Death Guard WIP: Pandemic (updated Jan 21 - fully painted Obliterator unit)

[Svartmetall]

Urgh...after some delay caused by one of Grandfather Nurgle's choicest 'blessings' being visited upon me (I've thrown up more in the last week than in the previous 10 years put together and lost almost a stone in weight), here are the first three completely finished guys from the new batch of Plague Marines.

The "I haven't thought up a nickname for this guy yet" Marine:


I wanted to have a reasonable variation in height between the guys in this squad, and while he's not one of my Plague Pygmies^(TM) this guy's still fairly short; I really like the detail of the multi-stranded 'belt' of flesh extruded around his waist.

The 'Neon Knight' Marine:



One of my favourite conversions to date; I love the limb-replacement detail and also the hanging tendrils of flesh from his right side. Inspired very much by the description of the Garden Of Nurgle in the Daemons codex, I wanted to give the impression of something like a spreading vine of flesh...

Twin:



He's big, considerably wider than one of my Plague Terminators and almost as tall even without the backpack; he makes a really imposing Nurgle Marine. I don't know how well it comes out in the photos, but the layering of flesh around his backpack and the left arms is something I'm very happy with. It's also nice to see something I started so long ago, that had been languishing half-completed for so long, finally ready for its paintjob.

And a first look at the next one of the new batch of Plague Marines:


I was inspired by the Twi'lek 'brain tails' when I came up with the idea of the flesh of his torso spooging out and wrapping around him like this; there are tiny thin strands of smooth tubing buried in and weaving through the rougher-textured flesh, which was fiddly as all hell to do but I think the final result was worth it. I added rips and tears into the original model's robe to make it look less pristine and more Nurgly...also I like the little touch of having half the back of his head blown away, and his brain growing back...

These guys have involved a hell of a lot of work given that they're just standard Troops, but I want to produce a really kick-ass bunch of heavily-converted marines who can hold their head up conversion-wise with the Terminators, Chosen and Possessed, so it's worth it IMO.

As always, all feedback and C&C is welcomed.

[Energizer Bunny]

All ace. Twin and Neon slightly 'acer' than the other two.

[Khorney]

don't they need bolt guns instead of pistols? looking great though

[Svartmetall]

posting from work

Plague Marines all have bolter, bolt pistol and CCW as standard wargear, so I just go for whichever limb suits the desired pose or look; I nearly gave Twin one of each in each of his three arms just to make the point

[Commissar_Jalil]

I like that idea... Is it too late to change him now?

[Griv]

i really like the look of the new plague marine.

i would really like to see something disgusting dripping off the sword though

[Fod]

Looks Class!
Nice work.
Could you take a big pic of all your plauge marines together please?

[Svartmetall]

posting from work

"Could you take a big pic of all your plague marines together please?"

I have a day off tomorrow, so I'll see what I can do. I got a lot done on Twi'lek last night, with an especially nice shoulderpad alteration, so the new Plague Marine squad is starting to come together nicely now. And, since every squad needs a tiny guy, I've also started work on my tiniest pygmy conversion yet...he's so cute

[Sjappo]

Urgh...after some delay caused by one of Grandfather Nurgle's choicest 'blessings' being visited upon me (I've thrown up more in the last week than in the previous 10 years put together and lost almost a stone in weight), here are the first three completely finished guys from the new batch of Plague Marines.

The "I haven't thought up a nickname for this guy yet" Marine:

<snip>

I vote for "Goggles".

Great job by the by

[Svartmetall]

As requested, a shot of the whole army as it stands at the moment:


A larger shot is here.

I'll hopefully have more stuff later tonight.

[[MaGiC]]

very nice.. I actually thought you had a bigger army by now :s

only critiscism have to be that the army is very monotone in colors

[misterjustin]

Wow, that is one unique and individualistic army. Seeing them together really shows how much care and detail you've given to every single model. I sure wish you lived in the Colonies - I'd love to see this on a table!

[Svartmetall]

Looking at it, there's just so much detail that's lost with a full army shot like that; I think it'd be better if I did individual unit shots and compiled them together. It wouldn't have quite the spectacle of all of them together, but you'd get a lot more of the detail and the level of detail in this army is one of its main selling points...it's not like I can play 40K for shit after all

[Svartmetall]

Aaaand now - the smallest Plague Marine in the history of Plague Marines...Mesdames et mes Messieurs, allow me to present to you: Bubo!

He's got as much detail as any other Plague Marine I've done...he's just completely tiny



Just to give some idea of scale, here's Bubo with Neon Knight:

...he's just too cute for words. I have no idea why I got so attached to making pygmy conversions, but what the hell - I get some fun models out of it


And here's Twi'lek, finished:

I especially like the horn sticking out of his shoulder - that was done in the same way as Kothaar's shoulderpad (see Nurgle 101 for details). Power armour-sized shoulderpads don't lend themsleves to this technique as much as Terminator 'pads, but it can be done.
And I didn't accidentally split the shoulderpad in half in the process.
Oh no.
That was another modeller altogether *cough*.


I'm looking forward to painting up his robes for that 'warrior monk of Nurgle' look...

I'm now working on a design for a Plague Champion for this new squad of Marines then they'll all be ready for painting up.

[entity]

you should make a flamer wielding one but with like insecteside kinda thing like its spreading disease

[Svartmetall]

Duh, totally forgot - I made an old school-looking Plague Marine for the current issue of Firebase, and now it's out I can finally stick a pic of it in here; he's one of the new batch of Plague Marines for Pandemic as well.


*wipes sweat from brow*

Right, back to the Plague Marine production line...only one more to build now then I can get down to some serious painting...

[Energizer Bunny]

I like the last one. The chest plate has a real look of corroded metal to it.

[[MaGiC]]

Bubo reminds me of a Nurgling in power armor!

[Fod]

Thanks for the army pic!
They look class!
I cant stop laughing at Bubo!!! lol

[Svartmetall]

"Bubo reminds me of a Nurgling in power armor!"

Hehe true...I didn't realise it until I'd finished him, but that's what he reminds me of too.

[Svartmetall]

posting from work

At least I've managed to finally decide on a design for the Plague Champion, after much thinking and sketching; my drawing skills suck, but I managed to work out something which will hopefully turn out decently if I can actually build the design I came up with.

Pictures soon, but for now let's just say his working nickname is 'Gothmog'

[misterjustin]

PLAGUE SQUAT!

[Svartmetall]

posting from work

See, I read that as 'Plague Squad'...had a mental image of the most horrible cop show ever

I quite like [MaGiC]'s idea of a Nurgling in power armour, actually; part of my brain is being very bad and trying to work out if I could actually make that...

[Turbo164]

Or have several Nurglings standing on each others shoulders...or whatever gooey lump would support their weight...and stick a helmet on the top one and a bolter on one of the lower ones.

Read the whole thread recently, awesome stuff, etc.

[Sir Clausel]

I quite like [MaGiC]'s idea of a Nurgling in power armour, actually; part of my brain is being very bad and trying to work out if I could actually make that...

That would be the best!

[Griv]

with a heavy bolter too imo!

[Sheep]

Awesome army so far Svartmetall, hehehe Bubo...

[Svartmetall]

OK, I got randomly inspired to make another Plague Marine last night while watching 'Metalocalypse', and just now finished him...I wanted to do a sort of one-year-on homage to Guts-Hanging-Out Guy* from the very first post in this thread, and this was the result:

I love the guts on this guy

A worthy addition to Squad Pestis...

Work on Gothmog the Plague Champion continues apace; I did some (crappy) concept art sketches for how I wanted him to look, and now I know where I'm going with him. Once construction on Gothmog is finished it's an all-out paintfest then, as I'm going to paint and base every damn model I've made to date



* since he was the first bit of green stuff work I ever did...

[BDJV]

Great looking minis, Dude!

[Raptor_Shadow]

Dude. He has HUGE GUTS

..rip and tear!

[Svartmetall]

The crappy concept art for Gothmog:


OK, crappy drawings; but at least it should give you some idea of where I'm intending to go with him; huge, bloated, and horribly & asymmetrically deformed. I'm finding more and more that I like to sketch out ideas for important/named models, or just generally have a pad open to get down any idea that occurs to me when I'm not near my modelling station (work, at the pub, whatever); it's a habit I got into for music ages ago, and now I'm applying it to modelling too. I did those drawings in work over the last 2 nights...

...I'm just hoping that my drawing ability becomes less sucktacular with practice

[Fish Of Doom]

dude, go post in the 40k art spam.

[Svartmetall]

"...go post in the 40k art spam"

Rest assured that, once I think my stuff is worthy, I will. Meanwhile here are two shots that show all six of the currently completed members of Squad Pestis; these are all taken with the models at exactly the same distance from the camera, so you can see the relative heights of the models clearly...


...I think, though I say it myself, that as full squads of highly-converted Marines go, these guys kind of rock.

And now, back to slaving over a hot Gothmog...

[Energizer Bunny]

Very nice, although the midget one still doesn't work for me. It's well made but it just sort of looks like a bit of a joke model. The new one in particular is excellent though. I do find myself wondering why GW went down the route of having Nurgle models with loads of mutations, I had always thought Tzeentch had all the mutations while Nurgle just....rotted. Still, no matter.

Looking forward to seeing some more models painted up.

[Hammerguard]

Svart,

The midget does look a bit, well, out of place. One question are you going to game with this army?

Regards

[Svartmetall]

posting from work

"...although the midget one still doesn't work for me. It's well made but it just sort of looks like a bit of a joke model"

"The midget does look a bit, well, out of place"

Well, he is a fairly tongue-in-cheek model for sure. I just like making pygmies 'cos I think they're cute - he's kind of like a mascot or something - but I know what you mean about him not quite fitting in.

I think I can best sum it up this way: if I was going to play a game with the army, I'd definitely use him (same as I'd use Stumpy from the Chosen squad, or Pustule the Pygmy Plague Terminator), but if they were going on display in a cabinet somewhere I'd most probably keep the army reasonably serious and not include Bubo. What the hell, I really enjoyed making Guts 2 so I'll just pump out another Marine of a similar standard; doing Nurgle is becoming second nature to me now.

I certainly think Bubo is more tongue-in-cheek even than Stumpy or Pustule, purely by virtue of being so damn small...but he was still fun to make and I'll paint him up as well as anything else.

[Hammerguard]

For me, the most disturbing part of your work (apart from the EXTREME jealousy I have at your skill and talent) is the fact that they all seem to have names.

[Svartmetall]

posting from work

"...they all seem to have names"

Well, nicknames anyway. One day, when I get really bored, I'm intending to work out proper in-character names for all of them, and short character backgrounds for the significant ones. Yes, I'm a fluffaholic.

[Svartmetall]

Just to show where I am with Gothmog right now - here's the concept sketch next to the current state of the model:

Not too far off, actually
Hopefully I'll have full shots of him tomorrow; I need to let all that GS cure first though.

[Energizer Bunny]

Looks nice. What's the little ball (for want of a better descriptor) thing in his chest. An eye or something?

Also, how big is this guy? As the champion I assume he's fairly large.

[Svartmetall]

"What's the little ball (for want of a better descriptor) thing in his chest. An eye or something?"

It's one of those, er, things on the Typhus model.

I have no idea what they're actually meant to be - I always think of them as pepperpots - but I wanted to put one on Gothmog as an homage to Typhus

"Also, how big is this guy? As the champion I assume he's fairly large."

He's roughly as tall as a Terminator; not as wide as Twin, but wider than any other Plague Marine I've done. I wanted my Plague Champion to cut a fairly imposing figure...

[Exetus]

For Typhus, I assumed that they were ports to help him spread the Destroyer hives... fantastic work, Svart! Seriously, if I were working at GW, I'd be contacting you on some of these guys and asking to either cast them or whatnot, lol. I really like how Gothmog is turning out as well... very true to your concept sketches.

[Svartmetall]

"...I assumed that they were ports to help him spread the Destroyer hives"

I always thought that's what the big pipes on his back were for?

One day I intend to make a very detailed Typhus conversion to match this picture of him, too. I've always loved that picture, and while the existing Typhus model is good I'd like to make this exact version of him...likewise Korpus Festerheart, I'd like to sculpt him too

[Energizer Bunny]

Typhus

Here's a different take on Typhus if you haven't already seen it

[SilverTabby]

That's the difference between making something to cast and making something as a one-off. One-off's have so much more freedom of posing and miniscule detail.

Whilst it's very pretty and well sculpted, something looks very odd about the detailing on that Typhus though. Almost like it's woody rather than pestilent, and seems very clean. Do you have any bigger pics of it so I can look closer?

[Energizer Bunny]

Afraid not. I found it on CMON and that was the only shot of it. I'd agree its slightly odd looking (frankly I prefer the official model) but if Svart is considering one of his own, it may give some ideas.

[Svartmetall]

Aaand here's the first full shot of Gothmog:

...obviously some way to go yet, but I'm happy with how he's shaping up so far; he'll definitely be a Plague Champion to reckon with.

[ForbidMetal]

those models look so amazing, Nurgle is my patron power , I think when the time comes, you should work on something LARGE, like really large. perhaps your own interpretation of a Super-slug (Great unclean one) but yeah, amazing

[Svartmetall]

posting from work

"Here's a different take on Typhus if you haven't already seen it..."

Cheers, I actually hadn't seen that particular non-GW Typhus before. Hmm. Have to say that while there are things I like about it (the bulk, the posture) there's more that I don't like. The bulked-out mass along the back edge of Manreaper's blade just looks odd, and almost all the texturing on his body appears to be basically holes of the same size covering the surface; there's no real variation of texture size or type. At the risk of sounding full of myself, I'm fairly sure I could do a better Typhus. In fact, I'm planning to do just that


"...you should work on something LARGE, like really large..."

Fear not, I have nefarious plans in that department. And...it's going to be much, much bigger than a Great Unclean One

[verybad]

I'd like to see someone turning into a great unclean one, sort of halfway there...