Day of the living Death Guard

My final four models from Nurgle's side of the Dark Imperium box have been painted. It took a day longer than planned as I completely forgot to sand the bases. In the caes of the Blight Drone I also cut a plastic barrel in half to make it a little more interesting. Anyway the command group featuring (from left to right) a Noxious Blightbringer, Lord of Contagion and Malignant Plaguecaster.

You to can get the full Nurgle treatment! Just call 555-Death-Guard and the nice men and women of our promotion team will be around!

The Noxious Blightbringer carries a lot of bells. The one on his back is called the Tocsin of Misery it reduces enemy leadership and helps Death Guard units move slightly faster (by re-rolling run dice). For some reason the cloth tabard just screamed 'paint me white' at me. Being vulnerable to warp influence like that I decided to practice a bit of wet blending.

My wet-blend worked! Oh dear white on a Nurgle model...what was I thinking?

As opposed to usual practice runs (that end up with me painting another color over the failed attempt it actually worked. Now my back was rather sore from slapping myself on it, and I had a Nurgle model with a pristine white tabard I could not countenance painting over. As you can see one picture up, I decided to apply a subtle shade of Agrax, a few dabs of Athonian Camoshade, some Nurgle's Rot and at the bottom the excellent blood painting technique I stole from ThirdEyeNuke over at Tale of Painters.

This years Nurgle look features a black cloak, rusty chainmail and slimy horns. Basically the same look we saw on the runways last year.

Emboldened by my white wet-blend I decided to give black another try. Although the deep red cloaks actually look rather cool I want my death guard slightly more muted giving the fumes a chance to really stand out. I took Vallejo German Grey as my base black and just mixed it with Dead White to get the two black cloaks highlighted. I then followed with Vallejo Game Color Black (a bad black, should be called 'dark grey') to deepen the darkness in the folds. All in all I a happy with the cloaks. The greens are a blend of GW Warpstone Glow, GW Moot Green and Vallejo Yellow Green. For the Noxious Blightbringer I decided to paint all the strange bubbly bits sticking out in the same yellow as the puff of smoke released from his hand. I wanted to give the impression that the same noxious fumes escape from every broken seal in his power armor.

The Plague Drone looks wonderfully menacing, but I have to admit that fixing the guns properly was a bit of a challenge.

Next up was the Blight Drone. I basically followed the same scheme as I used for the rest of this warband, adding a bit of airburshed OSL around the eye lens to make the red glow. It also helped brighten up the red of the lens itself, so that was a nice bonus. The real fun with this model however was to be had on the back.

When in doubt while basing just cut a barrel in half and stick it on, it never fails (at least that's what I think).

This is where the flesh that was fused with the metal of the drone is bulging out. Another chance to go wild with purple, yellow, green, red and brown washes. Whee. I painted every boil red and added a nice yellow dot on top. Larger gashes on the front and the back of the drone where subtly worked with the blood technique mentioned before. Nurgle's Rot  was applied as well as Nihilakh Oxide (both on the drone and on the characters). I always keep a big dry brush handy when working with Nihilakh. The trick is to apply a dot and spread it out over an area. Then apply another dot where I want the oxide to really stand out. It does not quite conform to real oxidation I guess, but it does add a bit more color to otherwise rather drab models. I use it to streak chainmail and breastplates with the same reasoning.

Group shot of the Nurgle warband, I'm in a bit of shock that I painted it (mostly) over the weekends in under a month.

Long story short, my first Death Guard models are now finished and ready to give the new edition a go. My regular gaming night is Wednesday (club night). As I already had an Age of Sigmar game lined up two weeks ago and gave a demo of Age of Sigmar at another club last week I haven't actually had a chance to try the new rules. That will change this Wednesday. Next up, I don't know. I'm a bit spoiled with several very interesting projects on my paint desk at the same time and GW has not released a second wave of Death Guard so there is time. I'll probably try to get some older projects finished or perhaps build a farm...hmmm that was also on the list. Never a dull moment with this hobby :)