Nurgle 101 (updated Jul 13 with custom Nurgle Dreadnought power claw)

[Svartmetall]

I've been asked by a couple of people in my WIP Death Guard thread to show how I'm doing stuff; I'm very flattered by this - as I have been by the very positive reactions from people in that thread to my first miniatures - and will try to oblige. Please remember that I'm a mere noob and to more than a few of you the following may be very rudimentary (it still feels very presumptuous of me to think that I could show anybody how to do anything)...but I've been asked, so here goes


-----Doktor von Svartmetall's Not Very Nice Nurgle Clinic-----

Probably the most dominant feature of the Death Guard I've done so far has been the bloated, tumorous-looking patches of green stuff work. I wanted to avoid the standard-issue boils'n'pustules Nurgle approach and go for a slightly more distinctive look which was very much inspired by the deformities of Gothmog, the Orc general in Return Of The King.

One thing that was very important to me was trying to make the green stuff work as contiguous as possible with the rest of the model, so when painted up it all appeared to be one unified whole rather than a fairly normal model with a here is the green stuff bit section obviously bolted on.

Here's a standard Plague Marine model out of the box, with a rather fetching GS loincloth where I'm going to add this particular bit of GS work:

I start off by making the overall patch of GS flow more in line with the model, teasing it along the lines of limbs with a coctail stick and sometimes using my thumb to firm it down onto the model's surface (fingerprints don't matter at this stage since it's all getting resurfaced anyway).

As I work the GS in, I can start to get a feel of how to detail it and begin to add more depth and texture to the surface. This is pretty much an intuition thing, I just go with the flow really at this stage (yes, I know that sounds a bit vague for something that purports to be a tutorial. Sue me ). One thing that seems to work pretty well is to make lines of indentations that follow the main curves and lines of the GS, these sort of squish together as you go along and look like distended tissue. Pushing whatever tool you're using a little each time with or against the direction in which you're working the line of indentations can add extra texture to this - experiment a little, it's (again) very much a feel thing.

Here are the tools I used on this particular bit of GS to get the final surface texturing - a scalpel, a coctail stick and my trusty Spiky Bits sprue spike, which has been believe it or not my main sculpting tool to date . Use whatever works to get the result you want; the end really does justify the means when it comes to this kind of thing. Scrape it, prod it, poke it, whatever it takes to get the texture you're after.

Et voila! Given the way that GS changes consistency as it gradually sets and hardens, I'll often go back about an hour later and see if any bits need touching up or if the more subtle curves that are easier to do when GS is harder need to be worked on. You can also see in this shot what I mean about working with the model, in the way I've tried to get the texturing of the GS section to match, flow and work with the detailing that was already on the model.



------------------


Another feature I've been working on is burying a piece of cabling - I use guitar string, what with being a guitarist and everything - into a model to add some real depth and relief to it. Here's an out-of-the-box Plague Marine:

Using a triangular file, I work a 4-5mm deep groove into its head:


Now I cut a piece of guitar string, in this case a .032 gauge A string, to the appropriate length and glue it into the groove in the model's head:

And now we're gonna green stuff like it's 1999!
*cough*
Sorry. Couldn't resist it.
Use GS to build up and around the embedded piece of string, trying to follow as much as possible the original contour of the model's head so it seems like a hole into the model rather than an added-on feature:

And there you have it; rather cunning, I thought . Once painted up, this should look like a gaping wound in the model's head with cybernetic tubing visible inside. Eeewww.







I hope this helped...er...someone .

[Dooks Dizzo]

Very nice, will there be a painting tutorial added to this?

[Svartmetall]

"...will there be a painting tutorial added to this?

Er...I really don't think I could teach anyone anything about painting. Plus, I'm not actually using any terribly unusual or interesting techniques, though obviously I'm happy to list the colours/inks used etc...

[Svartmetall]

A little update to show how I'm approaching my Plague Terminators...to me, the Terminator armour itself is one of the focuses of any model wearing it, as it's quite a big deal to get hold of a set of Tactical Dreadnought armour. I didn't therefore want to cover up the armour itself with too much Nurglification, and spent quite a while working out how I wanted to approach these ones before touching Ye Olde Green Stuffe (I actually assembled one model straight out of the box and kept it on my PC desk to stare at and work out in my head what to do). The solution I came up with was this - embed Nurgly bits in the recesses in the armour so you have the bloated tumourousness, but still bound by the armour itself. I'm also applying this to my Sorceror, 'cos he's having Terminator armour too, but going one stage further with him.

You'll notice I've removed the hooks from these Terminator legs; I think the new plastic Terminator models are excellent, but they're so adorned with a certain style of detail that they feel a bit too orthodox Black Legion straight out of the box. Rusty chains I can get on with, but hooks are a bit too sharp-edged for the bloated feel I'm after, so they had to go. First I stick a small glob of GS in the recess in the back of the leg - it only needs a really really tiny blob to fill that space. Then I work it out to the edges of the recess in the armour and texture the whole bit of GS in the tumorous style I've adopted for my Plague Marines. The important thing is to make sure you keep the ridges that divide up the sections of armour visible - keep them clean and clear of any GS so the original shape of the armour is always clearly defined.

Then, basically, you just keep going. It's fairly painstaking using such tiny pieces of GS each time with so many little bits on each model that need to be individually done, especially when doing a full squad of Terminators, but I'm thinking it should be worth it once they're done. Here's the back view of my Sorceror as he stands so far:

What I've done on the Sorceror is add extra bits of Nurgliness in places, to establish that here's someone so steeped in the lore of Papa N that he's even more bloated and corrupted than a normal Plague Marine in Terminator Armour. Again, the trick is to try and do this without spoiling the basic shape of the armour...I start by using a Dremel drill to 'excavate' sections of the armour that seem appropriate for the addition of extra Nurglification:

Then work GS into the cavities and texture it so it's identical to the GS work in the other recesses of the armour. Here I was careful to make sure that the GS bits always seemed to be slightly lower than the surface level of the armour, so it looked as though the corrupted tissue was inside the armour rather than spilling out over it.


Again, I hope this helped...er...someone. And thanks to Jimi for the loan of the Dremel.




Thought: if Sorcerors were female, would they be members of the Adeptus Sorceroritas?

*runs*

[echo34]

The simplistic approach you seem to have to your green stuff abilities makes me sad, as I can never seem to get it to look like anything other than a blob of putty. :/

Well done, sir. I can't wait to see more.

[Svartmetall]

Thanks Apok, it feels like a proper + official tutorial now .

----------------------------------

And now some radical leg surgery, again on one of my Chosen. Remember the part in the WIP thread where I said my Chosen were having significantly higher amounts of work done on them...this is the kind of thing I meant.
By the way, I suspect the inspiration for this particular modification came from a combination of the self-arm-surgery scene in the first (and best) Terminator film, and also some of Clive Barker's early Cenobite sketches...and I got to thinking about how cool it would be to simulate that sort of open-limb look on a miniature.

First I took a pair of Chaos Marine legs out of the box, smoothed out the mould lines, then removed one of the upper leg segments.

Then I measured out 4 equal-sized pieces of .042 gauge guitar string, of as close as I can manage to the length of the removed section of leg, and glued them together in this 2x2 pattern.
This was fiddly as hell to do .
Then I glued them into place to replace the original leg section, using another identical pair of legs as a guide for the overall posture to reproduce. This was also pretty damn fiddly. Make sure this is solidly glued into place...I used the Dremel tool to scoop a small hollow into the knee and hip areas to give the cable section a more suitable anchoring point.

Then I began to build up sections of green stuff to simulate flesh over the cabling, using lots of small pieces which I worked into each other to make sure the cabling inside remains as visible as possible - after all, you don't want to go to all this trouble just to end up hiding most of what you've inserted into the model...

...and basically just keep going until you've built up the GS so it's roughly the same thickness as the original leg overall for visual balance with the other leg, making sure that plenty of the cabling is shown through the rents in the flesh that you're building up. Et voila! Horribly mutilated leg with mucho augmetic cabling visible inside the mangled tissue; should look suitably ghastly when painted up .


Once again I hope this helped or maybe inspired someone...more from Svart's Nurgle Factory(TM) as and when I can.

[Svartmetall]

A little more work on the same Chosen model...

I wanted to have some cabling in a model's torso, so I chose the one with the three cables that meet in the middle. Then I carefully carved out the right-hand side of the torso and used the Dremel to make a cutout in the back of the little rectangular bit at the front where the three cables meet (it has an arrow on it)...this is to give the piece of guitar string that I used as cabling a better anchoring point. You can also see that I hollowed out a hole in the front of the model's groin...

...so as to give the lower end of the cable something to go into, to make it look like it's going back inside the model again. Bending a piece of guitar string that short is pretty fiddly, you have to make sure the windings don't distort...took about three tries to get it right. You can also see I used a bit of sprue as a spacer in between the torso and legs to give the model a little bit of extra height; it's only about 2-3mm but will make a difference, helping the model stand out as well as giving a better view of the cabling work.

And then it's a matter of building up the green stuff into and around the torso; on this Chosen I'm using the same sponge/coral sort of surface texturing on the green stuff patches as on the Sorceror and Terminators.

[Svartmetall]

Thanks here's how it turned out on the final assembled + green-stuffed mini:

[Svartmetall]

Spurred on by mechu95 asking about drybrushing in the main Painting & Modelling section, I decided to show the colours I use stage by stage. These are the colours for my Chosen; the line troops and Havocs use slightly different colours but exactly the same technique.
Here's my Typhus conversion, primed with Chaos Black and given an all-over base coat of Knarloc Green:

Next I add a drybrushed layer of Camo Green:

...and a drybrushed layer of Rotting Flesh:

aaand finallly another drybrushed layer of Bleached Bone:

On the line troops + Havocs, I used Chaos Black primer, Catachan Green base coat, then drybrushed coats of (in order) Knarloc Green, Camo Green and Rotting Flesh.

[Tinweasel]

I asked Svartmetall if he wouldn't mind if I added a mini-tutorial of my own to the Nurgle 101 thread, with the idea that this thread could serve as sort of a catch-all for Nurglesque tutorial goodness. With Svartmetall's blessing (and with many salutations to the Lord of Decay), here's a different style of sculpting bloated flesh with add-ins:



I unfortunately don't have any work-in-progress shots as this was my first attempt at wholescale conversion and sculpting of Green Stuff on a figure, and as it turned out everything was on a linear time schedule from start to finish, but the areas I'll be talking about specifically are the bloated flesh parts of the left leg and arm at the forefront of the image above - hopefully the process is kinda self-explanatory with reference to the image.


Somewhat different from the rough, pustulent bloated flesh Svartmetall's posted up elsewhere in the thread, the look I was aiming for was skin so puffed up with unwholesome fluids/pus/whatever within the frame of the existing armor that it's stretched to the bursting point (and in some places actually has burst and then been stitched back together). One effective way of demonstrating the appearance of swollen skin on an armored figure like the Terminator example is by using a visual contrast - a border of sorts. The original figure was a 2nd Ed. GW Terminator Chaplain with undecorated flat armor on the legs, which wouldn't have worked at all with the effect I was aiming for visually - and so I was forced to add in quite a bit of the decorative metal trim (or edging, if you prefer) myself. The arms with raised banding were taken from an old school Chaos Terminator and the backs of the legs already had the raised "reinforcing bars."

Making the edging:

• To start with, I cut two small squares of flat plasticard/sheet styrene - I used sheet styrene that was at least 1mm thick, since I didn't want any of it to bend or warp under pressure.
• Next, I smoothed a thin thin layer of Vaseline over one face of each sheet, so that the Green Stuff I was going to use with these wouldn't stick to it.
• I then took a blob of Green Stuff at more or less a 50/50 ratio kneaded to an even green color, and sandwiched it between the Vaseline-glazed faces of the two flat sheets of plasticard/styrene - essentially I made a press with the GS flattened in the middle.
• Taking care to distribute pressure evenly across the upper sheet, I used the flat top of my painting desk as the backing on the other side and compressed the blob of GS in the middle to about a 1/2mm thickness overall.
• The end result after the Green Stuff set was a flat sheet of rubbery semi-flexible material that I could now use for trim on the figure.

Positioning the edging:

• Using a sharp hobby knife, I cut the flat sheet of GS into even narrow strips of roughly 1/2mm width.
• Taking individual strips, I positioned these on the areas of armor where I wanted trim added and then cut the excess length away.
• Using a smear of CA glue along each length of armor trim, I positioned them around the areas where I would be filling in the bloated flesh later. Due to the rubbery nature of the GS, they formed nicely to the curves of the armor and I simply held them in place until the CA glue dried.
• For joints where two lengths met (like at a corner, for example) I simply cut the ends flush at a 45° angle so they set together evenly - any gaps or unevenness would be tidied up later.
• After all the solid lengths of trim had been laid in place and glued, I went back with small bits of freshly-mixed Green Stuff and filled in any gaps where the lengths of armor trim met.
• When everything was fully set and dried (left overnight to ensure it) I went back over all the armor trim with my hobby knife and needle files and tidied up any uneven or improperly-straight looking areas.

The bloated flesh:

• After applying a blob of Green Stuff higher than the raised trim roughly where I wanted it within the framework of the edging, I let it sit for maybe 10-15 minutes to firm up a bit. I then used the rounded end of a lubricated shaping tool and gently pushed it around so it overlapped the top face of the trim slightly. I took a wet fingertip and "burnished" the surfaces as well so they were smooth.
• I wanted to have a line of stitching going across the gaps between the bulging blobs of flesh, so I carefully pushed these together with my shaping tool so that the edge of the GS blobs met but did not touch or otherwise mix with each other.
• While waiting for the GS to firm up for the next step in shaping appearance-wise, using a hobby knife and a pair of fine tweezers, I cut and held numerous small lengths of fine fishing line. Although a dried extra-thin length of rolled GS could probably accomplish the same effect if cut into tiny segments, I wanted to make sure I used something that had very little give to it and wouldn't bend when pressed into the blobs of flesh.
• Taking these numerous lengths of nylon fishing line up with a pair of tweezers, I pressed these in at right angles across the narrow gaps where the blobs of GS flesh met, making sure that I pushed them down from the middle of the fishing line so that the GS "bubbled up" on the remaining sides and ends to surround it completely.
• By about this time, the Green Stuff blobs had been sitting in place about 30-45 minutes and were more of a rubbery texture - firm enough that they would not shift greatly when pressed, but still malleable - that's the right consistency I was looking for in the next step.
• Taking the sharp wedge/knife-shaped end of my lubricated shaping tool, I went around the outer edge of the trim and carefully and lightly pressed the slightly overlapping blobs of GS straight inwards at the edges where the flesh and the trim met. I did this somewhat unevenly, so that in most places it's bowed inwards and looks like the outward-bulging flesh is restrained by the harder decorative armor edging but in areas such as corners or where two stitched sections meet at the edge of the trim, I only pushed back the overlapping flesh blob slightly.
• Taking the sharp end of my shaping tool again, I laid it roughly parallel against the length of the cut pieces of stiching and pushed back the overlapping flesh just slightly at the ends of each piece of fishing line. This needs to be done very carefully, since with too much pressure, the GS will be pushed off of covering the end of the length of fishing line completely - what I was aiming for was gentle creased indents at each end where the stitching would have been sewn into the flesh, but the flesh had bloated outwards to cover up the actual stitch.
• The remainder of the work was simply going back and gently tidying up areas of uneven appearance overall, and burnishing any areas that had gotten rough during the shaping process back to bloated smoothness with a moistened fingertip.

Overall, sculpting this style of bloated flesh was relatively straightforwards and linear - I accomplished most of it in the better part of an evening from start to finish, allowing for curing time in between sections of work. (I was pleasantly surprised at the end with how it turned out, to be honest, since this was my first in-depth stab at GS sculpting/modeling over an existing framework.)

[Svartmetall]

Been a while since I updated this tutorial - here's how I put together a Possessed Plague Terminator over the last two evenings...

First, legs:

These are ordinary Chaos Terminator legs, with the lower right leg from the Possessed sprue. I used a razorsaw to cut the torso in half so as to add a spacer to give more girth to the finished model.

Arms and shoulders:



Both arms use Loyalist Terminator arms down to the elbows, with claws from the Spawn sprue added. For the left shoulder, I used a Chaos Terminator shoulderpad and drilled a hole through, then scored around it both inside and outside the 'pad with a craft knife and drove a metal spike through it to get realistic-looking cracked armour. Finally I stuck the final plastic spike through so it looked like it had emerged through the original Terminator shoulderpad...my thanks to the most excellent SilverTabby for suggesting this spike method to me.

Torso:

A normal Chaos Terminator torso, with holes both cut and Dremel-ed into it to allow the realistic embedding of the green stuff viscera you can see here. This way, the guts look like they're spilling out from inside the figure rather than just being stuck on the outside surface of the armour .

Head:

A Spawn head, with the right-hand horn relocated to the centre of the head for a more Plaguebearer-y look then smoothed in with green stuff.

The collected bits:

Starting to look promising now...

Aaaand finally, the assembled Possessed:

In my humble opinion he makes a nice lumbering Nurgle-esque addition to a Death Guard army.

[Svartmetall]

A little more painting - here's how I'm doing the skin on my Plague Terminators. Since my Terminators are old-school Death Guard who've been around since before the Heresy, I wanted it to look like they were ancient, and as if their skin was an almost translucent layer over the corruption within; so here's what I ended up using.

1) - Gretchin Green basecoat
2) - Layer of Rotting Flesh
3) - Layer of 50/50 Rotting Flesh/Skull White

4) - Highlight with 50/50 Bleached Bone/Skull White
5) - Fine highlighting with Skull White
6) - Final inkwashes, here using Dark Green then Flesh Wash
Sorry if stages 4 and 5 are a bit overly white, my camera just wouldn't show them quite how they look in the flesh.
Here are two more Terminators done using the same method:

[Svartmetall]

This is the finished paint scheme for the army, seen here on the Terminator I've entered in the painting competition:

[Gallonigher]

Superb. The way all the different elements have come together gives him a strong pre-heresy look, IMO. Is your army Death Guard or another Nurgle faction?

[Svartmetall]

posting from work

"Is your army Death Guard or another Nurgle faction?"

They're a Death Guard successor chapter, I suppose, as much as anything else; Here's the fluff I've written for them just as a very basic skeleton background:

"Comprised primarily of Death Guard who chose to leave Mortarion's Daemon world to more actively spread disease and destruction through the Galaxy, the Chaos warband known as Pandemic is led by the hulking, hideously disfigured form of Kothaar the Putrescent. Kothaar leads his Terminator squad and those who have flocked to the banner of the Lord Of Decay on an endless campaign of destruction and disease. Specialising in close-quarter combat and recognisable by a ghastly tumourous bloating that has spread throughout their ranks, these footsoldiers of Nurgle were instrumental in spreading plague throughout the Agripinaa Sector during the Thirteenth Black Crusade and earned a fearsome reputation for brutality during the fighting on Amistel Majoris."

This is Kothaar...

...I wasn't kidding when I said 'hideously disfigured'

I fully intend to flesh out their background a lot more, maybe even writing some short fiction about them.

[Svartmetall]

Here's a step-by-step guide to how I did my Plaguebearers:


1) Chaos Black undercoat with an all-over basecoat of Bleached Bone
2) Black ink wash all over
3) Dark Green ink wash all over


4) Basic highlighting and detailing with Bleached Bone
5) Brown and then Chestnut ink washes to recessed areas
6) 50/50 mix of Bubonic Brown and Snakebite Leather applied to wounds, viscera, and the larger pustules


7) Yellow ink applied to wounds and pustules, followed by highlighting and detailing with Rotting Flesh and then with Bleached Bone
8) Chaos Black on weapons and in eyes and mouth
9) Blood Red in mouth, then Red Gore on tongue, Chestnut ink on mouth and tongue, Snot green on eye, highlighted with Goblin Green then a dot of Chaos Black for pupil


10) Very watered-down Brazen Brass wash over weapon, followed by an equally very watered-down wash of Goblin Green.

Et voila! A finshed Plaguebearer...


Hope this is useful to people

...

[Svartmetall]

Right...time for another painting guide.
This is the colour scheme I used on Lord Kothaar The Putrescent, my Plague Terminator Lord; for only my second completed miniature I'm very pleased with how he's turned out


The intent was to make him a blend of Terminator and Plaguebearer, since he started out life as a Possessed and may still 'counts as' for a Possessed Champion at some point. Hence his colour scheme is a blend of things I'd already used on the Terminators and Plaguebearers, with a few changes here and there.

There was too much going on at once to get a shot of every single different stage, so here's the development of the model overall:



And a close-up of the hoof:


Right - the various stages involved:

Chaos Black undercoat all over.

Armour
Catachan Green basecoat.
Drybrushed layers of Knarloc Green, Camo Green, Rotting Flesh and Bleached Bone.
Very light wash of Flesh Wash ink, just enough to add a little tone to the armour.
Tin Bitz on shoulderpad trim and raised areas on claw, with a subtle highlight of Brazen Brass.
Very watered-down Scaly Green on the Tin Bitz-ed areas for verdigris effect.

Skin
Gretchin Green basecoat.
Layer of Rotting Flesh.
Highlight of Bleached Bone.
Detail highlight of 50/50 mix of Bleached Bone and Skull White.
Washes of Dark Green and then Chestnut ink, then Brown ink in recesses.
Highlight of Bleached Bone.
Light washes of Dark Green then Flesh Wash inks.

Entrails
Layer of 50/50 mix of Bubonic Brown and Snakebite Leather
Use Yellow and Chestnut inks on different loops of entrail to give differing tones.
Brown ink in recesses.

Hoof
Charadon Granite basecoat.
Kommando Khaki at top of hoof, blending into Graveyard Earth lower down then Charadon Granite at the bottom.
Wash of Chestnut ink all over.
Brown ink in recesses.

Phew...a lot of stages for one miniature, but worth it in the end. I think this colour scheme works equally well for Possessed specifically and for particularly diseased/mutated Plague Marines in general; I wouldn't want to go through all this for normal line troops, but for character models it works even if they're not actually Possessed.

Once again, I hope this was useful to someone

[Svartmetall]

Long overdue I know, but here at long last is the way I do rust - and credit where it's due to the estimable Daaveed, since this was largely inspired by his rust method.

<swedishchefvoice>

Oookaaay...first of all, take the bit of metal that needs to be rusted up and apply a skin-thick layer of green stuff; the best way I've found to do this is to use my thumb to flatten and drag the GS across the surface till the necessary thinness is achieved. Once that's done I use a scalpel to cover the surface of the applied GS with tiny holes as evenly as possible, which gives it the pitted textures that rusted metal has.


First off, give it an all-over coat of Boltgun Metal then a wash of Black ink. I figure if you want to simulate rusted metal, then like real metal it needs to start off the colour of un-rusted metal.
Then, make a 50/50 mix of Snakebite Leather and Blazing Orange; water it down a lot, so it's almost like ink in consistency, then cover the metalled surface in this. Don't panic if it looks like you've painted it way too orange, that's normal at this stage.
Now make a 50/50 mix of Chaos Black and Boltgun Metal, and drybrush it over the area you just thought you made way too orange. Not so Del Monte now, huh?


OK, now lightly drybrush over that with straight Boltgun metal.
Then pick out blade edges and the points of chain-weapon teeth with Mithril Silver - these are the most worn parts of the metal, so they'd have the freshest edge and therefore the brightest colour.
Finally, give it all a light wash of Black ink.

Et voilà! Your finished rust effect.



</swedishchefvoice>

OK, it's quite a laborious process, but I think it gives a really nice convincing rust effect at the end.

[Svartmetall]

OK, I'm pretty pleased with how the Spawn turned out for Hammerguard's squad-painting competition; and since several people have said how much they like Spiny, I thought I might as well include a painting guide for these three miscreants here. OK, only one of these is a pure Nurgle Spawn, but what the hell



VET

This guy's a Plague Marine who went Spawn after getting wounded one time too many, and Nurgle's diseased rebuilding/'healing' process tipped him over the edge. I therefore included a shoulderpad and a boot of normal power armour to make the point that this was once a Marine.



The idea with his paint scheme was to have a couple of normal-coloured armour pieces set in amongst lush green flesh, almost like a brightly-coloured poisonous mushroom sprouting from inside a set of power armour.
If you see what I mean.

Step by step



Primed with Chaos Black

Body
Orkhide Shade basecoat
Knarloc Green coat
Goblin Green coat
Snot Green highlights
Scorpion Green fine highlights
Wash of Thraka Green
Yellow ink dotted on pustules
Yellow and Chestnut ink on drool running down chest
Gryphonne Sepia in recessed textured areas
Undiluted Black ink on eye

Claw
Kommando Khaki coat
Drybrush of Rotting Flesh
Bleached Bone highlights
Fine highlighting of 50/50 mix of Bleached Bone/Skull White
Light wash of Devlan Mud

Tongue
Bubonic Brown coat
Bad Moon Yellow highlights
Wash of Chestnut ink
Yellow ink dotted on extremities

Harness
Snakebite Leather coat
Wash of Flesh Wash
Tin Bitz and Chainmail on metals
Washes of Devlan Mud on leather
Small amount of Brown ink for contrast in lower areas

Armour
Catachan Green coat
Tin Bitz on shoulderpad and boot trim
Chainmail with Mithril Silver highlights on emblem
Very watered-down Scaly Green on trim for verdigris effect
Wash of Badab Black

Hoof
Charadon Granite basecoat
Kommando Khaki at top of hoof, blending into Graveyard Earth lower down then Charadon Granite at the bottom
Wash of Chestnut ink all over
Brown ink in recesses



RHINO

Well...I mean...he's a Spawn who looks like a rhino. Duh No real backstory to this guy, I just went for aesthetics after figuring that the big Horn Cluster part on the Spawn sprue was just begging to be used on some kind of...er...rhino.



I like the three horns emerging from the midsection of his body, like a spiral of ivory. While this was the simplest of the three schemes, I think it's just as effective; I don't see any need to make a paint scheme complicated if it doesn't need to be.

Step by step



Primed with Chaos Black

Body
Charadon Granite basecoat
Codex Grey coat
Fortress Grey coat
Bleached Bone on underbelly, with Skull White highlights
Wash of Devlan Mud
Gryphonne Sepia in recessed textured areas
Very watered-down Graveyard Earth wet-blended into recesses
Baal Red wash in 'sores' on back, with Chestnut ink at edge and very watered-down Red Gore in centre
Fine highlights of Fortress Grey
Badab Black in recessed areas
Undiluted Black ink on eye

Horns
Kommando Khaki coat
Bleached Bone coat
Coat of very watered down 50/50 mix of Bleached Bone/Skull White, painted to follow the curve of the horn
Very thin streaks of Devlan Mud and then Badab Black, painted to follow the curve of the horn

Hooves
Charadon Granite basecoat
Kommando Khaki at top of hoof, blending into Graveyard Earth lower down then Charadon Granite at the bottom
Wash of Chestnut ink all over
Brown ink in recesses



SPINY

...or 'Nemo' as some people appear to've dubbed him . I basically just wondered how many spines I could fit onto one model, and this was the result.



The idea for the lionfish colour scheme didn't occur to me until after I'd basecoated him, when it suddenly struck me that a lionfish was what he resembled more than anything else and it might be fun & challenging to try and reproduce that in his paint scheme.

Step by step



Primed Chaos Black

Body
Astronomican Grey basecoat
Skull White coat
Wash of Gryphonne Sepia
Blazing Orange lines curving over upper body, lined with very watered-down Skull White, with Blood Red blended into the centre and Red Gore stippled in the centre of the lines
Very watered-down Blazing Orange over legs
Red Gore on lumps on legs
50/50 mix of Red Gore/Bad Moon Yellow over feet
Badab Black in recessed areas and over feet
Gryphonne Sepia in recessed textured areas
Fine highlight of Dwarf Flesh on eyebrows and in centre of ears
Chainmail on talons, highlighted with Mithril Silver

Spines
Blazing Orange banding
Blood Red in centre of banding
Small area of 75/25 mix of Blood Red/Bad Moon Yellow blended into centre of banding
Badab Black in jointed sections

Blade cluster
Boltgun Metal coat
Chainmail highlight
Fine highlight of Mithril Silver along blade edges
Black Ink in recessed areas

-----

The bases for all three were standard 40mm round bases, with a couple of medium-sized stones stuck down to match the positioning of the feet of each model, then GW small slate over the rest of the base. This was painted with Dark Flesh all over, then drybrushed with Bestial Brown and then Snakebite eather. Finally, a little Devlan Mud and Badab Black was added to the shadowed areas for more contrast.

-----

Phew. That was a lot of fairly diverse work - pretty much all of which was outside was my normal 'comfort zone' of standard Nurgle-type paint schemes - but I'm very pleased with the end result; I think these three make for fairly distinctive and interesting Spawn.

As always, I hope this was useful to someone

[Svartmetall]

Damn, it's been too long since I updated this; real life has been crazy.

Here's another way to do limb replacements, kind of a new and different take on the guitar-string-core method I outlined on page 1 of this tutorial; this method allows you to create limbs that look like mutations or other kinds of organic growth, as opposed to the pure-augmetics approach of the first method. I'm demonstrating this on a leg, but it would work just as well on an arm or even a section of torso.

First off, take a set of Terminator legs:


Then carefully cut out the section of limb you want to replace. Use a pin drill to make a hole several millimetres deep in the end of the boot and the side of the hip, then cut a piece of galvanised steel wire (perfect for armatures) to the right length and stick a healthy dab of superglue on each end then insert it into both holes. Then bend the wire to shape once the glue has set enough for it to be securely anchored:


Now put a thin layer of green stuff around the visible wire so there's no metal showing...

..and allow it to cure hard. This rough wrap of GS will be the basis for the fun stuff to follow.

Once that's cured hard, mix up a small amount of GS and roll it into thin cylinders then wrap these around the central wrap of GS at various angles:

Try to use different thicknesses instaed of having every piece of GS the same diameter - this makes the end result look more organic and natural, like something that has grown rather than been woven out of wire or something.

And basically just keep going till it looks right to you:

WARNING: doing this rapidly becomes addictive
I would suggest keeping the overall diameter of the combined GS smaller than that of the original armour, so that it's more obviously a replacement limb as opposed to looking like something that could have been stuck on top of the existing armour; the whole point of going to such lengths is to mess with the overall shape of the model so that it's obvious something drastic has happened to the thing you're modelling.

It has a nice sense of being 3-dimensional to it, which with careful painting will give real textural depth to the finished mini. I think that in the end the only way to make something really look properly 3-dimensional is to build it in, basically, 3 dimensions...


And here's the same technique done on power armour, with the whole lower leg and foot all replaced by a horrible fungal-flesh look:

You can see from this that this technique lends itself to a wide range of body alterations on miniatures; it would be good for a Possessed, for example, with much of the body replaced by this sort of method and just small sections of armour left along the various limbs. It would be a lot of work but worth it in the end...



As always, I hope this was of interest & use to people

[KingOfFools]

Just noticed your rust tutorial thingy, must say, it seems quite good. I must remember it as 'need to try some day'.

[battledaemon]

I'd like to say thanks for this tutorial svart. When I finally started work on my daemon prince this helped a lot! Thanks for the awesome tutorial!

[Svartmetall]

You're welcome - I've been meaning to add a new section to this tutorial to celebrate it getting 10,000 views*, but my life is insanely busy at the moment so literally haven't had time to put it together yet...feeling slightly guilty about that. Ehh...it'll happen as soon as I can make it happen.

Tune in for the next thrilling installment of Nurgle 101, coming to a cesspool near you, soon!






* woah, I just noticed it's got 11,000 already...that was quick...

[VeteranSergeant]

Those aren't the current ed. plaguebearers, did you do any conversions to them?
(edit) I looked through (other) nurgle thread and was impressed. I just started and was attracted to nurgle as well, basically for the infinite possibilities for conversions.
I liked your initial idea of having obsidian swords for the plaguebearers, but I intend on taking it in another direction. I'll post pics (on the other thread) when I'm done, if you don't mind that is.

[Svartmetall]

posting from work

"Those aren't the current ed. plaguebearers..."

Er, yes, they are, and the GW website confirms this (when you can get the bugger to work, that is ). I got them from Warhammer World itself earlier this year; are you perhaps confusing them with the Plaguebearer Command models, which are actually the same basic sculpts but have extra bits on them and therefore look a tad different as a result?

[VeteranSergeant]

Plaguebearers (non command)
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/ca...tCatGameStyle=
The second one from the left is the same as the ex under step #9 in the tutorial, but the sword is different. The body is the same as the other example (the one primarily used for the tutorial) but the pose, head, and arms seem way different to me.
What am I missing?
I really like whatever you did to them if they are the current ones from the site, because I can't seem to find this version anywhere.
The sword raised in the air (under step 9) is really why I want to know so bad, as it is the same hilt as one in the codex that I was going to do a conversion after.

[Svartmetall]

posting from work

Ahh, I see what you mean now. I bought a couple of packs of Plaguebearers, and whenever I got duplicate models I re-posed them with a pait of pliers till the different limb positions stopped them from looking like carbon copies of each other. In fact, the original idea for what was to become the Siamese-twin Plague Marine was to use duplicate Plaguebearers to make a conjoined-twin Plaguebearer, but then I went mad and decided to do that on a Plague Marine instead.

The sword is actually a WFB wheel boss, possibly from a Hellcannon but I'm not 100% sure.

hth

[GeneralKaneNash]

Man your work is awesome, there is geniality in those models!

[Svartmetall]

It's been FAR too long since I updated this tutorial; sorry about that. To make up for it, here's something I've been asked for by quite a few people here (and elsewhere) - a tutorial on how to do the rotting skin and guts that seem to have become a bit of a speciality of mine


First off, here's the torso & legs that will be the basis for this conversion:


The first stage is to add a piece of green stuff that will serve as the 'foundation' for the final shredded guts; use your judgement to tell you how big of a piece of GS you want to use for this...

...I usually give this base-piece a sort of 'generic flesh' type of texture; at least some of this will end up being hidden as things progress but that doesn't really matter. Remember to have it protrude a bit from the torso for that authentically Nurgly pot-bellied look, don't leave it sitting flat to the torso.

The next step is to add guts, which I do by rolling variously-sized tubes of GS then attaching them to the background flesh...

...the more you can weave these together, the better. Actual entrails & intestines aren't neat and even, they're a chaotic mass of tubing, so try and get this feel with the GS; I find that making and interweaving tubes of GS like this to produce convicing-looking guts is really addictive The side view here shows what I mean about having it protrude a bit from the body, this gives the finished area of the model a lot more depth.

Now, the tricky bit - making skin. In the end, the only really realistic-looking way I've found to do skin with GS is to basically make a literally skin-thick layer of the stuff and stick that on the appropriate area of the model. The best way I've found to do this so far is to take a small piece of GS, squeeze it flat then tease out one edge with a pair of tweezers till it's almost translucent...

...keep the tweezers wet so the GS doesn't stick to them, and gently pull at one edge of the flattened piece of GS till you get it looking about right. This is very much a 'feel' thing, but with a few tries you can start to get the right kind of thickness happening.

Now apply this to the model gently; a piece of GS this thin will tear easily and also try to stick to anything more solid than an air molecule if you give it half a chance, so you have to be pretty careful at this stage...

...once you've got it in about the right place, start to work the non-ragged edge in carefully till it's attached reasonably firmly to the model; then you can start to move the ragged edge around to where you want it. Do it this way so the piece is anchored to the model, as it's so thin and light overall that even breathing out too hard can move it out of place.


Then basically just work the skin piece into the model till everything's where you want it. I leave the skin sitting just above the guts rather than being stuck down onto them, this lets you move it around for purposes of correct positioning (which you really wouldn't be able to do with GS this thin if it was attached to the flesh underneath). GS this thin will move and deform as you work with it, so be prepared to adapt to what the material does as it's applied; this isn't really a problem, though, since you're going for an overtly organic and uneven effect anyway. You can add other pieces to it, as with the left-side piece you can see here:

...in fact I'd recommend doing something like a belly (as in this example) in about 3 main pieces, as this technique is so dependent on the behaviour of gossamer-thin GS that you really wouldn't want to try and do it in one whole piece. Joining together pieces of GS this thin is pretty tricky, but do-able with some practice; I use the wetted tip of a cocktail stick to very gently smooth them together till they adhere to each other properly. If the GS tears as you apply it, don't worry, just make that part of the final look; in fact, I usually count on at least a few such little rips and tears appearing, as that just adds to the effect

Et voilà! Putrid entrails à la mode

I've included the angled shot from overhead to show the effect of having the guts stick out a little from the torso; this gives the model a lot more 'weight' visually to my eye, and the overall look of the torn skin with layers of stuff behind it gives an effect of real depth and three-dimensionality to a model that I really, really like. It's also great when it comes time to paint it, as you have real layers and contours to work with.

Here's the same effect on a couple of other Plague Marines:

...and some detail shots of the Possessed Terminator I made for the conversion competition to show how you can have several different areas of the same effect on one model:



As always, I hope this was useful to people.





____

[Reapray]

The "swollen lymph nodes" are great.

[Amil531]

this is INSANE...too bad my chaos army is only Khornite and Slaaneshi units

[Svartmetall]

I originally made this tutorial for the 'Firebase' webzine last year, and figured it'd be fun to put it up again for people.

Old School Plague Marine Tutorial
(or, My Head Got Cut Off And Used As A Blight Grenade And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt)


The idea behind this tutorial is to show how you can convert one of the current plastic Chaos Space Marines into an old-school style Plague Marine – I like the bulbous 90s-style Death Guard models, but they’re pretty hard to find these days and since I wanted to have an ‘old school’ squad of this style of model it seemed like a good idea to work out how to convert one of the ‘normal’ CSM models into something as close as I could manage to the Plague Marines of yesteryear.

Here’s the fine figure of an old Plague Marine miniature that will be serving as inspiration, and the bog-standard plastic bits that will form the basis for this conversion:


First of all, trim the mould lines and assemble the basic body parts; I put a 2mm spacer in at the waist joint to give the model extra height (as I like my Nurgle troops to be huge and hulking) and also to give the overall figure more balanced proportions. I filled around this spacer with green stuff to make the joint more solid.

Before putting on the front half of the torso I removed the bottom half of it, the better to accommodate the augmetic cabling that will be going there. It doesn’t matter what torso front you use, because we’re aiming for a very smooth rounded chest so you’ll need to sand any details on it flat anyway. Then I used a pin drill to make holes ready for the augmetic cabling – be careful drilling these, as they need to be at the correct angle for the ‘lay’ of the cable; a bit of forward planning is needed here in terms of how much cabling you want and where you’re going to put it - there’s no harm in making sketches if you need to. Then I stuck a gob of green stuff inside the lower torso cavity and made a hole in it ready for yet another bit of cabling, with a corresponding hole in the right leg.

Drilling holes in the head was tricky, and again these have to be at the right angle for where you eventually want the cabling to sit; never be afraid to stop and stick a bit of guitar string into a hole to check it’s at the right angle before going any further.

Once the green stuff on the torso has set, you’re ready to start inserting the augmetic cabling; I generally use guitar strings for this, as the windings look right for augmetics even down at the 28mm scale. A .032” gauge guitar string is just the right diameter to work with the hole made by the default bit that comes with the GW pin drill, and that’s what I used on this model.

You need to bend each piece of string so it fits properly on the model, and the cable which goes from the leg into the lower torso is a good example of this; ideally you’re aiming for a smooth, natural-looking curvature of the cable. That piece has a gentle-ish curve that can be done with fingers, but for some pieces you’ll need a much sharper curve for which you’ll probably need to use a pair of needle-nose pliers and a little practice to get the feel of how to bend it to the right shape.

The cables that go around to either side of the torso are a good example of this; eventually they’ll be covered by the shoulderpads so they need to sit tight to the side so they don’t stick out too much. Be careful when bending string with pliers as the windings can sometimes stretch apart, which spoils the look of the cabling; try to keep the ‘wrap’ of the windings around the guitar string’s core as even as you can. Use a small dab of glue on the end of the string as each end is inserted to keep it firmly anchored in place.

Possibly the single fiddliest part of this whole conversion was getting the head attached with the cable that runs from the helmet into the upper chest at the right angle; several tries were needed, and swearing occurred, before the helmet was mounted firmly with the cable going smoothly from it into the chest.

Phew. Tricky, but now it felt like it was starting to get the feel I was after. You can also see now how the spacer at the waist joint gives a nice overall proportion to the figure; it’s not strict true-scale, but looks the part nonetheless.

And now it’s green stuff time. I seriously debated using one big lump of green stuff to make the rounded torso, but given the various bits of cabling going into it at various spots the only way I found that worked to get the desired bulbous look was to use several smaller bits and smooth them together; this made it a lot easier to leave gaps for the cabling to pass through into the body. The idea was always to give the finished model as much depth as possible, so the detail seemed to go right into the body and not just sit on the surface.

Where two different pieces of green stuff needed to blend smoothly, I used a wetted thumb to get a seamless transition. In some cases you still get a very tiny line, but for Nurgle armour this doesn’t look out of place at all; it almost looks like marbling.

Note the profile shot; as I was building up the layers of green stuff I kept checking the overall shape of the torso from all angles to make sure I was keeping the curve smooth and even. The gaps where the cabling passes into the torso don’t all have to look the same; I chose to have a large gaping cavity where the cabling from the leg enters the torso, with cracks across the armour’s surface spreading out from this. By contrast the cabling at each shoulder and from the head have quite smooth holes. I also left a jagged hole in the lower left of the belly for that authentic Nurgle look, and added two kneepads of green stuff to match the old-school Plague Marine’s detail.

Following on from this, once the front had cured hard I added green stuff texturing all round the back of the model, so the bloated belly would blend in both in terms of dimensions and detailing with the overall profile of the model. There’s a deep recessed gap inside the smooth edge of the belly, which is again intended to give the impression of depth to the model. The rest of the green stuff work on this part of the model’s back is made up of a stretched-tissue type of texture; remember that much of what goes here will be at least slightly obscured by the backpack, so keep it flat enough to the body for the backpack to sit correctly.

Also, from this angle you can see the bits of cabling sticking round the sides of the torso from the chest and the helmet; next we’ll deal with those and attaching the arms.

I used a file to smooth down the edges of the cabling that were sticking out, then put a 1mm spacer in at each arm joint so there was an overall flat surface for the arms to mount onto.

The choice of weapons is of course up to you; I’ve always thought that chainswords feel perfect for Death Guard, very brutal and no-nonsense, and the bolt pistol also works with the close-combat feel.

Once the arms were glued on and set, I added more green stuff stretched-tissue around the circumference of the arm joint, some of which stretches over to the backpack mount or joins the tissue reaching up from the lower back. The more your green stuff work looks homogenous to the model, the better, and one of the best ways to do this is to keep it unified all over the model and where necessary to match any of the model’s original texture and surface detailing. Also at this point I smoothed in the kneepads and, as you can see on the left knee, blended the line of the model’s leg into the kneepad itself so it looks like a part of the model; the last thing you want to see on any miniature is something that screams 'here is the green-stuffed part' because it doesn’t match or blend in with the actual model.

Ideally you shouldn’t be able to tell what’s original and what’s conversion once it’s painted up; I actually find that one of my favourite stages with any converted model is after the basic primer or undercoat has been applied, as it’s then that everything is finally the same colour and you can see how well what you’ve added to the model blends in with the rest of it. As a final touch I added a tiny worm (or possibly piece of gut) sticking out of the hole in the lower left of the belly.

Finally, on goes the backpack, and some more green stuff was inserted around and behind this to blend it in with the main body. And, of course, the finishing touch for that authentic ‘old school’ Plague Marine look – a spike on top of the helmet.


I also added some tiny splurges of stretched-tissue green stuff around the boots, and at the elbow joints on the arms. These are just little details but they add to the overall visual unity of the model, making it all look like it belongs together.

And here’s the finished result:

It’s quite a lot of work for one troop model, but a full unit of these guys looks pretty nifty lumbering across the battlefield.


_____

[Svartmetall]

Sick of boring power fists? Want some right-handed ones for your devoted servants of the Ruinous Powers? Doktor von Svartmetall has the cure!

Here's a quick tip on how to make a custom right-handed power fist; first take the two bits you see in the upper part of this photo, the Possessed armoured fist...thing...and the Spawn hand.

Cut the spindly fingers off the Possessed limb, and cut off the fingers and thumb from the Spawn hand; then glue the fingers and thumb to the now-fingerless Possessed hand as can be seen in the lower half of this shot. Since I'm really paranoid about giving the maximum structural strength to my models, I pinned not only the fingers but the thumb as well, but that's not mandatory. I also replaced the smooth cable-like bits of the Possessed limb with guitar wire, since that looks more like a power cable and therefore helps to establish this as a power fist rather than just a 'normal' Chaos-mutated armoured hand.

Then use green stuff to smooth the joins and make the pieces sit together so they form a seamless whole:

Remember the most important thing with any conversion - it shouldn't look like a conversion, rather all the pieces should seem to belong together on the finished model, no matter where they originally came from.

And here's the finished article on a model:

It makes for a nice distinctive Chaotic-looking limb that can easily count as a power fist. Plus, given that almost all power fist models are mounted on the left arm, it's nice to be able to break up the visual monotony if you have multiple power fist-wielding characters in your army.


_____

[Roditor]

These tutorials are simply AMAZING! Seriously impressed - techniques are not too hard, yet results are fantastic! I almost feel plagiarist utilizing some of these techniques :P That Possessed lord has to be one of the most awesome models I've ever seen. Great work!

[Svartmetall]

Straight from the festering foundries that lurk in the crypts of Schlöss Svartmetall, here's how to make a biomechanical power claw for a Nurgle Dreadnought. For the purposes of this tutorial I'll be doing this on the close-combat-weapon arm of an old Forge World Death Guard Dreadnought, but this technique could equally be applied to just about any Dreadnought arm.

So; first off, you need a Dreadnought arm that's cut down to the 'elbow':


Then you need something, basically a lump of plastic, to serve as the core of the new claw. In this case I'm using a trimmed-down surplus Spawn head purely because it's roughly the right size and shape, but anything will do; sprue, plastic card, whatever. Drill four holes a millimetre or two from the end of this piece, spaced equally around the circumference, to act as roots for each blade; then glue in segments of armature wire, bent forwards to give the right angle to the final blades:


Now add the blades themselves. I've used spines from the Spawn sprue, cut to the same length in this case (although you could obviously use differing lengths if that's the look you're after):

I've gone for four equally-spaced blades, but again the choice is up to you; five, seven, whatever. You could also try things like the claw blades from the Possessed sprue, Tyranid claws, sword blades, or whatever; go with whatever your sense of aesthetics says works.

To add to the biomechanical look, once the claw is attached to the arm add some lengths of guitar string to the assembly:


Now it's time to start bulking up the body of the claw with green stuff:


I've gone for a smooth, fat-teardrop-like overall profile, but again the choice is up to you. Do this in stages so it's easier to keep control over the final shape, so try to avoid adding green stuff in pieces that are too big.

As I said, keep bulking it up in layers so you can control how the 'flesh' builds up across the whole claw. I added some small teeth to go in between the main blades, so the claw resembles the mouth of some kind of horrible arachnid-y creature. Or something.


As you add to the layers of flesh around the core, check with the arm assembly as a whole against the body of the Dreadnought itself to make sure the dimensions are staying as you want them to be:


Now to add the final layers of skin over the bulk of the flesh:



And here's the finished claw attached to the body of the Dreadnought:


As always, I hope this helped on the ideas-and-inspiration front. More corrupted constructions to follow....


_____

[wombat_tree]

Awesome as usual Svartmetall.

[GrimDark]

Awesome. I'm not a fan of big'ol fatso, but your conversions are skillful.

[wickedcarrot]

Really nice stuff dude! Just about to start a small nurgle army so this is a great bit of inspiration