A good friend of mine once said, “I don’t ever need any pirates, but I always appreciate seeing them.” This post is for him, I suppose.

As with all blogs about the miniature wargaming hobby, posting about painting is something that I assume others expect. While that assumption also presumes the existence of an audience for this blog, I may as well continue showing why I want people to play Freebooter’s Fate, and for that, it’s time to talk miniatures.

The Pirate Demo Crew

Part of my preparations for demos is building sample crews for each faction. While I have a rough idea of what each model will be, the actual process of acquiring, assembling, priming, painting, and photographing said models is going to be a long, drawn-out challenge. Because this is such a small model-count game, I want to try my best to keep improving at painting – fielding four to eight models that I’ve painted to the best of my ability is going to be more interesting for observers, after all.

For the Pirate demo crew, I thought the best way to ease back into painting would be with my first Deckhand. See here the humble Pirate:

While web formatting, painting, and photography are clearly not my strong suit, I think that this is suitable for my first foray into getting crews painted for demos. This model was coincidentally the first model I attempted to paint back when I initially started getting interested in Freebooter’s Fate in 2013 or so, and I think there are still pictures of the original version out there. Rather than fully stripping, this model got re-primed over the existing paint job because it was a test to see how much fun I had painting him – the painting process predates the creation of this blog and the absolute tear of priming and cutting through my backlog that I’ve been on.

Color-wise, he’s a pirate. Warm tones were my goal, and much of the lighting and warmth comes from yellows, ochres, and off-white paints. As with most of the pirates (and other models in this game, if I’m being perfectly honest), he’s got a lot of browns and fabric where I’m attempting to try and make the materials look different from one another. Boot brown is not the same as pants brown, which is not the same as the deck or his hat, after all.

Freehanded stripes were the least difficult part, oddly enough. I painted a full Blood Bowl team of classic-style elves in a purple and white diamond pattern a while back, alongside an 1980s-style Bright Crusaders scheme human/OWA squad, and so that’s helped steady my hands a lot.

NMM (Non-metallic metals) are the next big thing that I’m trying to work on for all future models. I just don’t like how most metallic paint looks with these miniatures, so it’s a good excuse to get much better at it over time. While the pistol and knives could probably use a lot more work, it was my first attempt after taking a long break from painting minis, so I’m going to just let myself appreciate it for now and repaint it later, once I have a few of my full demo crews done.

Pirate Demo Crew Thoughts

Pirates are the first faction most people think of when I tell them it’s a fantasy pirate skirmish game, and the aptly-named pirate deckhand is the perfect encapsulation of that. Every crew needs deckhands, he’s a classic all-rounder piece, and he’s warmed me up for the specialists that I plan to start on soonish. He’ll definitely find a place in whatever demo list I end up choosing to use, which is good for the Pirates, because I still need to figure out which Leader and Specialist I’d like. For a 300 doubloon crew, his 50 doubloon fee is on the higher end of the Pirate deckhands, but his pistol and cutlass definitely help him act as a good all-rounder.

Hobby Progress

Today mostly consisted of sorting models, as well as some painting for a few of the other demo crews alongside photography. As I paint more, I’m likely to get a bit faster in terms of preparing models, but for now, I can maybe do 2-3 a week if I’m trying to do my best in terms of painting.