Tuesday 17 January 2017

Joff Zuckerman

Ain't no Rogue Trader as bad arse as this here hombre.....fact.

I think you'd be pretty hard pressed to find a single hardcore RT fan out there who, at some stage in their life, hasn't gazed upon this illustration and thought to themselves "Gee I'd love to have a mini of him". But alas, as we all know GW never produced one......sigh :(

And unfortunately, for us mere mortals, he's not a model that can be easily converted up either. There's nothing in miniature that really comes close enough to replicating his "look". He's got sooooo many things going on with him, stylistically, that even if you were lucky enough to find said miniature, you'd still have your work cut out trying to find or make all of the other components required to make him.

So, why am I waffling on about this with you all then? I'm just stating the bloody obvious aren't I!? Well, I've been wanting to attempt to make him for at least a couple of years now, but, as I just mentioned, I could never find a suitable mini to base him off of. Fast forward a year or so, and I now think I've managed to collect enough bit's & bob's to have a REAL crack at it.

But before I go on, some of you out there (most likely all!....I'm terribly slow with Internet goings on sometimes) will be aware that as part of Diego's Space Raiders 3 Kickstarter campaign, Kev Adams sculpted a miniature version of him. And even though I think it's a really cool looking mini, and as much as I love Kev's work & have the up most respect for his awesome sculpting abilities, for me, it's still not close enough to the original. Yeah, I know, I can be a bit fussy sometimes :)


Kev Adams killa version.

Having a closer look at the green I think I know why he chose to alter some of the sculpt from the illustration though. Most likely because it'll be cast up as a single piece miniature. And as such, considerations needs to be taken into account of undercuts & part thickness etcetera. But, luckily for me, I don't have any of those constraints. I'll be making my version as a one off, to be painted upon completion.....not cast. So hopefully, fingers crossed, I'll be able to get closer to the illo :)


I began by breaking down all of the design elements from the illustration into separate sections. To help me lock down each component that I'd need to find to build this sucker. Here they be;



As you can see from above I sorted him into ten different, unique and almost impossible to find elements to make him from, piece of cake huh? So next came the fun part......trying to find similar looking mini's and/or parts thereof, and figuring which of these would be useful to make Joff from. Here's what I've managed to cobble together so far;



Some of these items will most likely not be incorporated into the final mini, but their there anyway, just to aid in the visualisation process and to try out fits of varying scales. 


Let's see what I've been up to so far;

The head & skull Sashimono will be mercilessly raped from the Copplestone mini pictured below. This particular miniature, not surprisingly, was what triggered my enthusiasm for beginning the Joff project in the first place. 

If only his arms were in a better position I would've
used him as the basis for the whole conversion.


Breastplate is from a space marine. I've begun reshaping the collar and neckline area to suit the design better.....still a ways to go though.

Purity seal? What self respecting Rogue Trader needs one of them for!?


Legs are from a heavily modified set from forgeworld. I spent ages looking for a mini with a natural standing pose. It's virtually bloody impossible to find a miniature in that stance for some reason.

Now comes the part where GS and cursing comes in :)


For this project there's several challenging sections for me to make/convert. The first is most probably the most obvious to you all; the Bionic arm with incorporated power fist. I scoured the net for ages trying to find a fist, hand, claw or any other suitable appendage that closely resembled it, but alas, no joy. So, in the end I settled for a ghoul hand. It's gunna take a lot of work, but I think this element, on it's own, has the potential to either make or break the overall look of the mini. Second will be the shoulder pads. Their not THAT complex, but they'll still require a fair amount of work to get their shape right. Then there's the sword. That's gunna be a real bugger, shaping the blade to fit the illustration & adding those bird skull thingy's to the hilt. And lastly comes the torn cloak....never done that before, so I'm gunna be looking online for help with that. So yeah, a few painful bits in the build. But as far as everything else goes, I'm not worried, everything else should be fairly easy....famous last words hey chums :D


I'm hoping to have him done for BOYL....this year! I'm not sure if this is wishful thinking on my part or just another one of my hobby delusions, but I'll give it a bash anyway :)


And erm er, bye to youse all.






24 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Oh, I don't know about that JB, I've stopped a few projects in my time :D

      With this one though I'm quietly confident that'll be able to get it done. Stay tuned buddy :)

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  2. This looks like fun, I'm going to continue enjoying your processes here...

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    1. Thanks Stuart. I'm gunna chip away at this over the coming months. So hopefully it'll be ready in time for BOYL :D

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  3. No small challenge that you've set yourself, I'd forgotten that picture from years ago, I'm looking forward to your updates.

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    1. Yeah, it's a biggun for sure. I'm pretty daunted by it actually, but it looks like fun also :)

      Thanks Phil.

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  4. "Not close enough". I love it, you madman. Looking forward to seeing yours :)

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    1. I know right! I suppose that because I've looked at & studied this picture for sooooo long now, I've become quite picky with the details. I really want to replicate him as close as I possibly can. Who knows, maybe I'll give in and just buy the mini instead :D

      Cheers Doctor.

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  5. Is the old plastic ork power claw similar to his powerfist? It has a similar three fingered look.

    Anyway, looks like you are on the right track, and those legs alone look like they will be better scaled than the "not-Zuckerman" (although now your guy will end up being rather tall!

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    1. Yeah, I looked at that power fist too, but it's too bulky. Another unsuitable item scratched off the list :(

      The height from the legs does look a little like they might be taller, now that you point it out :P I can always cut them down if they look out of scale later on though.

      Thanks for the tip Lasgun :)

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  6. You're a brave/crazy (delete as applicable) soul taking this on! Good luck mate, watching with interest... ;-)

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    1. Go on, you can call me crazy.....I am a little bonkers :D

      Hope he works out in the end. Cheers Leady :)

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  7. I am really excited to see this project progress! Also, doesn't the forgeworld com marine have a standing pose like that?

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    1. Hey Andrew, glad you like it so far. Which com marine are you referring to specifically?

      Cheers mate :)

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    2. You're in league with forgeworld to get me to look at their website, aren't you? :p

      I was thinking the master of the signal: https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-US/Legion-Champion-and-Master-of-the-Signal

      But on second look, I think my brain may have been combining him with the rogue trader marine on which he's based, as his stance is wider than I was initially thinking.

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    3. Aha! My plan worked :DDD

      I'd never seen that mini before, probably because I just about never visit their website, or buy any of their stuff, or have followed what GW/FW have been up to since the mid 90's!

      He's a really cool lookin mini though isn't he! I wonder where they got the inspiration from to sculpt him? "D Rogue Trader minis were way cool!

      Unfortunately, even though his stance isn't too bad, he's got a few accoutrements hanging from his belt that lay across his thighs. These would be a pain to remove without wrecking his legs too much. Plus, he looks to be a one piece cast, so I'd have to separate him from his torso as well....not much point really.

      But I appreciate the feedback & advice Andrew, honestly.....it's the only reason I blog!

      Cheers mate :)

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    4. That's the only reason you blog? Huh. I do it for the fame, money, and women. What's that? I can hear you laughing all the way over here!

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    5. Well, of course I do it for that as well....that just goes without saying. But after a while that sort of debuacherous life style starts to bore me. It's only when I've reached the limit of what my physical body can take that I return to some good old fashioned conversation :P

      What a witty pair we make :)

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  8. "The Australian Dominator Mister Papafakis versus Kev 'the Golden Boy' Adams! The main event in the Great Oldhammer Smackdown of 2017! The bout for the belt! The fight for the Big Brass Boy, the Noble Niebel, the Greatest Golden Gobbo of them all! The Sheriff is coming to Nottingham and the Hooded Wonder is waiting for him in the old Foundry! July of 2017! Be lead or be dead!" Got tired of only outdoing yourself, huh? Now you have to take on the very Olympians? You go Papafakis! This will be epic! I may have to find a way to get my butt to BOYL. (Why July? Who the heck picked that? What's wrong with October, exactly?) Anyway . . . I bet this will be good.

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    1. Now that gave me a good laugh :D Rumble in the Jungle hey? :DDD

      I know it may seem like I'm saying that I think I can do better than Kev, but I'm not, honestly! He's a gazillion times better than me at sculpting. Heck, all I can do is a bit of GS blending! He chose to sculpt it the way he did on purpose, not because he couldn't.

      I'm actually pretty disappointed that his sculpt didn't turn out exactly as the illo. I would have jumped at the chance to get hold of one if it was. But having studied that picture for so long, I can't fool myself into accepting it as the same as the illo.

      What can I say, I'm a bit of a stubborn bastard sometimes :)

      I'm not 100% confident that I can pull this thing off either. If I can make up the four key elements I mentioned in the post then I should be fine....time will tell.

      Cheers mate.

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    2. Oh, I think it was clear enough from your post that your reasons for wanting something different are honest, and not meant in any way as a comment on Adams's quite substantial skills. But the very idea that you're working on the same project . . . that's chutzpah. Nothing wrong with that at all. But seriously, you have some brass. As a fellow dabbler I appreciate this about you. Maybe you're not quite ready to take the next step with your GS yet. I understand. I need to do a few more conversions first myself. But I feel it tugging at me. And each of these newer and more complex conversions is a step towards that final big one where you're just converting raw materials.

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    3. Yeah, that's an interesting point you make there Composer. Maybe I'm heading to that final conclusion without being conscious of it? At this stage though, I feel like this'll be as complex a build as I'm likely to take on. But who know's? In a few years......?

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  9. I want to convert a version of this where I re-interpret the skull sashimono as Joff's head, and the human head as a odd chest decoration.

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    1. A Skull headed Joff hey? Sounds interesting Curis. When will this conversion begin?

      Cheers mate :)

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