Daemon Prince of Nurgle: Maggot Spawn - Conversion Done

The conversion of the flying Daemon Prince of Nurgle is done. After the skin was completed I continued with the carapace. At first I planned to put one big horn right above the head (and get rid of the small horns on the side) but after getting some really valuable feedback from a friend I went with the original design.
The carapace turned out rather clean as there was going to be a lot of details on the skin: details in pustules in different shapes and sizes, open wounds and maggots that crawl out of them. They way I imagine it, the Plague Prince is spawning the maggots, they drop to the ground feast on the corpses, grow and turn into Beast of Nurgle which eventually will become Plague Drones. That's what Nurgle is all about: The Circle of Life! As with the scared skin I also tried to keep the look of the Pustules in line with the ones from the Plague Ogryn Leader.
I played around with different trophies and trinkets but - as with the details on the carapace - stayed away from adding any as the skin was pretty noisy already. In the end I only went with a set of bells for the horns.
The Maggot Spawn is not ready for getting painting (the wings are just tagged using blue tag) which I will - along with building the base - do next. Can't wait to get the Plague Prince ready for the battlefield.

 

 


 

Daemon Prince of Nurgle: Maggot Spawn - WIP

As I want to continue with a Nurgle arme, but not necessarily jumping right away back to a mono daemon army I decided to get my Plague Marines back on the tabletop (at least from a gaming perspective). In order to keep the daemons and the marines tied together nonetheless I started working on a Daemon Prince of Nurgle aka Maggot Spawn.

I used the Plague Ogryn Leader from Forgeworld as well as two Plague Drone bodies as basis for the conversion. The rest is greenstuff… a lot of it. I am currently working on the skin. Next will be the carapace. Something I am not completely sure about is additional details/extras. I thought about adding maggots and maybe even the flies that come with the Maggoth Lords kit. A bell also would be nice, but I am not sure where to hang it from… maybe also the carapace or the horns. Latter I eventually will remove as I would like to have a single big horn to extend from the carapace right above the head.

I already spend quite some time with this conversion and there is still a lot to do, but so far I really enjoy bringing the Maggot Spawn to life.

Modular City Terrain Boards - WIP: Paving Tiles

After I lost my miniatures case (it hasn’t been found/returned yet) my motivation to continue working on the Nurgle daemons was at the low point. I thought about not continuing with the army at all. But thanks to the great talks I had with various hobbyists in the GW store and online in the different communities I will carry on with the Carrion Cohort… just not right now. I am still hoping to get my army back and therefore I won’t start filling up the ranks right away. Also, I need some time to have the wounds healed.

Instead of working on daemons I spent the last two weeks with the modular game table. After I glued on the streets I started working on the actual terrain respectively the space where terrain pieces are going to be placed. It took a while to figure out the right size for the tiles (also in terms of what I actually can produce with my foam cutter)… and then it took even longer to get those tiles (around 500).

Gluing all those tiles on the boards also took some time and it also was a bit boring, but now, with the foundation in place I can start with the fun work: building hatches for the floor, building a water reservoir, building air shafts, weathering the tiles, adding rubble and destruction, etc… all those elements hopefully add variety and interesting spots/landmarks to the board. At the same time I want to build all the details in a way that I still can place terrain on top of it.

Rogue Daemon: The Corpse

Last week my local Games Workshop Store (Berlin 2) not only held the Armies on Parade competition, but also the Rogue Daemon painting challenge. Lars, the head honcho of the store organized it as there is no German Golden Daemon any more. I wasn't preparing something special just for this event, but brought my unit of Plaguebearers (40K Unit) and The Corpse, a Herald of Nurgle (40K Single Miniature).

There were great and truly inspiring entries, and I had a lot of great and heart warming talks with all the hobby enthusiasts in the store... about techniques, armies, background and all the other aspects that make this hobby so awesome. You can see all the miniatures of the Rogue Daemon here.

I was really surprised and delighted when I heard the The Corpse won first place in the 40K Single Miniature category!

I am super happy, at the same time I am (still) devastated as the case with the rest of my army is still lost.

Missing: Army Case!

On Friday I forgot to pick up my army case in the city train; I nodded off, woke up at my stop an walked out of the train. I didn't realize that I forgot my case until the next day when I wanted to continue with the second unit of Plaguebearers. I am still devastated. 

I filed a notice of loss, plastered the lamp posts around all the stops on the train line with "have you seen me?" leaflets and went to the lost-and-found office. So far there is no sign of the case, but I haven't lost hope just yet. 

The only good thing is that my already painted unit of Plaguebearers as well as the Corpse wasn't in the case as I left them at the local GW Store to participate in the Rogue Daemon painting contest. But everything else of my Daemon army, including the codex, rule book, the Portal Glyph, the 2nd edition metal Bloodletters... everything is gone.

Modular City Terrain Boards - WIP: Streets

After cleaning up the boards for the modular city scape table I now (finally) made up my mind regarding the layout of the streets. At first I wanted to align the streets horizontal/vertical (classic layout). I tried to put them in the middle and on the side of the boards to get not only enough variety, but also sufficient space to place terrain; I wanted an option where I can have rather big place somewhere if needed. After some simple paper design tests and research I decided to go with a diagonal setup.

Vertical/Horizontal

Diagonal 

Making sure that ankle of the street pieces is correct, so they are properly aligned when putting the tiles together was a bit of a hassle, but luckily I was able to remember some of the things I have learned in geometry classes.
So far I only have cut out cork street pieces; cork because when painted black and dry-brushed it looks like asphalt. Before I clue them onto the board I need to build some manhole covers and decide where I want to have the streets to be destroyed and to which extend. 

Building this modular board takes time, also because I am not 100% focused as I still building and painting my Nurgle Daemon Force at the same time, but so far I am happy, especially with the diagonal pattern as I have the impression that I can do way more different and interesting layouts.


Additions:

• Nurgle Releases: I don’t have a Fantasy army, but I have a lot of ideas how I can use those fantastic looking miniatures for my 40K Nurgle force. Stay tuned. 
• 2nd Plaguebearers Unit: I am still painting them. I spend around 12h painting pustules, but they are done. Next I will take care of the rusty swords and horns. 
• Beasts of Nurgle: I ordered bits to build seven Beasts of Nurgle; I am not a fan of the GW model and I wasn’t able to find any nice miniatures from other manufacturers I like… okay, this is only partially true. There were some awesome looking Bile Worms as well as fantastic looking Cthulhu spawns, but unfortunately both companies that produced them ran out of business.

Plaguebearers - 2nd unit WIP / adding flavor to the Theme

I am working on the second unit of Plague Bearers, and even though I have my formula and the techniques set, it still takes time. At the moment I am painting pustules, a lot of them. I am not sure how many of those are on average on one of the daemons, but whatever the number is multiply it by 15 (that's how many I am painting at the same time)... and that means a base coating each pustule Ratskin Flesh then washing it with Carroburg Crimson, adding another thin layer of Ratskin Flesh and then putting a rather small dot of Yriel Yellow on top.

While working on the daemons I am also preparing the bases. The theme of the army is swamp/flooded woodland. I still like it, but as I go with a rather big force I thought how I could put in some variety. I followed through on the idea I had about the Aegis Defense Line I am going to build for my Daemons... which lead me to adding corpses to some of the bases (1/3 of the bases per unit should have some on them). As I am a fan of consistency I went with the Corpse Fields bases from Secret Weapon Miniatures; I still had to sand the spongy looking texture of the bases off and add some sand to make the fit the style of the Blasted Wetlands bases I am already using.

The bases are already done, and all I need to do now is finish of the daemons which - just by my guess - will take another two weeks or so. I had to experiment a bit with the skin tone of the bodies as I wanted to look them like water corpses.

















The little "theme extension" also granted me sufficient bases for the whole Nurgle force I plan to build (over time). Right now I am aiming at around 1500 points, but further down the road (once I had the chance to paint some power armor again... or some of those magnificent Battle-Automata) I would love to ramp up the force up to 2500.

 

Herald of Nurgle: The Corpse - Painting done

I finally finished the The Corpse, the second Herald in my mono Nurgle army - he was done almost a week ago but I didn't come around to write an update for the blog.

The painting took some time, but I am happy with the result. Even the raven turned out the way I had hoped, even though the highlights and the strokes (feathers) could have been a bit brighter as they are barely visible. As with the base of the other Herald (the Cadaver) haven't added the water and leaves to the base as I will do this in one go with the next unit of Plague Bearers that is already work in progress (working with the two component epoxy I am using for the water effect is a mess and I won't open pandoras box for just two bases).

Also not done yet are the blood effects. I am going to wait there as well as I like the look of the wounds as they are to see how the other unit turns out. The first unit has blood, maybe too much and, depending on the look of the second group of Plague Bearers I might do some touch ups. 

2nd Supplement regarding Varnishing: The Corpse lost some contrast due to the varnish, especially the metal respectively rust isn't as crisp anymore. It still works, but I have to be a bit more careful in the future when it comes to varnishing metal (with rust). 

The pictures of the Herald are unfortunately a bit blurry and pixelated. This is due the fact that I dropped my camera and now have to use my 5 year old smart phone to get some pictures. I hope I can replace them soon with better quality images. 

Aside from the Herald I got a couple of other things moving forward the last two weeks. As said, the second unit of Plague Bearers is wip. This time it'S 14 +1 miniatures I am going to paint at the same time; +1 because the first squad only had 13 daemons, and as it's a Nurgle army every unit has to be seven respectivly a multiple of seven models strong. 

I also managed to sand of the boards (in the bathtub) for the modular city terrain. It was a mess and luckily I did it on a day when the missis wasn't around; I also used the iron to even out the protruding hard foam. No, she wouldn't have been happy.

Herald of Nurgle: The Corpse - Painting WIP: Bones, Leather and Wood

It has been almost five weeks since I had a paint brush in my fingers, but this weekend I had finally the time to get back to The Corpse, the second Herald in my Mono Nurgle Daemons of Chaos army. Little side note: Before I left for my business trip I modeled him a double chin with green stuff to make him look more chubby.
It was a rough start Friday evening as nothing really worked out the way it should be and I went to bed a bit frustrated. On Saturday a basically repainted everything I did and it turned out much, much better. My focus was on wooden parts (basically the handle of the flail), skulls and bones, the rope hanging from the horn and all leather stripes.

Next (most properly tonight) I will take care of the horns and the cloth pieces. I already painted the later with Pallid Wych Flesh as I want them look like they were white/beige-colored before they were touched by Nurgle. This will be a bit of a challenge as I never painted cloth that supposed to look worn out/run-down. I could go with black, grey or brown but I want a visual connection to the Death Guard that will support the Daemons from time to time, and their armor will be white... well, worn out/run-down white.

Once the horns and the cloth are done I can start re-touching the skin (along with all the pesky body fluids) and then, after this is complete, take care of the raven. I already have an idea how he should look like in the end, I am just not sure if I can pull it off.

Slow & Purposeful - Minor Updates

Not a lot of things happened the last couple of weeks. I was on vacation for two weeks with my family, then I was at home (and at work) for a week and now I am on a business trip a gone for another two weeks. So there wasn’t much time for the hobby, but I got a couple of things done nonetheless.

Second Plaguebearers Squad - WIP

While on the vacation in Austria I managed to clean up the second squad of Plaguebearers which is, following Nurgle’s (un)holy number,14 daemons strong. I love this hobby, but getting rid of mold lines and other cast impurities is most properly the part I like the least about it. When done right it takes time, but no matter how accurate you try to do it there is always a spot or a line that gets forgotten and will unveil itself with the base coating.

The assembling and conversion-work was done when I got back home. All of the different Champions of the three units will get a trophy of one of the other chaos gods lesser daemons in their claws. For the first one I got the head of a Daemonette which I still have to paint and then glue onto his hand. The Unit leader of the second squad got the head of a Bloodletter; both heads were taken from the Grey Knights sprues. Aside from the Champion I also did some minor conversions on the musician (he got the instruments from the Plague Drones kit) and the banner bearer. I didn’t like the second banner top that comes with the box as it looks too man-manufactured and too clean compared to the daemons weaponry and the crude and corroded metal fly banner top. So I did my own custom version out of plasticard. It’s just the simple sign of Nurgle with a bell and a death head, but made in the same style of the fly banner top. I will start painting the squad once I have finished the The Corpse. It’s ambitious but I hope to have them done by end of September.

Modular City Terrain Boards - WIP

While visiting my parents on the way to Austria I took along a set of cramps to paste the polystyrene boards into the frames. As the special glue needs around 12 hours to dry out it took 5 days to get all boards in; I have four cramps but as I need all of them to have the pressure equally distributed I could only glue in one board at the time. Next step is to sand off the boards to get rid of redundant glue remnants or protruding board pieces.

Nurgle Aegis Defense Line - Concept Phase

I used the two weeks I was absent from my hobby tools (except a knife and some sand paper to clean the daemons) time to think about how to build a Nurgle themed Aegis Defense Line. I experimented a bit with the corpse heaps from the Undead Corpse Cart some time ago but I never was happy with the setup (pure corpse heaps, some corpses stacked up on a wall, etc.). I now will go with a combination of tumbled trees, rocks, corpses and swamps to follow the theme of the bases.

Herald of Nurgle: The Corpse - Painting WIP

Last week I was busy with building frames for the modular gaming table, but I managed to apply all the base color on the second Herald of Nurgle aka The Corpse; the first stage of the skin (base, drybrush, wash, drybrush) was done at the same time when I kicked of the work on the first Herald aka The Carcasse.

On the weekend I started with the detail work, with the focus on all the metal parts. The brass bells and little emblems that are dangling in front of his loin cloth were a straight forward washing and drybrushing job using Warplock Bronze (basecoat), Sycorax Bronze (Drybrush), Balthasar Gold (Drybrush), Agrax Earthshade (Wash) Gehenna's Gold (Drybrush) and Runefang Steel (Edges). The rusty metal parts were a bit more challenging. Once the layer of Typhus Corrosion on the base coat of Leadbelcher it was a constant back and forth of stippling, gently drybrushing and blending Ryza Rust, Typhus Corrision and Leadbelcher until I got the effect I was looking for.

Something I did was  - as I would call - reverse-drybrushing or true dry drybrushing (I have no idea if there is a technical term for it. As rust is normally in the recesses and doesn't make sense to use Ryza Rust for drybrushing. What I did instead was applying the technical color into to recesses like normal paint and then use a dry brush for blending and smoothing it. It had been said before on various sites, but I will say it again: GW's technical colors are marvelous.


Another little useful insight I got by experimenting was the use of varnish to protect already painted parts (yes, there are masking tapes and paints available but what to do when it's late at night). I applied some Army Painter Anti-Shine Matt Varnish on the brass metal pieces with the result that I could swipe of any paint that got there while doing the messy washing/drybrushing work on the rusty metal parts with some water pretty easy.

Overall I am pretty happy with the result, even though I might touch up the brass emblems as they are still a bit too shiny compared to the bells. Next I will paint all the details like bones, horns, leather straps and the loin cloth (which most properly won't be grey) before I will do touch ups and the final highlight pass on the skin. The very last element I will paint is the raven. I have got an idea how it should look like, but it will be a bit of an experiment to see if I actually can achieve it.

Modular City Terrain Boards - WIP

I build a prototype tile for a modular city terrain board for 40K and Infinity some time ago. The idea behind it is to have hard polystyrene boards within a stable frame to keep them protected. The frame has two magnets on each side so it can be connected to other boards. Instead of having any elevated elements I thought - also because cities are normally rather even leveled - about adding some low-lying details like blasted open paving tiles, cargo locks, pipes or water basins. All those should have a reasonable size, so you can place other terrain on top of it in case you don’t want any of this (mostly) impassable terrain in your game.


Beginning of the week I built five more frames to be able to set up a 6“x4“ modular table. The most tricky part was to get the frames all the same correct size, the right angles and stable. But thanks to my tools I wasn’t too much of a problem, it just took some time. The next step is to paste in the polystyrene boards and this will be a tricky one as I need some 800mm clamps to make sure that there is sufficient pressure to keep the frame and the board together. Unfortunately I don’t have those at hand and they are too expensive to buy them for just that. However, my parents got a couple of those clamps and I will borrow them next time I am going to visit them (which will be next week already). Until then the modular city terrain boards have to wait.