Five Parsecs From Home Crew #2 - Robot

 

I was 100% certain that I wanted to include a robot in my Five Parsecs crew. The crew build system allows you to include up to 1 bot, so I rooted around in my boxes and turned up the fabulous Spacefarers S42 security robot.

Scaling Up Spacefarers - 28mm Star Lane Space Pirate Girl

In my view, Citadel's Spacefarers range was one of the best selections of science fiction adventuring types that any company has produced. It included over 50 different figures including merchants, troopers, droids and space pirates. They had great poses and interesting gear. But they are useless for my games which are firmly set in 28mm Rogue Trader scale, because for all their charm, Spacefarers are teeny 25mm figures.

Spacefarers page from the 1981 Citadel catalogue (image from Stuff of Legends)

I've already had one attempt at upscaling the Interplanetary Merchant with a figure I sculpted from scratch. I wanted to try my hand at converting one of my other favourite figures from the range - the S17 'Star Lane Space Pirate Girl with Laser Pistol'.

Star Lane Space Pirate Girl painted by Greblord. More images over at: http://greblord-littlemen.blogspot.com/2016/03/citadel-25mm-spacefarers-s17-star-lane.html

Star Lane Space Pirate Girl painted by Greblord. More images over at: http://greblord-littlemen.blogspot.com/2016/03/citadel-25mm-spacefarers-s17-star-lane.html

Painting My Own Sculpt - the Interplanetary Merchant

The merchant's quarter was a hectic kaleidoscope of colours, smells and sounds. Traders hawked their wares from brightly coloured stalls - fruit, vegetables, exotic furs and refurbished tech. Nomads haggled with alien stall-holders, starship crew on leave jostled against menial robots.

 

 

 

Teaching Myself to Sculpt - Embiggening a Spacefarer

Over the course of the last 10 years or so, I've done dozens of conversions. Some have required minor gap filling, whereas others have needed completely resculpted elements. But I've never considered myself to be able or willing to sculpt a full figure from scratch. But some taunting and encouragement (mainly from theottovonbismark) prompted me to at least give it a go.

 

Donated armature gratefully received

 

A kind person over at the Oldhammer Sculpting Facebook group donated an armature and some corks. I already had the requisite sculpting tools, clay shapers and a micro-scalpel, so all that was left to so was to decide on the subject matter.

 

After some deliberation, I elected to upscale a character from the old 25mm Citadel Spacefarers range - the Interplanetary Merchant. Why select the Interplanetary Merchant as my first sculpt?

 

1. I figured that I might be able to do an approximation of the character, being a relatively uncomplicated and forgiving shape.
2. I was frustrated that the excellent and characterful Spacefarers range is just a fraction too small to be compatible with Rogue Trader figures.
3. He's just the sort of character who might see use amongst my other Rogue Trader civilians.



The Interplanetary Merchant. Pics courtesy of David Wood.