The Great Lord of Decay

"What is the response of living men to the undeniable and inevitable futility of life? Is it to lie down and accept death and the coming to naught of their every endeavour? No it is not! Faced with the inevitably of death what answer can there be but to run through life at a great and unstoppable pace, cramming each day with hope, laughter, noise and bustle. Thus, happiness and human endeavour are sired by a coming to terms with decay and futility. This realisation is the key to understanding the Great Lord of Decay and his worshippers."

At the moment it feels like my hobby output is gathering pace, but it is, from past experience, very stoppable. However having this hobby does provide some relief from the futility of life, it gives me something relatively private to think about, to plan, to execute and the hope is always there that I can realise my intentions and make my hobby as good as it can be. So here is my latest endeavour, keeping the real decay and futility of life at bay, renewing an old miniature with inspiration from another old source and enjoying the process of making. Thus I am a worshipper of the Great Lord of Decay.

The quote above is from the same page of the Lost and the Damned as the Tony Hough illustration which my latest model is based upon, and reminds me of why I was drawn to Nurgle originally, many years ago. Not the contemporary bloated, pus filled, superficially plague ridden approach but the idea that in addition to this, in the face of death and decay there can be joviality; a carnival attitude, hustle and bustle. 

Here's my homage to that era of Games Workshop writing, illustration and model-making:

 

 

Here's a couple of edited images of the above photographs, which make it appear even more illustrative looking, with an exaggerated contrast and brightness. I couldn't quite get here with my painting and actually I'm not sure I wanted to.

And here is the model in front of Tony Hough's illustration. There is definitely some likeness and I hope I've caught the spirit of the art, but overall I'm well happy with how it turned out.

Here's some WIP photos and a breakdown of the painting process

1. Zenithal primed undercoat, grey followed by a white misting coat from diagonally above. This helped create an exaggeration of the shadows and highlights. (this photo is quite over-exposed so looks lighter than it actually was.)

2. A very dilute wash of a black Contrast paint (with a touch of washing up liquid) over the entire model. This unifies the undercoat, deepens the shadows and makes the detail so much clearer to paint.

3. A further, darker wash was applied just to the areas of shadow. The idea being to replicate the strong contrast of the original illustration.

4. Here you can see the steady build up of layered highlights, starting with a pale grey and adding subsequent quantities of white.

5. The final highlights were pure white, again to create that illustrative stark contrast. The plinth was painted last and deliberately left dark, highlighting up from black, to ensure attention wasn't drawn away from the model. It also meant that the black lip of the model's base blended in more with the outer plinth. Here I haven't started painting the elements on the plinth.

So that challenge, to recreate a Tony Hough illustration is done, I know there will be some amazing entries and I am very much looking forward to seeing what others do. For this blog, I'll be returning to the completion of my LostandtheDamned army; some colour and some warhounds next....