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Angels Of Disease - Nurgle Daemons WIP (Aug 1 - more colour stuff)

18K views 83 replies 25 participants last post by  yanlou 
#1 ·
Well, I think I've finally got to the stage where I can legitimately say I have a second army on the go. Oddly enough it's Nurgle (bit of a departure for me, I know) but instead of the armoured miscreants of the Fourteenth Legion this time the spotlight is on the purely Daemonic followers of great Father Nurgle. I've had the idea simmering in the back of my mind to make a Nurgle Daemons army ever since Codex: Chaos Daemons came out, but literally in the last two weeks or so the inspiration has hit me hard and I figured it was time to just go ahead and start work on it.


First off, HQ - I've had a Great Unclean One assembled for a while, and added a few little touches to customise him somewhat including a toothed maw on his giant plaguesword:

...and expanding his torn, bloated gut so he has somewhat less of a melon-shaped torso and drags directly along the ground more, to better give an impression of weight; I'm also considering adding a big monocerotic horn to him, since that's such an iconic Nurgle feature. Here he is in his current state, based and basecoated:


I actually like the colours on the back of the model's own box:

...and will be using this as the guide to my own colour scheme by and large, with some small variations. Here's another shot, showing more of the work on the belly area, extending it down to the ground over a greater area and adding more torn skin with innards peeking through:

I'm hoping that the extra work I did on his belly is sufficiently well blended in that you wouldn't even know something had been done there unless you saw it next to an out-of-the-box Great Unclean One; as always, a good conversion shouldn't look like a conversion at all. There will also be at least one Nurgling added to his base, sitting on the rock to his right...and is it wrong that every time I think of Nurglings now, I hear the ...?*


I have Epidemius sitting in his box ready for assemblage, so I'll probably do what I always do with a new model I've not used before; which is blu-tack him together and then stare at him for a bit to work out what if anything to do to the model to make it a little more individual. For the Heavy Support Daemon Princes I'm planning to use two of the Daemon Prince Of Nurgle models, since once you get past (i.e. replace) the DUURRRR! heads there's a ton of really nice detail on those guys.


Now Plaguebearers are obviously the bread and butter of any Nurgle Daemons army, and the Angels Of Disease will be no exception. I've already touched on the customisation I've done on the Plaguebearers to make them more unique in the Death Guard thread but I figure that bears repeating here since this is what that work now has the most bearing on. I added a cyclopean eye to every model, both to give them more immediate character on the table and also to make them more correct fluff-wise:

Eyes are very important on any model with an exposed head, as they're the main point of contact character-wise; the eyes on the current Plaguebearer models are often very small, and sometimes very odd shapes, so I much prefer them with a nice big eye like this.

I've also added some rotting guts oozing out, replaced most of the weapons with more convincing and individual-looking items than the rather odd triangular things they come with out of the box, and in some cases thickened up the legs a little where I found them to be too weedy and spindly-looking; here's the initial test squad of 5 Plaguebearers pre-painting:


Here's the colour scheme they've had for the best part of two years, which I've grown more and more dissatisfied with as time has gone on (see the Death Guard thread for more on the in-progress revamping of pretty much everything to do with my painting):


I wanted to use a much earthier and richer palette on them, much like that on the Great Unclean One, so here's the paint test model for the Plaguebearers in his current basecoated state:

The pic itself is a little dark, for some reason, but straight away you can see that he's a lot earthier and more solid-looking, where the old paint scheme was kind of porcelain-like. If you see what I mean. Here he is next to the Great Unclean One to show the unity of the scheme:

Since a Plaguebearer is a lot smaller than a Great Unclean One it will get less light and therefore run the risk of coming out darker for a given set of colours, so I may make them one step lighter colour-wise to allow for that. I'm varying the foundation colour across the model since I want the basic skin tone to vary like the Great Unclean One's colour scheme; I figure that'll make the Plaguebearers a lot more interesting as a unit when there's 7 of them all with individual patterns of markings on their hide.

More - as I've been saying for over 3 years with my Death Guard, and will now have to start getting used to saying with these guys - when I have it :)




* Seriously. I actually have this mental image of happy little Nurglings cavorting around to that song. I may need professional help...
 
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#5 ·
first off...

took you long enough.

second off, and this ones gunna probably be a foot in mouth, but dont most people start new armies to get a change from their main one? your still doing nurgle... :p XD

being serious now though, great work as always. makes me wana throw up, in a good way.
 
#11 ·
Update time...this army's going to progress in a vastly more organised fashion than the ever-growing horde that is Pandemic since, rather than using the 'ooh! Shiny!' approach to building models & units that has characterised Pandemic's chaotic growth, I've actually nailed myself down to working out a specific 1,000-point list and building that. And yes, I'm anal enough to have made a tick-them-off sheet for the building process :)

So...the latest additions are the final two Plaguebearers to make up the first Troops squad of 7. In addition to exposed hanging guts, this guy has the ornate sword from the old-school metal Chaos Lord (or possibly Sorceror, not sure right now), sharpened via judicious filing to make it look more credibly dangerous:


And this guy's had his left arm cut off and re-posed much lower, with a club from the Ogre Battalion sprue replacing the original triangular sword:


I figure the more variety in the Plaguebearers' weapons, the better. I used two pieces of armature wire to attach the arm for a more secure joint; it was fun to sculpt the flesh around the re-positioned arm, giving the idea of an exposed humerus with rotting flesh peeling off around it. Should be fun to paint :)


I also made up the bases for the Nurglings, which was interesting as I've never made any Swarm beasties before...


Note the use of at least 3 different eras of Nurgling model here; thanks to the miracle of eBay I've managed to get my mitts upon several old-school Nurgling models, and it seemed a good plan to mix them all up for more variety.


And since it's been a pretty tough week in work this week, I succumbed to the lure of retail therapy and treated myself to these guys:


The plan is, since Beasts of Nurgle are apparently a bit rubbish, to build them up as Plague Riders (I also bought the Plague Rider Plaguebearer models) using the Bloodcrusher rules to give bigger builds of the army a little more punch.


As always, more when I have it...
 
#14 ·
Looking awesome as usual Svart! I am with Dave about the weapon swaps, they really make the models look 10x better. The additions you have made to the eyes really just make that feature stand out so much better. Keep 'em coming!
 
#15 ·
A brief update once again...I have discovered that I am a very slow painter, or at least it certainly seems that way to me. Here's the first Plaguebearer squad, based and undercoated:

Early days yet, colour-wise, but this should give you some idea of where I'm aiming in terms of the overall look and feel. I also replaced the Ogre club on the arm-replacement model with a curved dagger for that "I'm gonna stab you in the guts" look - it just seemed to suit the pose better. The club will be appearing on another model, though, as it's too nice not to use.


And some of the Nurglings, also based and basecoated:

Rather than use the variegated 'animal hide' look that I'm using on the Plaguebearers (inspired by the sight of a piebald horse while watching 'Game Of Thrones', in fact), I'm using one single base colour on each Nurgling to give each one its own hue. I want to see how much I can do with washes alone, as trying to do full paint schemes for each individual Nurgling would be a lot of work and I've seen people get great results with just one or two basic paint colours and the rest done with washes.


This, by the way, is the 1,000-point list I'm building - a basic Tally list to get me started on the path of Daemons armies:


HQ
• Great Unclean One
– Breath of Chaos
190 points
• Epidemius, the Tallyman of Nurgle
110 points

TROOPS
• 7 Plaguebearers

105 points
• 7 Plaguebearers
105 points
• 7 Plaguebearers
105 points
• 5 Nurglings
65 points

HEAVY SUPPORT
• Daemon Prince
- Mark of Nurgle, Iron Hide, Daemonic Gaze
160 points
• Daemon Prince - Mark of Nurgle, Iron Hide, Daemonic Gaze
160 points

TOTAL:
1,000 points

Nothing too fancy, but should be a serviceable list to get me going. I think I (finally) worked out yesterday how I want to do the leg armour on my Obliterators, however, so the next update may well be back in the realm of Pandemic...
 
#17 ·
Brief update - doing two armies at once is proving more difficult than I'd thought, but fun too (since it gives you a greater variety of subject matter, and thereby makes it easier to find something relevant to whatever mood you may happen to be in). Here are the first four members of Plaguebearer Squad 2, converted and ready for basing & painting:


I love the spiky Orc club on the guy on the right. Once the next three are done it'll be basing & painting time again; then on Saturday I'll be acquiring a couple of Finecast Daemon Princes of Nurgle to be the Heavy Support contingent for the army, since being in resin will make those models a hell of a lot easier to convert :)

As always, more when I have it...
 
#21 ·
Here are the three Plaguebearers to complete Squad Two, with the models from the Plaguebearer Command box making an appearance:


Detail shots of each (for some reason the relief of the GS work shows up more clearly and sharply without the flash, even though I prefer the overall light balance with the flash. Sigh. I suck at photography):

On the Bellringer I tried a bell at the back of the original pair first of all, but it didn't look right and was barely visible from the front, so I just sculpted one hanging down from inside the largest one; I still like the skull-on-a-stick beater for the bells, which should look nice as a character detail when painted (it'll be a solid brass skull since using an actual skull to hit metal bells with would be dumb as it'd shatter almost immediately, and you'd have to keep replacing it with a new one).

The really anal thing is that if you look closely you can see that the bell I sculpted in has pretty much half the volume of the large one, making it sound an octave higher...and the one at the back is about half way between the two, for the tritone. So he hits the middle one first, then the small one at the bottom and then the middle one at the back to make the Black Sabbath riff. Yes, I actually worked that out. And yes, I get that attached to my fluff :p

And the standard/icon bearer:

I guess they put the Undivided icon on the model since the Plaguebearer Command box came out with the Chaos Daemons army release to use with Daemons armies as a whole, not just Nurgle ones; but this is a pure Nurgle army so the Nurgle icon was the one I wanted, and a bit of cutting and pinning later this was the result. Note the long scaled finger of the original model, extended into a snake-like appendage curling up and around the pole before sticking out through to top; and this seemed like a good place for the Ogre club to re-appear.

And now a group shot of Squad Two:


I may well start on Epidemius next, since I've been putting him off as a multi-part metal model that's almost certainly going to be a pain in the arse to assemble; sadly no sign of a Finecast Epidemius, or I'd have sold this one on Ebay and bought a Finecast one just for ease of assembly. Oh well, I'll almost certainly make a few customising touches to him, too, so I guess it's time to break out the pinning wire - I have a feeling he's going to need as much pinning as the Great Unclean One did...



As always, more when I have it.
 
#23 ·
I still like the skull-on-a-stick beater for the bells, which should look nice as a character detail when painted (it'll be a solid brass skull since using an actual skull to hit metal bells with would be dumb as it'd shatter almost immediately, and you'd have to keep replacing it with a new one).
It could be the reason for the incursion: "we need 200 more skulls to keep the bell ringing."


So he hits the middle one first, then the small one at the bottom and then the middle one at the back to make the Black Sabbath riff.
That is definitely chortle-worthy.
 
#22 ·
Wonderful sculpting work Svart! I am jealous of your Plague Bearers and wish that I had a couple of them for my own daemon army, especially the command. Keep up the good work man!
 
#25 ·
...this has made me realise that my idea of a Nurgle Daemons army is a bad idea.
Damn, how come? I was sort of hoping it might inspire people to do more Nurgle, not less...
 
#27 ·
amazing nurgle work as usual Svart.

a tad off topic: tell GW to make blaster kits for DE!

ahem, as i was saying, your nurgley goodness does papa nurgle proud
 
#31 ·
I plan on using the worthless shredders + blast pistols from multiple boxes to make a kind of "custom" blaster for my trueborn squad, and using the normal blasters for my warriors.
 
#33 ·
Svart, you are disgusting and you make me sick. Win.
I have to admit that your comment bout having options for what you work on depending on you mood makes little sense when you only do nurgle.

Angry- khornate models
Whimsical- Tzeentch
Deviate- slaneesh
Sick- nurgle

Or do you have different kinds of sick?

Fine work as usual. I will have to keep an eye on this.
 
#34 ·
I have to admit that your comment about having options for what you work on depending on you mood makes little sense when you only do Nurgle...

...Or do you have different kinds of sick?
Definitely; it's like United Colours of Nurgle. See, to me there's a huge conceptual difference between (say) a Plaguebearer and a Death Guard Terminator; sure, they're both Nurgle-aligned, but one's a pure unadulterated Daemon that has crossed over from the Warp to realspace, and one's a millennia-old post-human who's fallen to the worship of Nurgle (and how just happens to wear a suit of portable tank-like armour). Very different in basic nature, and that defines so much of what their form and detail would be that to me there's a world of difference.

BTW I'm now (after a brief interlude caused by my mother inviting herself up to stay, which pretty much put paid to my ability to concentrate or get anything done) starting work on the third Plaguebearer squad, and I've also been playing with the TubeTool adding bits to the first Daemon Prince. Pics soon hopefully.
 
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