the "are these just straps or is it a body suit?" question. I feel like there are a few other figures where I've had to make that call. And I've gone both ways for different reasons. (Went body suit on the female pilot and topless on the pirate dwarf.) Also . . . I love those space chickens! Where did you pick them up and are they still available?

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    1. Thanks very much! I think I sometimes you just need to make a call on skin v clothes and hope for the best!! I've no idea where the chickens are from - I picked them up second hand years ago. I have 5 different ones, but that's all I can tell you, sorry!

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  6. Gorgeous as always!

    Btw I keep meaning to ask you: what’s your recipe for your basing? It’s so simple but blends so nicely with everything!

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    1. Thanks Ross! I did try quite a few different colour schemes for basing before settling on this one. On balance it fits most settings without looking too out of place - that's the theory anyway!

      Basic approach is:
      Glue coarse model railway ballast with PVA (could also use sand). Seal with watered down PVA. Paint with a mid-grey (I use Coat d'arms Field Grey). Wash with a black wash (GW Nuln Oil). Drybrush with a light grey (GW Codex Grey). Add some static grass and/or tufts. That's it!

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  7. Cracking job. That's right, the choice of colours is a total win. It's a fantastic interpretation of the mini, well done!

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    1. Thanks Suber! Really glad you like it :)

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  8. Awesome, makes me want to paint up my copy of the homage mini.

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    1. Thanks Clarke! The Knightmare Games version is great, you won't be disappointed to get it painted up!

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  9. The piscean warrior does indeed fit perfectly. Nice work axiom.

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