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

[Svartmetall]

"Well am I the only one to think that the shoulder trims need some work? That and the other I guess tin bitz painted areas just look... unfinished."

Hmm, must be the photo; there's definitely weathering and highlighting on all the Tin Bitz areas, mainly Scaly Green and various ink washes. Bronze doesn't rust like ferrous metals, so it wouldn't make sense to apply the same rust or weathering effects over all the model's metallics. You're entirely entitled to your opinion, of course, but I'm pretty happy with how this guy looks now.

[[MaGiC]]

what about the chains between his legs.. what about drybrushing them with boltgun metal very lightly? might give them just the right effect

[Gacu666]

The model is great!

One thing that bothers me is that there is too little colour. You have here rust and green. It would look cooler (IMO) if youd paint the bolters with some of the green.

[Svartmetall]

posting from work

One or two of the Terminators may get a little goop on their weapons, but overall I'm sticking with this colour scheme as it is now; if you go back through this thread you can see how much debate there's been about it already, and I have to put my foot down somewhere after all . I'm happy with this look, and I think any more colour variation would be too much for a Nurgle army - certainly for my own Nurgly tastes.

[Svartmetall]

Thought it might be interesting to trace the development of a Plague Terminator from initial construction through to its final look...





...back to slaving over a hot Spawn...

[Susurrus]

Needs... some.. colour..

I know Nurgle is diseased and bloated and basically green, but without more colour that model looks fairly dull, which is a shame after the modelling.. Get a brighter colour in there somewhere...

[7_Deadly_Sins]

The colour scheme in my opinion is simple but effective and the techniques Svart is using turns relativley bland colours into a masterful mini

[darknys]

I love being able to see the progression all at once. It really shows a great evolution of a style. The palette is very simple, but it really works in this case. Very, very nice conversion and a paint job that really expresses your concept for this piece. Truly art.

[Svartmetall]

posting from work

"The palette is very simple, but it really works in this case"

Thanks, I'm happy with the look. Simple colours are what Death Guard would have, and I didn't want to break canon even for what amounts to an offshoot chapter. This model will be the template for all the Terminators, colour-wise; I'm definitely satisified with him and pleased to have found what seems to me to be a fitting colour scheme for what he is, fluff-wise.
I'm going to take a bit of a break for a few days now, though, and go nuts with assembling, converting and painting Spawn for some light relief...some will be full-on Plaguespawn of Nurgle, some will be just general-purpose Chaos Spawn.

Susurrus - I guess we're going to have to agree to differ on this one, I'm afraid; I just can't square bright colours on Death Guard with my own sense of what works aesthetically. Trust me, when I do a Slaanesh Terminator, you'll see bright

[WiegrafFolles]

Great Work!

[Susurrus]

Well, alright. As long as you're happy with it, that's the main thing..

I didn't mean lots of bright colours, just a few instances of a contrasting colour that brings out the decay of the rest a bit more.. It just seems a bit mute at the moment..

[Elerium]

Susurrus - I guess we're going to have to agree to differ on this one, I'm afraid; I just can't square bright colours on Death Guard with my own sense of what works aesthetically. Trust me, when I do a Slaanesh Terminator, you'll see bright.

Yeah I fully agree with you, decades of decay and war really reflects well on that fantastic mini, the Death Guard don't exactly polish their armour or repair it

[AHH! MOTHERLAND]

I think your painting is very well done when it comes to sharp contrast, but I think there could be a bit more blending overall. Excellent work though! I must say that is an impressive nurgle terminator and the little "tenticle/hair" things look slimy and gross. It captures a lot of the nurgle aspect and wraps it up into one beast of pure awesomeness.

[Griv]

so svart, when you do slaneesh, will there be skin, pink and lots of fluff that belongs to the chaos god of pleasure?

and if your slaneesh will keep the same standard of artistery as these bits.. we might have to R-rate this part of the forums.

[Svartmetall]

"but I think there could be a bit more blending overall"

Remember that this is my first completed miniature ever, of any kind. Learning how to blend is on my to-do list

"when you do slaneesh, will there be skin, pink and lots of fluff that belongs to the chaos god of pleasure?"

Ohh yes. Fluff should absolutely dictate appearance.
I'm actually half-tempted to do a Terminator for each of the four Ruinous Powers, just as an exercise in different kinds of conversion and painting...

[spead_Eagle]

OMG!
That is amazing. I am essecialy impresed with you modeling but the painting rocks

[Svartmetall]

Here's the Possessed with green stuff work almost finished (just needs the right claw smoothed in and some detailing on the back) and finally a head..the 'rhino' Terminator helmet seemed to fit his aggressive body language pretty well.

And a first look at two more Spawn; one has his left side turning into tentacles...

...and the other is a sort of 'charging rhino' Spawn...

...I've been using a candle to heat up and bend the Spawn pieces so they're not all conspicuously the same two bodies...it's fun.

More when I have it.

[Telliphas]

Those are looking really good Svart, i echo what i said about pulling mine apart and re-starting it again. These are a great inspiration, keep up the good work.

[peroni.reeves]

I've been following this thread almost from the beginning. Great work man.

I can't wait to see when you're done!

[Svartmetall]

posting from work

The trick with Spawn is to have a visual 'hook', a design purpose behind the model rather than just randomly throwing parts together. This can vary from simple design decisions like "tall and spindly one" or "lots of spines" to more specific stuff like "left side turning into tentacles, right side relatively intact" or "looks like a bipedal charging Rhino". Statistically, most Spawn don't survive long - uncontrolled and undirected (i.e. Chaotic) mutation would produce collections of bits that weren't necessarily conducive to a long lifespan; something comprised mainly of spleens, ears and goop wouldn't get very far.

I figure the Spawn you'd see with any army would be the ones that lucked into a bit more robustness and utility - and therefore survivability - in their collected mutations.

[Energizer Bunny]

Paint them paint them paint them paint them!

[Svartmetall]

posting from work

I need to green stuff 'em first...but yeah, painting them is going to be fun. Hell, I might even go nuts and use a bright colour or something

[Svartmetall]

Something's bugged me about the new plastic Chaos Spawn since I saw them the first time in WD 333 - the big damn gaps left on the models, even in the ones they showed in WD and on the website. They're fun as hell to assemble and customise, but what's with the 'orrible gaps at the joints?

Eeew...you wouldn't leave big unsightly gaps like those on any other model, so why should they be OK on a Spawn? Leaving those gaps feels a bit to me like saying 'these models aren't as important as the rest of my army, so I'm letting my standards drop on them'.
Screw that; my Spawn are just as important to me as any other figure in my army. I took the time to green-stuff in the joints and stuff on this first Spawn of mine, and I think it makes it look way better than if I left the gaps visible:




Even my mindless shambling abominations matter to me...Papa Nurgle loves his children, and so do I I've also started work on a pygmy Spawn, and green-stuff work is progressing (albeit slower than I'd like) on the Possessed Terminogre. Currently I'm racking my brains trying to decide on a colour palette for the Spawn, now that the first one's finished construction-wise...oh, and I've also started to make some progress with a really crazy Spawn involving much scratch-building...

Does anyone else feel the same about Spawn?

[Zombie Phlegm]

i quite like the gaps! and with my nurglesge spawn i based them black layered on some scorched brown, drybrushed on snot green, then lightly drybrushed snake bite leather then i give them a wash of flesh wash! it looks great! i put up some pic of them a some point for you if you want.

Edit: i also added some gloss varnish to the holes in the back they look great as burst pustules

[Skrzyp]

The thing about spawn is that their many awkwardly shaped, bunched together limbs make it hard to paint in all the nooks and crannies. Those artists most likely painted the various limbs separately before final construction thinking that an easier time painting outweighed a few gaps.

[Kommissar]

i would agree with the above, i like the gaps somewhat, looks like very hard relief between muscles, after all, spawn aren't anatomically correct, are they? stands to reason that they would have very strange muscle bunching.

[Svartmetall]

posting from work

"...spawn aren't anatomically correct, are they?"

Very true, but since the gaps are in the same place on every torso, to my eyes it draws more attention to them than might otherwise be the case. I think it makes the basic construction/assembly of the model too obvious...

"...thinking that an easier time painting outweighed a few gaps."

Could be; maybe I'm too much of a perfectionist for my own good, but I'm taking as much care with the GS work on these as I would on any other model, matching skin textures etc. figuring it'll be worth it once they're painted up.

Nurgly > Easy

I'm dying to post pics of the WIP Spawn with mucho scratchbuilding on it, but although I got an important stage done just before heading out to work it really needs more GS applied before it's ready for even a first look; I think it'll be the craziest Spawn I've done, though, by a long way. All I'll say by way of clues is that it's pretty much a Nurgle Spawn-style recreation of a distinctive monster from a favourite FPS game of mine

...

[SocietySoldier]

just looked at the chaos deaemons preview thread
and you said you had an awesome idea for a fantasy conversion

you should nurglify a juggernaut with a plague guy on top
i think that would be epic win

[Svartmetall]

posting from work

"...an awesome idea for a fantasy conversion"

The idea I'd actually had from that thread was to make a sort of medieval Soulgrinder...if I was to do a 'plague rider' sort of model it would be starting from a basis of something like the mounted Champion Of Nurgle and working from there...

[Sir Plasma]

Hey Svart. Hey. No, really.

Titan136 has 15 more views than you.

Come on. Do something exiting! Enough spawn, start the Soulgrinder!

[Svartmetall]

posting from work

"Titan136 has 15 more views than you."

*checks dates*
His thread started 5½ months before mine Also his BT stuff - especially the vehicles - rocks, so I can understand people staring at them a lot.

"Enough spawn, start the Soulgrinder!"

That would require the SG to be kind of available ...I have pre-ordered one via Ebay though, so rest assured a Nurgle Soulgrinder will be appearing in this thread. At some point. And...you ain't seen the mad custom Spawn yet (I can't even tell you its real name 'cos that would give it away...maybe)...

[moleytov]

is it fido?

do you ever concept sketch any of this stuff, or plan individual models or do you make it up as the greenstuff goes on? (more with regard to the termies than the spawn)?

[Svartmetall]

If you look back through this thread, you can see the (slightly crappy) concept sketch I did for the Possessed Terminator; that's the only actual sketch I've done.

Spawn I start off with an idea of the particular mutation involved, and then that's fairly easy to follow from the start as Spawn aren't exactly subtle; with the Terminators, I just kind of improvised as I went along...

[SocietySoldier]

youre a damn good improviser then lol
all your works fantastic for not having much prior thoughts to it all

[Svartmetall]

posting from work

"is it fido?"

No, it's not Fido. Hopefully I'll be able to post pics of it tonight when I get back from work, I got the first GS on it this afternoon. I'm starting to get tempted to work on a Dreadnought along with the Spawn & Possessed I'm doing at the moment, for a bit of contrast as much as anything else. I have a plastic Dread sitting ready to be Nurgled on my desk right now, after all...

EDIT: thinking about it, it's probably long past time I did some kind of vehicle work anyway; I still have a Rhino and a Vindicator waiting to be assembled + Nurgled...

"...not having much prior thoughts to it all"

Oh, I think a lot about it; but almost never sketch out what I'm going to do - the Possessed Terminator and Foulspawn being so far the only ones I've done sketches for. I improvised the individual GS work on the Terminator unit, but had been staring at an assembled Termie and collecting my thoughts for like 2 months* before doing any actual work on a Terminator model.



*not including the time I spent being no use to anyone due to the depression...

[Svartmetall]

Gah, camera batteries had run out last night...but now here's a first look at...the Wolfenspawn! Inspired by the 'Loper' monster from the excellent 'Return To Castle Wolfenstein' game, I thought this guy would make a real modelling challenge but hopefully a decent and very distinctive Spawn as well...

The idea is that he's a very fast, charging hunter - if you've played the game you'll know how scary these buggers can be - he grabs onto his target with the big claws, then dissolves it with acidic juices from the tentacles that will be dangling from his bisected torso, ready for digestion...yum .
Here's how he came together:


I seriously contemplated using some of the bigger taloned hands from the Spawn sprue as claws for this guy, but once I'd worked out how he'd function (the whole attach-with-claws-then-digest thing) I went with the ones you see here, using the spines off the Spawn sprue as talons and green-stuffing them in to give a bigger and more intimidating final claw.

I've also started another Possessed just for the hell of it - this one's very low to the ground, using a combination of Spawn torso and Possessed armour to make a distorted-yet-armoured body for him.

He'll have a customised claw for a left arm; this guy's got very aggressive body language - I used a candle to heat and bend a Spawn torso so it was very low to the ground - he's kind of a hot-rod Possessed .

And now, back to working on the Dreadnought while the GS on Wolfenspawn hardens...

[Skrzyp]

I like the Wolfenspawn concept, but are you planning on bulking up/GSing his arms at all?
Cause right now the arms make him look a bit silly.

[Svartmetall]

"...are you planning on bulking up/GSing his arms at all?"

Well, of course - check again the part where I said this is just a first look at him. His arms and the claws will be GS'd up to about the thickness you can see in the game concept art. You didn't actually think I was going to leave bare sprue on a finished model...?

The thing is, to get the claws to look right I've had to make little tubes of GS to wrap around each one, so it would look like an outer layer of flesh with the talon inside it...and that stuff takes ages to harden because it's so thin (not to mention fiddly as hell to apply). Even though that stuff went on at like 0400 this morning, it's still not ready for the next layers of GS yet...but I thought the basic idea was interesting enough to make him worthwhile posting at this stage in his construction.

[Skrzyp]

Sorry, missed that part. Was just checking

[spead_Eagle]

Those guys are funny!
But a very interseting conversion.

[Rafta]

haha, that wolfenspawn is made of win!

[Energizer Bunny]

As with all your GS work Svart, it's a combination of original thinking and great execution. My only whinge would be that every time I see you start a new project, no matter how good it looks, it reminds me that we haven't really seen many of the models painted up and completed, which is what will really turn them from fantastic concepts into brilliant finished products.

[Svartmetall]

posting from work

"...we haven't really seen many of the models painted up and completed"

You're absolutely right. For ages I've actually had a bit of a fear of putting paint to model, due mainly to my total lack of experience at painting...well, anything. I suspect the very positive reactions I've been getting to my conversions - and especially my green stuff work - added to this, as I basically didn't want to disappoint people who'd been so supportive with painting that wasn't up to the standard of the conversion work. Also, I'm a firm believer in going with inspiration when it hits, and I've just been getting so many ideas for conversions etc. all the time that I've just been going with it and building stuff as and when the idea for whatever it may be hits me.

The primary driver behind me entering Averk's painting competition was to kick my painting up the arse and force myself to paint something, since - having entered - I'd have to get something ready to a deadline...and believe me, nobody's more stunned than me at the fact that I appear to be winning my tier of that competition at the moment. But it's given me a lot more confidence - well, OK, I couldn't really have less confidence than I had before - in my potential painting ability, and so I think a lot more stuff will be getting painted from now on in addition to my continuing conversion mania

-----

EDIT: With this in mind, and since I work in the building next door to Warhammer world anyway, I popped in on the way into work today and grabbed a few more foundation paints and some extra colours with an eye to painting Spawn in the next day or two I also picked up that Harry The Hammer limited-edition 25th-anniversary WFB model just for the hell of it, and the new WD to read (and plot evil daemonic Conversions Of Doom^TM)...

[COG]

Harry The Hammer limited-edition 25th-anniversary WFB model just for the hell of it, and the new WD to read (and plot evil daemonic Conversions Of DoomTM)...

GAAAAAH my LGS want received the harry the hammer yet.
dang you.
nice conversions so far.
i have for ages wanted to get the return to castle wolfenstien just i played the hell outta the old one. was/is it any good ??
oh and great GS skills cant say that enough

[Svartmetall]

back home from work

"is it any good?"

It's my most re-played FPS game, bar none. Good in-game physics, great story and great atmosphere...

As for 'Arry the 'Ammer I've not worked out how I'm going to do him yet; I'm going to mull over it for a bit as getting him painted up isn't exactly a priority, I just got him for the hell of it realy since he's my first limited-edition figure

[COG]

thank you for the info on Wolfenstien
ill have to get it
have been on to many new games need to get my roots back
yeah on harry i kind of try and collect the limited characters
bad on the wallet

[Fish Of Doom]

http://uk.games-workshop.com/warhamm...masterclass/1/

inspire thyself

[Svartmetall]

Finished the latest Spawn...this and the 'fly' Spawn will be the next two things I paint, I suspect...


I'm pleased with the way the blending of the tentacle half has worked out with the 'normal' Spawn half, especially where the right side of his head is normal and the left side is melting into tentacles...

[Dr.Know]

hmmmm, it.....just doesnt seem......nurgly enough. I dont know what its missing. Maybe its not missing anything at all but it seems to be lacking some sort of nurgly goodness. Ha ha Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Omg my dad had many long hours playing that game and Quake. Oh, cant forget Duke Nukem. lol

[Svartmetall]

posting from work

The spawn I've made so far are pretty much 'normal' Spawn rather than Spawn whose mutation was guided by Grandfather Nurgle himself...as much as anything else, that'll allow me to branch out more colour-wise with these ones (last night in work I was looking at moray eels, octopuses and clownfish for potential colour schemes for them ). It'll be fairly obvious when I do a dedicated Nurglespawn, though I suspect Foulspawn will be the first of those I do; right now I'm just enjoying these relatively random ones I'm putting together.

The thing with Spawn is that, by and large, they'd be almost completely random creations of Chaos. To my mind it'd work like this: given that the idea is that a Spawn is a soldier/champion of Chaos who's succumbed to mutation which would of necessity be uncontrolled and undirected - i.e. Chaotic - unless their patron deity takes a direct interest in how they mutate after becoming Spawn, it's pretty much anyone's guess how they'll turn out. If the Marine who becomes Spawn was a particularly favoured champion of (say) Nurgle, then I could see him taking a hand in how their Spawnification went; but for any less-favoured individual, should they become Spawn it's a lottery, pure and simple.

Scenario 1: Baron Plaguehammer The Putrefying is turning into a spawn after centuries of serving Father Nurgle.
Nurgle: "Ooo! Let's see what I can do with him..."

Scenario 2: Spod The Generic Marine is turning into a spawn after...er...does anyone remember when he joined?
Nurgle: "Meh."

Brief aside about Spawn - I have a pet theory that some Undivided Chaos worshippers could actually see Spawndom as something to aspire to, a state of pure Chaos closer to the Divine Immaterium than anything else they could hope to become; these cults could provide an useful source of expendable Spawn to be employed as cannon fodder by various warbands.

Hmm. I think I have a 40K short story forming in my head...