Bots on the blog

I'm sure all of you fellow bloggers will be thinking of the same thing when you read the title. But don't fear, I'm not here to rant about those ******* bots that write those annoying messages or those that forced you to put measures on the comments on your blogs.

No, today I'll talk about decent bots. Rogue Trader robots, in fact (monocle on).

I mean this

The only bots worth of our time

I'm working on another project (will show soon!), but wanted something simple to paint, something I could start & finish in a few days in the meanwhile. I had these beautiful robots and felt like spilling some paint on them.

Not looking impressive yet

They are a Cataphract and a Colossus. You can see I had some bits missing and had extra right arms instead, so I had to provide a couple of arrangements to make this work. The Colossus is usually seen with a huge hammer on its left arm, but I didn't have any, so I used this Thunder Hammer from a modern Terminator. Here you can see the bare conversions:

Not the same, but will do

Dreadnoughts' little cousin

I thought of cutting and repositioning some arms, bending the elbows or something like that, but cutting just the first arm for the hammer was enough for me, so I went for the unmodified poses.

I know that nowadays everybody uses subdued palettes and desaturated colours, with tons of oils, pigments and so, showing all the minis like really battered and with heavy weathering. But really, what's the point of having Rogue Trader minis and doing that? I had a clear vision in my mind. 

Oldscholars fear not colour

OK, I'l let you a few moments to breathe.

You good? Let's keep on. I'm boldly going where no one has gone in the last twenty years. Some washes and highlights later, they looked a little bit better:

The hammer looks more convincing now, I hope

I've been always fascinated by the fact of these monsters bearing a mere bolter

Now that I had started my path, it all was a matter of adding details. I painted checkers here and there and made the riskiest decision of this project, which was painting fierce faces on the lascannons. Many dioptres later I got some cheesy, stupid faces. Not what I aimed for, but at table distance you won't see the difference, trust me (I hope so!!)

Damn, that area is small

Kind of Super Mario Banzai Bill vibe

Well, little else. I thought I could use some Adeptus Mechanicus decals, and I made some extensive use of them! This is the final result:

The author cannot take responsibility for any viewer's epilepsy condition

Decals, decals everywhere

Oh, no decals! Quick, keep turning!

Oh, there you are again

A final size comparison shot:

How come that guy looks so grey?

I don't know how I'll use them, but the first thing that comes to mind is the retinue for a Rogue Trader. I'll give a thought to that.

In the meantime, praise the Omnissiah!

Mech Droids

 I know that, given the title, you may legitimately be expecting some R2 units today. Well, I'll try to make up for the broken expectations with some cool models from the Astropolis KS.

Today I'm bringing the bots, some pretty cute models, I have to say. However, even being so lovely, at first I was quite unsure of what to do with them. I mean, I don't see an obvious function they can perform, and for a moment I considered taking them down to bits and using them for conversions. But it was just a second, I really couldn't chop them down, they are simply too cute. So I just painted them!

Beep booop

They have quite a strong DUM-series pit droid (you know, the mech droids from The Phantom Menace) vibe to me, which makes them adorable, of course.

This droid shows more tiredness than any human-like mini I've ever seen

On the other hand, this guy is super happy

And this other one looks pretty pensive

What I'm saying is that these little fellas are super expressive, even without a face, or two of them even without arms! They are quite memorable sculpts in their simplicity.

I'd love to understand the conversation they are having

I could have added a lot more details, I guess,and I'm not happy with the light effect, but on the whole I think they work and will look nice on the board. By the way, if the Adeptus Mechanicus asks, they are servo skulls with reinforced armour and enhanced functionalities. Just in case.

Bombots

 Today the title is as accurate as obscure, I guess.

A pic might be of use?

Not really? Well, maybe I'll have to tell you the whole story then. Once upon a time...

Last summer mighty Curis from Ninjabread managed to produce these beauties:

Follow this link to the post

These are Bombots, as described on the Rogue Trader Manual:

Cute and cool, aren't they? The thing is that Curis said that he had to cast a few sets, so he most likely had a few spare copies. Some other fellow Bloggers had already shown more initiative than me, and in fact got some of them. I can recall Axiom from Magpie and Old Lead and Jason Fulford from Rogue Heresy, but if I'm missing anyone just let me know!

Well, long story short, Curis is quite a nice, generous bloke, some emails were written, a parcel was sent, fucking Brexit delayed it and involved some harmful extra payments and finally it all takes us to the first pic on this post. So let's move on!

My own!

 

Even if they can be used by quite a number of different factions in a RT setting (Mechanicus, a Rogue Trader, mercenaries and bounty hunters, Space Marines...) they had quite a military grade vibe to me. I decided to paint them mainly grey, so they have an Imperial Guard looking, yet would be still neutral enough to be used by anybody else (even Orks? Hmm, that would be something to see)

Recklessly painted in grey

Still grey!

"Ex-ter-minate". Ehm, no, sorry, those were those other guys

 Grey and black, so a true classic Imperial Guard pattern. I thought they needed a touch of colour, and of course they needed checkers...

It's not Rogue Trader without checkers!

The bar codes on the back are decals from some Imperial Guard box

This is how they look next to stardard 28mm minis:

The commander is supervising the Bombots with the assistance of the Enginseer

Now I have to confess a thing. Curis was kind enough to offer me more than a set, so he could get rid of all his remnant bits (Oh  please, where do I have to sign).

So I've painted a second set, for a pal who was also interested in these

Bad news is that I'm afraid I took the last copies :(

They've been extremely nice to paint. I love when someone takes the time and effort to get those old RT illustrations and turn them into real minis. I bet there's a market niche for that!