Wip Diseased Flagellants

I don't tend to show too many WiP shots on here, (Instagram is my vehicle for that) but I've particularly enjoyed the creation of these first few Diseased Flagellants for my Lost and the Damned Nurgle Army. In advance of creating these, I arranged all my bits and selected those that would best fit in with the theme of diseased flagellants - so vaguely humanoid, bloated, undead, spiked balls and flails etc bits were set aside. And then I started to build..

Here's all 7 with their leader.

Some Plaguebearer, Nurgle, Flagellant and Bretonnian bits here

Poxwalker torso, Empire head and Mantic ghoul legs

LotR Goblin body and a plague cart head (probably my favourite - it really has that pathetic aesthetic that I like)

Flagellant torso and bits with a beastman head

Cawdor (?) torso, flagellant head and poxwalker leg

Mostly flagellant bits with an old Chaos Knight banner. Not sure where the head is from for this one, but I like the sadistically stitched facial features.

After the initial build and greenstuffing was complete I then tried something a little different - applying texture straight to the conversion prior to painting. To do this I used some Agrellan Earth for the cracked texture (usually on skin), some Typhus Corrosion and Astrogranite for the texture where the rust will go and some pva and bits of static grass for, well, grass and hair and matted matter on weapons. We shall see how they look when painted... I also used this opportunity to go dark with my photos, so you will see a first time in using a black back drop and decreasing the brightness and saturation when editing the photos. makes them a little more grimdark. This will be a unit of 49 (so Nurgle going 7x7) but will include a war altar/shrine in the middle. I'm introducing a new model a day for advent on Instagram, if you're interested in seeing more there (makingasmallerworld) or wait here until I've got all the conversions made up for an update. All the best!

2 Chariots of Nurgle - 500pts

 The Warriors of Chaos who follow Nurgle are more inclined than other Champions to ride Chariots. This is partly because carts and wagons form the Nurgle cavalcade, and chariots give an appropriate sense of pageantry. Another reason may be that Champions of Nurgle often pick up uncomfortable debilitating diseases which make it difficult to walk or ride a horse. Chariots are often larger and more like wagons or carts than those associated with other Powers. Chariots may carry banners, flags or other decorative features and may have additional non-combatant crew such as Nurglings....

Straight out of the Lost and the Damned and a nice bit of writing to create a context for me to make my own Chariots of Nurgle. I chose a couple of obese and mutated, plastic Nurgle characters to ride my chariots, thinking these figures would find it hard to slog on foot or mount a horse and I deliberately chose a plague cart as one of the vehicles to match the description in the above caption. Hence why there is also a fair amount of decoration on the chariot itself. The non-combatant crew for me are a couple of Chaos Dwarf drivers (one of whom is on a step to be able to see out of the chariot!) as I recall reading somewhere that they were often pursuaded to do so. 

The draught animals are quite the mixture for each chariot. Below is made of a Gorkamorka mutant steed and I have added a skeletal head and painted it in a zebra scheme. The Gorkamorka head has been transferred to the plastic steed and a reptilian tail too, to keep the scaly texture.

The Chariot itself is modified slightly, an old Orc Man-Mangler facial emblem has been added at the front (a nice hefty chunk of lead on an otherwise plastic model) and I went to town on the weathering with Astrogranite applied to the bare plastic prior to undercoating to create a rusty texture before the appropriate rusty oranges and brown colours were washed on. The metallic scratching you can see in places was simply added with a pencil.

The other chariot also has the Chaos Dwarf driver with whip, but this time is pulled by a Reaper Bones model (I know not the name). For me this acts as a draught animal that has been turned to a Spawn and yet is still devoted to, and loved by, the Champion in the Chariot. Slow, writhing progress across a battlefield. A jewellery chain was wrapped through it's gaping mouth and re-attached to the underside of the plague cart to show how it is pulled. The design of the plague-cart, I think, is perfect for a chariot of Nurgle.

It took quite some time to paint all of the eyes on this beast.

Lots of weathering washes on the wooden frame of the cart, and a mutated Chaos Dwarf.

A close-up of the modern plastic Nurgle miniature, they really are pretty impressive sculpts. You can see me attempting to get some dappling on his numerous tentacles here:

And finally the WIP photo that shows the kitbashing/converting/texturing and choice of models before they were painted up:

So that's another 500pts to the army, now standing at a total of 5125pts, with some Diseased Flagellants up next...

21 Pestigor (220pts)

 This unit has taken me a little longer than expected to complete, even though half of the models were already painted. The other half needed to either have their conversions completed or, started from scratch, so it was quite the involved process. But it had reminded me of of how much fun it is is to make multiple, themed kitbashes, as I always prefer this to the painting stage. 

The theme here is clearly a Nurgle Pestigor unit, so I've rotted these models up by including elements of plaguebearer models and also through adding the usual green-stuffed bloated bellies, sores and postules from water filter beads. Adding lots of additional horns was important too. But I also wanted to explore the part beast part man aspect more deeply and not just go down the goatman route that GW has developed. Therefore I've really tried to use a wide range of bestial parts from my bitzbox to make each of these chaotic creatures; from horse heads, to spiders legs, to cow torsos there's quite an eclectic mix. I've generally used the regular beastman torso to have some unity to the conversions and also because I had a load of them to use. Here's the completed unit:

And now you'll have to excuse my exhaustive photos, as (for me) it's quite nice to see each of my creations individually:

This was one of the first conversions for the project and is more man than beast. I like the idea that some have evolved less fully from man to beast, or the other way round in that the beast has only started showing more human physiognomy. This one has a zombie torso and flagellant head and of course some extra horns and a belly.

A Lizardman is a beast man. A cold one head and tail merged with a plaguebearer body and a clawed hand. The legs are left over from the classic Palanquin rider

Flyman. One of the Nurgle sprues includes this fly head and it's been added to an old metal savage orc torso. Nice big sword. I considered adding wings to enhance the fly aspect.

More of a traditional GW beastman, here I wanted to play with a more dynamic pose. The plaguebearer body, zombie arm and extra horns help create a mutated character.

Ratman. of course a Skaven head was added to the plaguebearer torso and a foot to the beastman legs. He's a musician (of sorts)

Again a traditional beastman where I was focusing on pose and creating that Nurgle appearance through mixing familiar kits.

More man than beast, I thought he might have the skill to use a blunderbuss. His hat hints at a former life as a soldier before mutation changed his facial features and his gut.

Here I wanted to experiment with a different type of head, I think its a Mantic ghouls(?) and a different pose with the raised spear. A grisly collection of heads and a Nurgling friend are present.

I've had this troll torso in my box for a while and quite liked the idea of using it as the basis for an enlarged beastman to add some height and bulk. To contrast with that a small warrior's head was simply added and of course an additional horn.

Birdman. The usual combo of legs and torso, but the head I believe os from an old Bretonnian helmet. In retrospect I'm not so keen on the shield, I prefer the simplicity of a wooden shield for these creatures.

The banner bearer. The creature is mostly cow from the Giant sprue, with a zombie torso and a warriors head. The banner design is one that I freehanded from a Fighting Fantasy book.

This one I actually rolled up on the Lost and the Damned attributes table for some competition some years ago. Extra arm, sorcerer and flaming skull head were three such attributes and here's my response to that. I do love the scythe and hour glass combo.

The leader. Simply because the conversion gives such an imposing presence. Beastman, zombie, deamonette and chaos warrior bits were used and quite a bit of greenstuff to bulk him up. I like horns and scythes it would seem.

The next few are the more recent conversions that I made from scratch to complete the unit:

A metal horror's legs, beastman torso and some Mantic ghoul pieces make this little fella.

Mostly beastman bits, but I wanted him to be a skull collector, you can see his collection around his waist.

Orc, Gnoblar and Kroot bits fused together makes a pretty unique character. Extra hand weapon always seem to equate to extra cool.

I think the base of this model is from the Foresaken sprue and I've just added a plaguebearer arm and some horns. This one is more spawn like but I do like the contortion of change that he seems to be showing.

Horse man. Why not use a horse head, especially when I seem to have more than I need. I've tried to blend it into the model by green-stuffing decaying skin over part of it's face and into the torso. The arm is a metal orcs.

A personal favourite - cowman. Using the head pointing up from the banner bearers body and then creating a double handed weapon stance I can almost hear the braying.

An old minotaur head with a tentacle and extra horns, chaos does let you experiment with different scale when kitbashing, so the enlarged head is an option.

The kroot head makes an appearance as does a spider leg for an arm. This one has quite the dynamic pose.

So the army continues to grow, here's a current group shot. If I add the 220pts of this unit to the army, we're now looking at 4625 points. 

Some chariots next (although there will be a short Orctober interlude)

Kit-bashing Beastmen

I don't often show many Wips, so I thought I'd change that as of now as a break from painting all 21 Beastmen for my Nurgle army. These are the last 6 for the unit (the others are all painted) and are all kit-bashed / bitz boxed from my stash. One of my favourite aspects of the hobby is a good rummage for different parts and working out ways of combining them into a unique mini. Here's my most recent endeavours:

There's a bit of greenstuffing to fill the gaps and add some texture and you might notice some small poxes which are super glued balls from a water filter (also useful for sci-fi rivets). 

Most of these are plastic based parts which are of course the easiest to join together with a bit of poly cement but the challenge of pinning and joining metal to metal or plastic is also a satisfying moment. 

I think my favourite one is the first, with his little metal legs, multiple toes and shrunken head, but I've tried to add a bit of detail and interest to each. Let me know your thoughts, I'm intrigued to know your favourites and why. 

Cheers! 

2 Chaos Spawn (50pts)

From the largest pointed unit (1200 for the Plaguebearers) to the smallest, a couple of Spawn at 25pts each. In the LatD these are described more as a pack as can (and probably should) be led by a Champion of Chaos, so eventually I'd like to do a converted spawn made up of lots of bits from my box and add him to these two and add a leader to marshall them around the battlefield.

Obviously these two are both classic Citadel miniatures, the left model being an old Plague Elemental and the right one being a Spawn of Nurgle, the latter having a slight conversion in removing the funny legs that came with it and sculpting some tentacles there instead. Both these old models though suffer from the perpendicular restraints of sculpting from that time, so when faced from the front both models look quite flat and symmetrical (although with the slug spawn you can reposition the tentacles on it's head to create more dynamic movement) and hence why I've photographed them both on the angle.

For this Beast of Nurgle I did a little research on slugs to get the correct colour scheme and used a little gloss varnish to capture the slimy nature of it's body. You will notice the basing on both models is slightly different from the rest of the army, in that there are a collection of organic shapes molded into the landscape, the idea behind this is based on the premise that:

 "the very proximity of a Beast is sufficient to kill small animals and plant.... or may age and decay perceptibly in their presence" (LatD p.20)

So a collection of small bitz from the box were impressed into some milliput and sculpted into the base to give the appearance of a dying, organic mass surrounding the model as it moves forward.

With the Plague Elemental I also experimented further with some skin painting techniques. Over a white undercoat I painted all the pinks with Contrast paints and highlights. Over this I then mixed some crackle medium into the pale green colouring of the skin and dabbed this onto areas where I wanted to create a peeling, cracking skin effect over the pink, exposed areas.

And to finish here's a group shot of the army including the most recent units for a cumulative total of 4405pts

Next up are some kitbashed Nurgle Beastmen, using mostly plastic kits...