Pirates in Spaaaaaace

Hello! I've been busy again so I thought I'd slap it out on the blog for all to see, so here we go!
After my brief return to the undead the switch flicked again and I had a dozen "better" ideas that I could be getting on with as a side project for the skaven I'm working on. The skaven will be up here once they're up to 1000 points, but you can see their progress over here, alongside a bevy of gorgeous new armies mustering on both sides of the pond.
One of these ideas was sparked by a project a few of my esteemed fellows have embarked on on their own blogs, an example of which can be found right here, where they're working through the classic Rogue Trader adventurers range. I don't have a very many of these models, but as an occasional break from the skaven challenge, it could work out quite nicely.
So, first model I picked was a talisman space pirate, who I picked up for a pittance on eBay on account his melta gun was fucked

Gun fucked

So after he arrived in the post a quick rummage yielded an old dark eldar blaster which was promptly chopped down and stuck on

Gun unfucked 

A couple of leisurely evening sessions later and my new pirate captain was ready to commit petty crime and mischief across the vastness of space.

 

His colour scheme is a conscious departure from my usual style, I want these lads to be flamboyant and brash, so the bright colours got broken out, and I'm quite happy with the results even though the new palette did slow me down quite a bit

Once the captain was done, I cast my eye across his crew and decided on a Bob Olley sculpt, and as is the norm with Mr Olley, what started as a bit of a struggle ended with a lot of fun being had. This time I chose Nightwing from this range here:

Top left

He's a funny old sculpt him. Firstly I wasn't fond of the colour scheme on the ad, and started working on a slightly military look, which quite frankly looked dogshite, so I scrapped it and started again. On the second attempt I kept in mind that I wanted these lads to stand out, and so this is the result 

I'm quite happy with how he's turned out, the carapace like armour was a little tough because the detail is very shallow, so I had to use sharper highlights than normal to make it stand out, but I'm happy to have him done to a fairly satisfactory finish

The crew so far

I'll leave you with the above group shot of the latest two models joined by a Worldburner and Ventolin Pirate who were painted a good while ago but have now been press ganged, at least until I get some more crew painted. 

Thanks for looking folks, and tune in for the next exciting (ahem) installment!