Death Guard Army Showcase Addendum 3

Almost there with finishing everything I have for the Death Guard!

Next up is a Great Unclean One. These manifestations of the plague god Nurgle are marvellous little models. It was surprisingly easy to build, consisting of only a few pieces. That being said is could have been done as fewer pieces even so.  I often find with Games Workshop kits that I think, "well those 4 bits could all have been one bit".  I'm sure they break their kits into pieces for no reason other than to sell plastic glue.

The Great Unclean One kit actually comes with a variety of heads and hand/weapon options and I think that many people magnetise these parts to give the kit some customisability. I considered this, watched a few YouTube videos on how to magnetise models, and the Great Unclean One in particular, and...decided not to.  It looked like a lot of effort, and although I have magnets to do this, I thought it'd be a bit too much bother.  I'm happy that as long as I explain to an opponent what this model represents I'll be fine. 

Anyway, after assembly there were a few gaps where the kit didn't sit right, and noticable joints. So I broke out the Green Stuff modelling putty to fill those in.

Next up, painting the beastie!

Continued...

So the painting is done, and I'm rather pleased with the result. For painting a model like this there are two basic stages after the undercoat - base coat and washes.  

In this case, I used a light ivory undercoat as I was intending to wash the model down from light to dark. The colour palette for the Great Unclean One will match the Nurgle deamons and Nurglings I've already painted.  "Out of the box", or rather in line with the "official" Games Workshop box art or colours, these daemons should be painted green.  While I usually like to paint fantasy models in line with their offical colours, a hangover of long years of painting historical models to acurate uniform colours I guess, in this case I've decided to paint my daemons in fleshy colours.

Base Coats

I put down the flat base coat colours. In this case a thinned wash of Tau Ochre paints served for the primary skin colour. The exposed fat I rendered in Dunklegelb (German tank yellow), which I felt was a good approximation of the colour of live human fat. The iron parts were treated with my "sort of rust looking" effect, and the exposed muscle and organs were base coated in a thinned dark red. the teeth and horns were given an ivory coat using GWs Ushabti Bone paint. Finally I used a dark bronze for the bell and other bits and bobs.

Oh, and to make painting a bit easier, I left the chain net thing off during the process.

From here on in, its just a matter of layering washes onto each other to try to create the look of rotting, diseased, and fly-blown flesh. The wash colours I use include mainly Games Workshop "shades":

• Carroburg Crimson (dark red)
• Reikland Fleshshade (sort of red)
• Druchii Violet (purple)
• Athonian Camoshade (dark brownish green)
• Agrax Earthshade (dark brown)
• Seraphim Sepia (light brown)
• Nuln Oil (black)

I also used a couple of contrast paints:

• Plaguebearer Flesh (olive green)
• Guilliman Flesh (fleshtone)
• Blood Angels Red (red)
• Black Templar (black)

And a few others (glazes and technical paints):

• Blood for the Blood God (red blood effect)
• Nihilkh Oxide (a verdigris effect - must be used very sparingly)
• Lamenter's Yellow (yellow glaze)

I use these in layers and wet mixes in a fairly random manner, to try to create an interesting, mottled skin effect that approximates the rotted and festering effect I'm after.  I'm happy with the result, although the washes do tend to create a bit of shine on the model.

On that point, I never varnish my models and haven't done since the late 1980's when I had a small army og West End Games metal Star Wars stormtroopers ruined by a varnish that yellowed.  I've almost never varnished models since (with no ill effect on the wargames table). Matt varnish would take the shine down here, but I just don't trust it.  If anyone has a way of taking the shine off without matt varnish commint below - it'd be a great help to me!

Anyway, here's the final result.

Death Guard Army Showcase Addendum 2

My project to get the Warhammer 40,000 armies finished, so that I have no bare plastic left for those forces continues at pace with my Death Guard.

Today on the table are three Forge World Greater Blight Drones.

Now then...these resin figures were an absolute pain to clean and build. There was a mountain of flash to clean off the and sizable casting gates that needed some serious effort to remove.  The construction, while relatively straightforward was made very frustrating and difficult by a combination of small contact points for the various parts, and a seeming resistance to superglue actually bonding the bits together. Resin is a pig to work with.

Afer struggling with the first one, I decided to pin the various parts for the second and third, but even then I'm sure these flimsy little blighters are destined for significant repair jobs in future when the bits fall off.

They also came with Games Workshop's clear plastic flying stands which were entirely inadequate for the job, so I replaced them with copper rods for a more sturdy fit.

Anyway, with the three models built I gave them a spray undercoat/basecoat. I always try to get the basecoat down in the main colour for the model, in this case green. I also oversprayed the fleshy bits at the back with a lighter ivory spray to make the painting process easier.  I actually wanted to do the main colour in brown, but I'd run out of brown spray rattlecans so green it was.

The first paint layers were nice and simple. I put a thinned wash of ocher over the flesh parts to lay down a basic skin.  Over the green, I painted and stippled a mid tone brown where I wanted the bare and rusted metal. With these base coats down, the project is actually almost finished!

So far, 2.5 hours of building the damn things, and 20 minutes of painting (not including drying time).

Next I painted in the neater metal parts and put a pink wash into the wounds.

The next stage is to develop the rust effect.  I do have Dirty Down Rust, which is excellent, but I began this army using my old rust rechnique so that's how I'll finish it! Over the brown, I stipple a bright orange in random patches.  

The the final stage is a simple drybrush of gunmetal over the orange/brown to bring it all together.  Its not the best rust effect but I like it and it does the job of suggesting aged, rusted, and corroded metal.

Things are almost finished now. Not bad for about an hour of painting. the final stage (before basing) is to throw on some washes.  These will mostly be going onto the fleshy areas, but the Agrax Earthshade will be to darken down some of the more corroded metal ares, and do some darkening of the recesses.

I apply the washes roughly, overlapping and blending them together to try to get a bruised and diseased look to it.

A few final highlights, with the red eye lenses, and yellow "pimples" and the Blight Drones are done.

These resin models were really troublesome and time consuming to build, and that was a chore.  But painting them was a joy.  I like painting the Death Guard models, and there's just something I find fun about making something look rusty and plague blown!

Just the basing to finish off, which I'll do tomorrow to let the paint job thoroughly dry.  

Death Guard - Army Showcase Addendum

My project to get the Warhammer 40,000 armies finished, so that I have no bare plastic left for those forces continues at pace.

This time I dug out some outstanding Death Guard miniatures for my Plague Army.

First up I had a box of scythe-wielding Deathshroud Terminators.  These were the starts of the Terminator show in 8th Edition Warhammer 40,000 but I never got round to painting mine.

Next I had three characters still in blister packs. 

Scribbus Wretch the Tallyman

A second Foul Blightspawn

And finally I had a generic Chaos Scorcerer. So after a bit of simple kitbashing (a replacement arm, head, and the top of the magic staff replaced to make an iconic Nurgly scythe) I had this little fellow suitably infected with Nurgle's plagues!

I also found a box of Nurglings, and as I did with my other box, I split the figures out to turn three bases into six.  Very handy as this now gives me twelve bases of Nurglings to plague the battlefield.

Previous Nurglings for reference

I think all I have left to do for the Death Guard now are:

• Mortarion (the boss)
• A Great Unclean One
• A Chaos Flyer (which I think is a Chaos Heldrake)
• Three Greater Blight Drones (resin models from Forge World)

Nearly there!