Necromunda ’95! – “Catachan” Ganger with Shotgun (Michael Perry, 1993-4)

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Jungle Fighter with Lasgun 2, 0437/3, Necromunda 1995, Ganger with Shotgun, Michael Perry, 1993-4

Another Neglected Necromunda model from my gaming days in the 1990’s completed and on show for you today. This guy is a simple conversion of a metal Catachan Jungle Fighter model with his lasgun removed and replaced with a shotgun body and barrel, as well as having had all of his hair and bandanna carved off. As the gang I ran back then was based more on the idea of actual gangs where each member is an individual, rather than the “West Side Story”-uniform-type look of the official Necromunda gangs, I also took that opportunity to use whatever miniatures I damn well pleased. I’ll post up more about it at a later date – once I have more of them completed, but this concept allowed me to have a gang where the members were both male and female. The unifying aspect was having some form of Grendel markings on each model – often tattoos, sometimes scars, sometimes face paint/makeup as well as markings on their gear or weapons where applicable.

Jungle Fighter with Lasgun 2, 0437/3, Necromunda 1995, Ganger with Shotgun, Michael Perry, 1993-4

So the use of this guy from the Catachan range simply followed that ethos. Of course, when the last campaign ended, so did my motivation to paint those models, and so many of them have sat in an uncompleted Neglected Limbo for about 2 decades now, only to be dug out of the same old Chessex case and completed now. No other special notes here – he’s justa  model that’s finally been completed! Trying a new colour here for black tattoos. I think it works a lot better than the dark blue I’ve always used, and I’ll start using this a lot more, though the Slayers will have to remain with the blue for their own internal consistency. Unfortunately this particular tattoo looks a bit messy in the photos, mostly due to the shaded musculature underneath it that leads to too many colour variations in a too-small area. This is why the Reaper Chainsaw woman didn’t get arm tattoos. I’m going to have to try to experiment on painting “sleeves” that don’t simply look like muddy dark green arms, which is gonna be hard, since that’s how they end up looking from a distance in real life – you need to be up close to appreciate the details…

23 thoughts on “Necromunda ’95! – “Catachan” Ganger with Shotgun (Michael Perry, 1993-4)”

  1. Great conversion and painting mate, have you ever tried painting tattoo’s in full colour and then putting a skin colour glaze over the top, can work really well, but it’s all a matter of personal taste

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    • I’ve tried that, though I found that the glaze tends to settle in the deepest recesses, even when I’m careful, which worked both to lighten the tatts in the recesses, and also to reverse the shading of the skin. What I do now is to mix in whatever skin tome I’m using with the “ink” colour, so you still get the skin colour effect to an extent.

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  6. I agree with John above that the camo pattern looks great and the intense look on his face is perfect. The Catachans are really old looking sculpts (and is it fair to say they’re heavily inspired by Predator?) but I think GW should consider updating them at some point as they have a lot of character and could be great to see fleshed out into an army even just in Kill Teams. You did a great job converting them here and showing how cool they can look.

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    • Thanks Kuribo. The metal Catachans have been discontinued for a hell of a long time now, and replaced by the sub-par (even then) plastics, so while I think they and the Cadians are overdue for a refresh, I would still like to see the Eldar Aspects get their due sooner.
      Luckily, I still have a decent stash of the metals, as well as a few plastics, as well as a project that I’ve had planned for …shit, 20 years now…

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      • It really is amazing how a few armies haven’t been updated in so long. I’m sure they determined they weren’t big sellers but it is amazing that some popular armies like the Cadians have such old sculpts. I hope that you’re able to see your project through one of these days too. 20 years is quite a long amount of time! Color me impressed 🙂

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      • Well to their credit, they’ve been good in recent years at resurrecting old, neglected ideas like Genestealer Cults and Adeptus Mechanicus, and giving a proper, distinct face to a couple of the Traitor Legions. I imagine a pretty substantial World Eaters upgrade is just around the corner, they’re redoing Sisters of Battle properly, and hopefully not far behind will be some Aspect Warriors… so you see how far away an Imperial Guard refresh probably is with all of that…

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  10. Excellent job mate – I’ve got a soft spot for the old jungle fighters anyway, but the nice & subtle conversion work, and that superb camo is a real blast!! He’s a perfect ganger as far as I’m concerned 😊

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