XLII: Scuz Bucket (complete)

I was looking for a toy I could maybe cheaply convert into a Hell Blade Chaos Fighter or something, when I came apon this little guy; I abandoned the Hell Blade idea on the spot. Some GS work, and a few strategically glued bits later, and bam; I've got myself a Daemon Engine familiar/mascot for my army.









The mottled look I painted on him was to not only give him the appearance of having been wallowing in filth for hundreds of years, but also to hide my amateur-hour GS work.

I'm still not a 100% sure that's exactly how I want to paint the mud on my basses though, so any & all C&C are welcome.

XLI: Scuz Bucket

Here's a WIP peek at a little something I'm working on. I'm just waiting for the GS to cure before I prime him.

Scuz Bucket here is going to count as a Sorcerer's Familiar. I wanted a Daemon Engine in the style of the Forgeworld Blight Drones that would visually match the playful puppy personality of a Beast of Nurgle. What I ended up with looks kinda like Nurgle turned R2-D2 into a dog (with antlers), so I'm pretty happy with it.

I'll post better pics when I get some paint on him in the next day or so.

XL: Progress Report

The Champions for my 2 BBQ Plague Marine squads are almost complete. The one on the right is mostly done, and nearly ready for paint (just a little more GS work to smooth out on the back of the cloak). The other champ, the one on the left, still needs a head & backpack (shoulderpads have been added since this pic was taken). The green on his base is Thraka Green; I read that in "the old days" people would put washes of Inks on their bases to keep sand particles in place, so I tried it... but I don't think it did anything. My first try at sculpting his head (with antlers) was a bit of a disaster, so for my second attempt I'm going a different route... and this chaos marine from the $12 3-pack box is going to be my guinea pig.



kinda just looks like a big green dong on the side of his head at the moment, but it's just a WIP

Oh, and speaking of my BBQ squads, here's the 1st of the 4 Flamer Plague Marines who will be attached to those squads.



So to sum up: 1 BBQ squad assembled (and mostly primed), 1 Plasma squad fully assembled and a second BBQ squad half assembled. Mr. antlers there (with the green dong) is going to be the first marine in my 2nd Plasma squad. 2.5 of the 4 Plague Marine squads in the list. It's about time to do some painting on tester figures, I reckon.

XXXIX: Break a Leg

I tried a couple new techniques; Repositioning a leg, and basing with cork. 'Still a WIP, but I'm having fun with it. I have 2 squads now assembled & based, and now I'm just waiting on a couple heads to arrive in the mail & I can get started painting these guys hopefully in the next week or so.

Bitz Trade

I went to my first ever Bitz Trading Day at the Burnaby, B.C. Games Workshop today; it was very positive experience. I only brought some Dark Angel bits with me, but I ended-up swapping 2 melta guns for 18 old-style chaos backpacks, so it was a good day.

After getting a close look at them, I don't think I want those black reach Deffkoptas anymore... I had planned to use them in a conversion project, but in the end I think I'd prefer to scratch build everything.

I am still on the look-out for a vindicator dozer blade though, so if anybody out there has an extra one; those DA bits are still up for grabs.

XXXVIII: Scatch-Built Blight Drones (continued)

picture of Eric's WIP Blight Drone

There are at least 5 of us making Blight Drones now at Papa Nurgle. Guys, it's getting easier all the time with this dimension guide for scale & this step-by-step tutorial by Animeric... there's really no reason for you to not try this at home.

XXXVII: Scratch-Built Blight Drones

"Where ever they were encountered, the air grew thick with poisonous fumes and the soil of Vraks rotted beneath them as their corpulent flesh wept continually with dripping icor "


The new Siege of Vraks book 3 is great, well worth owning (especially for Nurgle players).

Everybody loves the Blight Drones, but the models are Forgeworld-expensive. So who's making their own from scratch? I know some of us have started to post some WIP pics over at Papa Nurgle. In the interest of spreading this rotting foulness as far and wide as possible (for the PlagueFather!), I'll be posting about my progress here too. Daemon engines are notorious for being "staggering in their diversity, and blasphemous in their malignant design" but if you wanted to play along & make your own, and say you wanted to try & stay roughly the same dimensions as the Forgeworld counterpart, this may come in handy. I wonder how many of these we can all make before the end of the year?



Here's my 'drone at the "space shrimp" stage, next to the screw-cap (from an old bottle of speedball ink) that I'm thinking of using as a rotor housing.

Barter Bucket!

I've got some Dark Angel bits up for trade on today's Barter Bucket, here's a slightly larger version of the picture they have up there.



and here's my NEEDS List:

+ Black Reach Deffkoptas (x3)
+ Vindicator dozer blade (x1)
+ Berserker chaos marine backpacks, old style (any)
+ plastic Cadian lower leg pairs (x2)
+ plastic Cadian helmets (any)

~thanks to Mik & Ron~

XXXVI: Lords of Decay

LORDS of DECAY
"Large Deathguard sub-faction. Have formerly been led by the Primarch Mortarion. Multiple encounters with the warband over the past millennium, notably at the Siege of Vraks. Linked to the Space Hulk Monolith of Woe, they are currently being pursued by Imperial forces in the Mentieth Sector."

When I first saw the crest in the Chaos codex, I just wrote it off as "generic Nurgle", and I kinda felt free to make-up my own variation. Now that I've seen the same crest echoed in the Siege of Vraks 3... I guess it's cannon, so I'm going to go back and re-paint both those banners on my objective markers to make 'em more in line with the fluff. At least I made this decision before I painted my champions. No big deal. Man, that 3rd 'Vraks book is great, I want to get some Blight Drones sooooo bad!

I did finally get a sculpting tool, so hopefully that'll help me smooth out some of the "patchier" spots on my champions. I might even have another try at sculpting antlers tonight while I'm at it.

XXXV: Base fit for a Champion (continued)

I still have some GS work to do on this guy, but mostly just on his cloak, on the back. I'm still, obviously, waiting on a head too (bits are in the mail). I really need to get myself a sculpting tool; by this stage the ol' toothpicks & pins method just aint getting good enough results. But, I guess he's mostly done now.

It took me a little while to decide what to do for a base. I kept staring at that marine helmet, & then down to the rock my champion was standing on... and it just didn't add up. I wanted to have him standing over a fallen foe, but after doing that Lazy Librarian objective marker, I knew a full body wouldn't fit on a 25mm base. I think the partial torso I came up with works well enough. I figure if I paint the ground to look muddy enough, then that much sinkage is plausible. I like it.

I followed Dverning's Rules for Basing. They can be found in the comments section of my last post, and also on his 40k Maunderings blog.

Rememberance Day

On 11th hour, of the 11th day, of the 11th month... we remember.

"...it is observed on 11 November to recall the end of World War I on that date in 1918 (major hostilities of World War I were formally ended at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 with the German signing of the Armistice)."




R.I.P.

XXXIV: Base fit for a Champion

Here's the start of my other champion. I stole the idea for this conversion from Santa Cruz Warhammer. I couldn't help myself, I just instantly loved the whole "Alas, poor Yorick" vibe. I'm going with rags rather than fur on the shoulders, and I'm filing off some of the more "Blood God" type details on the armor. A different head & arm should help to make mine different enough from SCW's to stand apart, but hopefully still be nurgly in his own right. I'll post more WIP shots as this guy progresses.

But here's the real point of this post: I really enjoyed making those objective markers, and I want to make something special (scenic?) for the bases of the champions in my army BUT I also want to eventually be able to use these guys in a game. What do you guys do for the bases of your champions? Is line-of-sight something I should be worrying about?

Any and all suggestions welcome (and thank you for reading).

XXXIII: Malevolent Mission Accomplished

I did it! I got all 3 objective markers painted by Halloween night!!

I couldn't bring myself to ask the local game shop for charity, so I ended up buying 4 new pots of paint (bleached bone, camo green, graveyard earth, fortress grey) & a pot of devlan mud, so in the end I got 'em all done anyway! Even if for some reason posting pics on the 1st doesn't get me the full Malevolent Mission points over at Papa Nurgle this challenge was worth it, and I'm glad I pushed myself to meet the deadline.

I tried new techniques (sponges), and that was fun. These guys are the first things I've actually painted for my army so I had to kinda finalize my official paint scheme in the process too (for the Ghoulie in the hatch). Feels like I've made some real progress, even if I haven't really crossed anything off my checklist yet.

The Lazy Librarian



The Gun Coffin
I still don't have enough bits to stock the gun coffin full of guns, so I'll probably revisit this one at a later date.



The Ghoulie Hatch



All 3 could use some dead static grass or flock or something, so whenever I get my hands on some of that... I'll probably touch these up a bit.

Also, I wanted to say thanks to Jacob Moxham for posting a link to my blog the other day, thanks again Jacob.

XXXII: Objectives Primed

Sorry for the crappy picture (I'm still trying to find a good way to light these for macro photography). Still have a loooooong way to go on these painting-wise. My hobby budget is pretty tight at the moment, and I don't have many colours to choose from, so I may just put a call in to my friendly local game store to see if I can dip my brush into some of their pots to finish these off before Halloween.

I'm a cartoonist by day, so I often have more art supplies than I realize. The bad news is that the pastels I used to have (and never used) and was thinking of using for weathering powders seem to have been given away or lost. The good news is I apparently have a tone of oil paints & thinners. We'll see if I can put those to use on some tanks or something later on down the line.

XXXI: "Counts as" Tanks

Conversions like these gorgeous Blood Pact vehicles by johnstoysoldiers and discussions like this one on santacruzwarhammer fill me with hope & inspiration for the tanks in my Nurgle army.

The thing is, I'm new to this hobby & even newer to kit-bashing outside the GW product range... but that is exactly what I intend to do to represent the possessed Vindicator in my army. So, I'm reaching-out, to you, oh internet: please help me find some kind of marvelous (inexpensive) tank model kit to stand-in for a chaos vindicator (or please, just point me in the right direction)!

Any and all suggestions are welcome & appreciated!

~thank you

XXX: The Ghoulie Hatch

The Ghoulie Hatch is now ready for paint. Dverning Suggested attaching the hatch, and when I saw scdarkangel's Grot Tank, I got an idea for a hinge. John's is much nicer looking than mine, but I had a wider hatch so I went with a longer looking hinge.

XXIX: Third Objective Marker

I'm calling my third objective marker "The Ghoulie Hatch"
I'm not sure if I'm going to use the lid or not yet.
Inspiration came from this:

XXVIII: Second Objective Marker

I picked-up 2 thicknesses of plastic-card today, and some new bases.



I had an idea for my second objective marker, I'm calling it: "Gun Coffin". It is essentially just a bunch of guns stored in an open grave.
Here's how I did it:

first I cut a coffin-shaped hole in the 40mm base, then I glued together this little coffin from pieces of the "NO SMOKING" sign



after that, I cut off two of those rings from the bottom of the base, glued one underneath & one above, drilled a hole to connect them and voila a slot for a banner-pole



next I chopped-up some toothpicks & started gluing them onto the outside of the coffin



I'm still not 100% sure if I'm going to throw dirt in the coffin around the skelleton, or do some kinda muddy water-fx



I added a little piece of a 25mm base for a little step on one side



and over here on the other side, eventually there will be a pile (separately painted) weapons



...and the answer to the question in my last post "will GS alone be enough to hold that metal book in that marine's plastic hand?"; NO.


So, I'll have to go back & pin the book in-place & re-sculpt the book spine. I did glue it onto a larger base which does make it look a bit nicer, I think (even though there's still a little bit of over-hang). One step forward, two steps back.

XXVII: First Objective Marker

Here lie the WIP remains of one heavily decorated beaky loyalist.

Over at Papa Nurgle they're running a monthly challenge, and I needed a lil' break from working on my Champion, so I gave it a shot. This is my first try at making an objective marker... I think the base might be a little too small, but I finally found a use for all those purity seals. Here's hoping that blob of GS keeps the chaplain's book in place.




(man, I suck at photography!)

XXVI: Makings of a Champion (continued)

Haven't done much work on this guy yet, but here's a mock up I did (using kneadable eraser as putty to hold the bits in-place). He's waiting on a backpack and I think I'll wait 'till I get a proper sculpting tool to do any more GS work on him. The prospect of sculpting antlers is making me a little nervous. I also have to decide on how to base this guy... something appropriate for his rank.

XXV: Makings of a Champion

The makings of my first champion of Nurgle. Lots of GS work ahead.



I eventualy want his head to look like this guy's:


wish me luck!

XXIV: Pair of Plague Monks

Still no bolter-damage, and the robes need to be a little more raggedy, but I thought I'd share what I put-together last night. In the end, the plan is to have two flamer squads, so this pair'll probably get split up. I tried to make them both distinctive, but similar enough to not be out-of-place with the rest of the boys in the squad.

I also did some work on a squad champion... but I'm not sure if I like him yet.

XXIII: Chainmail Veil

Today I did my first tests with Green Stuff. I think it came-out pretty well. I have another one of those hooded heads with the exposed face... I think I'll give it the same treatment. I mixed more material than I needed, so I rolled the left-overs into little balls; I might try to sculpt them into censer balls later (I may even try to make chain if I'm feeling up to it).

XXII: Plasma for Two

Here are a couple of Plasma toting Plague Marines I made yesterday from berserker & DA bits... with a bone hand & a leg thrown-in from the skeleton warriors box. No champions in my plasma squads, so I think I have almost everything ('cept for a rhino-tank) I need to put everybody together already.

Still been too chicken to try out my GS, but there's still plenty of time for that.



And here's a better picture of a couple of their squad mates.