Another Great Unclean One joins my pantheon

When it comes to painting my weekend was - very - productive. I added a rider to one of my Hell Pit Abominations (Squeek-Hulud has been created), I painted a Skaven Plague Claw Catapult and assembled and painted this Great Unclean One (in a day). I even got an evening of gamemastering Soulbound in. When it comes to blogging, I guess I'll have to smear the results out over the course of this week. Yeah I'm bragging a bit, but you have to enjoy excessive hobby-productivity in some way :).  Let's startof with a shot of my Great Unclean One hunting some hapless peasants. 

And the rock cried out, no hiding place...

I've had this model on my wishlist since it was launched (together with the Glottkin and one of those Maggot Riders). As frequent visitors to the blog may know, I have a full pantheon of classic Realm of Chaos era Greater Daemons. Over the course of time I added a late nineties version of the Greater Daemon of Nurgle to it. I also added a plastic Greater Daemon of Tzeentch on release and I have both a nineties Bloodthirster of Khorne and the modern Skarbrand on my shelf. Last but not least I have the (slightly odd one out) Verminlord in both its classic and modern shape. What I still 'need' is a modern Keeper of Secrets and a regular Bloodthirster. The Great Unclean One was also on that list, but last week I decided (on a whim) to break the old 'no new models until everything is finished'-rule and ordered one. 

I like details like the burrowed triple skulls in the shoulder on this model. It is just so wonderfully Nurgle.

I expected to be working on this guy for quite some time. I kept him in his box whilst working on a few random Skaven. I managed to keep my self discipline going the whole Saturday. Sunday morning I couldn't resist grandfather's sweet calls to action. I just had to assemble this monster. As with the Greater Daemon of Tzeentch kit, this model spoils you for choice. After assembly I have two extra heads, two left arms and two right hands in my bits box. I'm considering making (a few) interesting terrain pieces with these later on.

I discovered the skulls on his backflap only while painting it in a disgusting off-white tint. It took a lot of effort to mak those stand out (slightly). 

Assembly took most of my morning. Quite a lot of time was spent agonizing over which head and arm combination to choose. In the end I picked the flail and sword because my previous edition Nurgle Daemon has this weapon combo too. I thought it would make for some nice continuity on the shelf. Also the alternative was agonizing my entire day away. And that sounded like a waste of time. 

I took care to paint the Nurglings different shades than the Great Unclean One itself, otherwise they wouldn't stand out on the skin.

 After lunch the plastic glue had properly set (*cough* no impatience there *cough*) and I decided to just add a bit of primer with my airbrush. At this point a hair dryer magically appeared in my hand, making the primer dry quicker and I couldn't stop adding paint to the monster. In my defense: Nurgle is just so unbelievably relaxing to paint. You can go wild with colors and it will end up okay. If it doen'st: hey it's Nurgle! Also it is a lot of skin to play around with and I have 'painting skin tones' on my list of painting skills I want to improve this year. I took this opportunity with both hands. 

I painted the horns with P3 Bone Jack and then airbrushed a highlight on top of that. After the grime wash I painted small extra highlight lines here and there. Its a very easy way to make horns look okay (I think).

I had another bit of choice agony when it came to picking colors. My first instinct was to paint this monster in a pretty rosy pink skin color to better show off the blood and guts. But I also rather like the disgusting greens usually sported by Nurgle types. Looking at internet pictures I liked the mostly grey with a slight bit of green look sported by some. It does a rather awesome trick of making the daemon look even more villainous. Then again The Lost and the Damned has a pretty yellowish-green looking Great Unclean One on the cover and who dares argue with Les Edwards about color? Both my other models also have a variation of yellow and green on their skin so there's that. And I'm still rather fond of these Plaguebearers in my collection. 

Here they are together: eighties Great Unclean One, nineties Great Unclean One and the latest Great Unclean One. All of them wonderful models and a great chance for me to see improvement in my painting skills. 

In the end I decided to go for a bit of a greyish green so I started of airbrushing VMA Nato Green over the zenithal black and white primer. Over this I added Cam. Green and then Light Cam. Green, both also from the Vallejo Model Air line. These military colors have a tendency (are supposed to) dry up flat and mat (as if soldiers don't want to be seen when out in the fields). More on this later. I picked a random purple and sprayed this into places with lots of shadow (beneath the chin, armpit, backside, etc.). I also painted the guts hanging out purple. Then I switched to pink (VGA Squid Pink) and added highlights to the shadows (I know that sounds highly illogical mr. Spock, bear with me). With the shadows established, I switched to Scarlet Red to add skin irritations in (a lot of) places with boils (if I'd covered all the places, the daemon would've been red). Then I grabbed some VGA Bloody Red for the highly irritated bits of skin.

Front row: the old guard of the pantheon (the Bloodthirster and Keeper of Secrets are some of the oldest models in my collection (repainted many times over). 
Back Row: the new models I own so far. I guess I should prioritize adding a plastic Keeper of Secrets.

Then I switched back to Cam. Light Green as the daemon had a bit of a 'Disco will never die' vibe about it around this point. I re-established a basic green skin color. Now to deal with the drab military look. I grabbed some Game Air colors to add a bit more lively pop to the skin. I airbrushed a very thinned down VGA Scorpy Green where I wanted highlights. Then I exaggerated the highlights by airbrush-glazing VGA Livery Green on the topmost spots. I used my standard 'brush on VMA Hull Red, airbrush VMA Rust and an orange' to get rust color on the weapons. I painted the horns, nails and backflap with P3 Bone Jack (and a Menoth White Highlight). At this point I decided to repeat the streaking grime trick I used with the two Hell Pit Abominations. It is a wonderful trick to add a lot of believable contrast to a large model like this. After removing the nightmare brown gunk the deamon was looking so cool, I couldn't stop painting. 

A gaggle of daemons, or should that be a murder of daemons? Whatever I should call it, I am quite happy with this lot in my collection. 

Most of the rest of the work consisted of adding some pink skin tone to tentacles flapping about, highlighting bits of the horns and painting the Nurglings (I kept these blue tacked to a popsicle stick). I  painted all the Nurglings with skin tones and washed them with Reikland Flesh Shade. Then I used Plaguebearer Contrast Paint on a couple to make them a bit more greenish/yellow. After adding a bit more (mat) varnish to keep all the paint in place, I added Tamiya Clear Red to all the nasty tears and wounds in the skin. I finished by painting the sculpted smoke effects white, then adding a fat layer of Vallejo Fluo Green to it. I washed this with Biel-Tan Shade. And there I was, a bit later in the evening than intended, but with a Greater Daemon from sprue to finished in a single day. I'm quite satisfied with that :).