Nurgle Lord Conversion

I have had the fantastic Brian Nelson plastic Nurgle Lord model from Games Workshop sitting on my painting desk for a few months now, partially assembled and waiting for some attention. The problem was, I knew I wanted to convert him - I can't seem to not convert a model these days - but I didn't know what I wanted to do to him and was hesitant to start cutting him up only to regret it.

Anyway, I had some extra time off from work over the Easter weekend last week and I decided to just sit down and work on some models since I had been in a bit of a lull of late. Shrugging off my earlier hesitations, I decided to start working on the Nurgle Lord figure, despite the absence of a clear idea in my head for how the finished piece should look.

While this is quite unusual for me, the process was quite liberating as I wasn't frustrating myself by trying to work too precisely towards an image in my head.

The end result of a few hours work is what you can see below. I clipped off the horns on the shoulder pad and turned them into disease ridden pustules. I added the crow from the Empire General kit, with a little conversion and tidying up, to return some height and attention to the area and also to create some visual lines through what is otherwise quite a 2D pose.

The head received the most sculpting work to create a hideous face, half covered by a helmet with horn bursting through. The rest of the work composed of adding some rivet detail to flat armour plates (rivets always catch rust well so they would help work some contrast in when it came time to paint) and to tidy up areas of soft detail due to the limitations of plastic casting.

All in all, I am pretty pleased with how he has turned out. While not radically different from the original sculpt (I don't think he needed to be anyway - the original is was an instant classic) he is different enough to be unique, which is what I was going for.

I used a mix of ProCreate and Milliput putties (about 50:50) for the face/helmet sculpting, ProCreate on its own for the horn and Milliput for the armour plate fixes.






All in, not bad for a few hours work I think. I will be painting him up in the coming weeks. I picked up a few of the new GW paints to test them out so will try to provide my thoughts on these two in the next few posts as I work on the model.

As usual, feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

Sons Of Medusa Space Marine Captain Commission

My first miniature finished in 2012 is this Sons of Medusa space marine captain done as a Christmas commission for my good friend Aaron (Grey Death) from The Painting Corps.

The first marine I have painted in a number of years, this project was a lot of fun. Not only is the SoM colour scheme great fun to do - if a little challenging due to the poor coverage of scorpion green (thank god for my airbrush!), but it was a cool challenge trying to keep the model in keeping with the look and feel of the rest of Aaron's force.

The model has had a few subtle conversions, namely the plasma pistol and the bionic eye. The eye was a late addition due to the horrible cast quality of the model around the face making the right eye unpaintable and the face covered in excess metal on that side. Luckily it turned out pretty well and fits with the Sons of Medusa theme (being successors of the Iron Hands).

Here's hoping Aaron likes him and be sure to let me know what you think in the comments.

Check These Out...

So 2011 is in the books and all in, despite the fact I only painted 3 models in the entire year (I know...), it was a pretty good year for the blog. There were 21 posts in 2011 with a good mix of tips, tutorials and reviews but I want to do even more in 2012.

But enough about my blog for now. For this post I want to share with you all a few blogs and sites I have found recently that I would strongly recommend you check out.


Sproket's Small World

Sproket's Small World is the blog of former Golden Demon UK Slayer Sword winner David Soper. David is an extremely talented painter and converter with a bit of a "modern classic" style. While his blog is fairly new at only 6 months old, he has already shared a number of excellent step by step tutorials and tips, making this blog well worth a look. Check out his tutorial on painting Dark Eldar Scourge wings - brilliant and makes it looks so simple!


RuneCast Blog

RuneCast Blog is the blog of the almost sickeningly talented Gregor - a freelance miniature sculptor combining a blend of classic marauder miniatures style with more modern 40k sculpt style. In particular check out his conversion work on a Black Templars Contemptor dreadnought and his Dwarves. Cracking stuff!


Fantasygames

Fantasygames is not only one of the slickest designed hobby blogs/sites around, but also the home of a talented group of Polish painters. While mostly a place to display finished models there are the occasional WIP posts and some innovative ideas on show. Be sure to check out "The Puppet Master" diorama - really cool magic effects going on there.


So there you go, three great blogs to kick start your 2012 with!

Return of the Fimir

Today in the Forgeworld Christmas newsletter they revealed their teaser jigsaw image, which turned out to be a Fimir from a unit of such models set to feature in the forthcoming Warhammer Forge Monstrous Arcana book. Cool stuff!



For those who don't remember the Fimir, or who are sitting with a blank expression reading this and wondering what the hell they are - the Fimir were a long defunct race from Warhammer, created by Jes Goodwin and Graeme Davis back in the late 80's.

Inspired by the Fomorians of Celtic myth, they are hulking cyclopean humanoids with barbed tales and sharp beak like faces. If I remember right, they died out of inclusion in the Warhammer universe around 4th edition due to a lack of popularity. Ironically, the old figures (one pictured below - it's not mine, if you are the owner let me know and I'll reference as required) prove popular with collectors now and many still hold up well in terms of sculpting quality.


I love what is coming out of Warhammer Forge at the moment and the fact they are bringing back many cult classics (including Chaos Dwarfs) with modern revisions to fit with the current background is pretty cool.

In fact, I have it on trustworthy recommendation that Santa will be bringing me the wonderful Theodore Bruckner model for Christmas - I can't wait!

Have a great Christmas folks and keep your eyes peeled for some posts with new painted stuff in the coming weeks!

Hobby Halloween!

Well, given that it was Halloween this past Monday, aside from carving pumpkins (seen above, mine is on the right), I thought it would be fitting to take a look through some of my long dead projects and see if anything could inspire me back into working on them.

Fitting the "resurrection of the dead" Halloween theme, I thought I would share some pictures of these withered "ghouls"!


Kislev Boyar


First up is the Kislev Boyar I had been working on in Summer 2010. An almost complete scratch sculpt, this was originally intended to be my main entry into the Warhammer Fantasy Single Miniature category at Golden Demon 2010.

Sadly, as it came time to get painting I begun to notice a lot of nagging flaws in my sculpt work which put me off ever finishing him. At the moment, he resides on my shelf of unfinished projects in the state currently seen above - a few roughed in base coats and a wash on the skin. In the end I opted to paint up a slightly converted Averland Captain as my entry for Golden Demon 2010 instead.


Genestealer Magus


Next up, a "spooky" Genestealer Magus that I based on a Forgeworld Tau Air Caste figure and sculpted extensively over to get to the point you see him at now.

As you can see, I started to paint parts of him, but as this was done in early 2010, just before I moved to a new flat, he got sidelined and was never returned to. Looking at him now, I have no doubt I could have sculpted and painted what has been done much better now.


Vespero of the Vendetta


This figure was inspired by the Assassins Creed 2 computer game and my desire to create a more enigmatically posed version of Vespero - the old Dogs of War character.

I actually still quite like how much of this scratch build has come out, I've just never been able to find the concentrated inspiration to go back to it!


Demon Prince of Slaanesh


This one is really quite old now (2008?) and from back when I was just getting back into the hobby again after a few years away. The sculpt work on the head leaves a lot to be desired and, as you can probably see, is a little worse for ware now too.

I'm still quite fond of how the paint job on the flesh was turning out on this one though. Oh well!


I guess to sum this post up, I get a lot of ideas for projects. Typically quite elaborate and involving a reasonable amount of sculpting or conversion work. Usually being time poor for the hobby, it is quite common for a project to get to a particular stage before I begin to lose the inspiration and motivation required to complete it (much to the continued frustration of my beloved girlfriend!).

For each unfinished piece here, there are at least 2-3 times as many on my shelf - sad but true!

Anyway, I hope you have all enjoyed this little walk down an eerie memory lane! Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

AK Interactive Streaking Grime and Filters

As I mentioned in my last post, I had used a number of products and techniques which were new to me on my Ultramarines Contemptor Dreadnought. Among these were the AK Interactive Streaking Grime and Rust Streak products.




The Streaking products are all enamel based paints, but much more diluted than regular enamels. This means that, once applied, they can be worked further with a brush moistened with white spirit. Using a flat brush and up and down brushing motions, you can quickly and easily create the kinds of weather markings typically seen on vehicle armour plates as a result of rain and rust - as can be seen in the following pictures:




As you can see, this example was produced rather quickly and roughly to demonstrate the products and the technique. On an actual model, with a little more care, the results look more like this:


The main strength of these products is the ability to continue to tweak and alter the effect even after it has dried by going back in with a brush that has been moistened with white spirit. By doing this you can knock the effect back if you have done too much, or make streaks longer etc.

If you are looking to pick some up, in the UK I would recommend Scale Model Shop. As I was running around in trying to get my entry finished in the run up to Games Day, I made a couple of orders for necessary items and they arrived within 2 days of ordering - top service!

Golden Demon UK 2011 - 40K Vehicle Bronze

Back from a week off after Games Day and have finally got around to taking some decent pictures of my main entry for Golden Demon 2011 which took Bronze in the Warhammer 40k Vehicle Category.

This is the first vehicle (let alone large model) I have painted in around 10+ years so it was a much bigger challenge than I had at first considered - particularly given that I had 2 weeks from clean up and assembly to finished and mounted on it's plinth (using rare earth magnets)!

Next year I hope to do a few more entries well in advance so that I don't feel so rushed and under pressure. Having left it until the last minute, there are a few things I know I could do better/more on which may have helped improve the final placing, but I am definitely still very pleased to have taken Bronze for the second year running (and my second year entering) given the quality of competition.

Click the images for a bigger view.



Links to CoolMiniOrNot listing for those who like to vote :)

I tried a lot of new things on this model (a risky strategy on a competition entry when under time pressure) and was pretty pleased with the results. I don't have the time or energy for a full write up on them right now, but expect to see posts on using enamels, AK Interactive Streaking Grime, making icicles and making your own decals in the not too distant future.

Cheers,

Dante

Golden Demon UK 2011 Sneak Peak

A quick sneak preview of my main entry for Golden Demon UK 2011 as I pack away all my stuff for the trip down to Birmingham this evening. The lighting and photo setup (there really wasn't any!) is far from right so the colours are out a bit and any shading and highlighting is lost in the pic but it should give some idea as to which entry is mine on the day:


Hope to catch up with and chat to plenty of fellow painters on the day, so if you see me please feel free to say hello! (Cheesy identifier pic included below!)