Kaptin Gnarlock - building a legend!

My first ork army was collected some 15 years ago, when i was barely more than a grot. It started as a tonne of plastic boyz from a couple of 2nd edition boxed sets, donated by two of my buddies at the time, led by the big WAAAGH-meister himself, Ghazghkull Thraka (the old-skool version). This army did spectacularly poorly, and so, after numerous thrashings, I got together a sizeable horde of troops thanks to my weekend job and the grand re-opening of my local Games Workshop store. This army featured the cream of the 2nd Ed. Ork codex, an army list so random it was almost more dangerous to the person using it than to the opponent...

Around that time, I stopped using special characters, focusing more on creating my own fluff, and that was when the idea of a Freebooter warband came about. Although the majority of my army was Goff, and my new, non-Ghazghkull warboss was still a Goff, a small section of my force was focused around a little group of freebooterz that featured an unusual little pirate in what i took for power-armour (actually a 'bionik body', with a hook hand and a nasty leer) - the original Kaptin Gnarlock was concieved!

I still can't find the original miniature, but this is what he looked like (photo courtesy of www.solegends.com).



Years later, having all but given up the tabletop gaming hobby, a fresh new inspiration has led me to restart the WAAAGH - this time, with the gnarly old Kaptin in his rightful place as head of his own warband. However, there's been some changes...

The new Gnarlock started life as a mistreated Ogre Paymaster, from GW's Fantasy range. Here is a picture of him as he appeared in an eBay auction not so long ago:



Yeah, I know, miniature abuse.

Anyway, after a quick bit of stripping, chopping, snapping, filing, puttying and finishing, he looked a bit more palatable. He's been given a new, bulbous milliput belly in place of his gut-armour, and i've filed down the shaggy collar of his coat and moulded on some lapels to make it look more pirate-ey. I'm still not sure about the look of the coat so far, my sculpting skills are still in their infancy. His new pirate Ork head is a resin cast supplied by the excellent MAXMINI website.

http://www.maxmini.eu/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=12&products_id=62







I'm quite pleased with the belly overhang - my intention is to add an equipment belt just under the belly, with all sorts of fun things dangling from it! I'll edit this post with further progress as I go along!

P.S. one thing that bugs me about his gut is the obvious lack of belly-button - according to Games Workshop background, Orks are a type of fungus, and therefore probably dont have umbilical cords - i'll do some more research, but any thoughts or opinions on the matter would be appreciated!