Cast your collective minds back to November last year and you’ll recall this happy looking gentleman; the champion for my squad of Nurgle terminators based on the Putrid Blightkings. He’s been progressing slowly ever since but a few days ago I decided to crack on and actually get him finished. Here’s how he looked last time we saw him:
And here he is now:
And side by side with his sole (current) squadmate:
I have high hopes that I’ll get the icon bearer finished soon as well, and have even started putting together a fourth member of the squad. Watch this space!
June 4th, 2016 at 5:22 pm
He’s so cool! Love it mate – the finished squad will look awesome!
June 5th, 2016 at 12:40 pm
Cheers! I’m hopeful you’re right, trying to use that to inspire me to get them finished 🙂
June 4th, 2016 at 6:14 pm
Look at his adorable Nurgling face! *Squee*
June 5th, 2016 at 12:47 pm
I’ll take that as praise 🙂 With something like Nurgle there can be a danger of delving too far into the horror. Much more than the other gods he needs a bit of light relief to offset all the guts/rotting corpses/etc. I wanted to bring that bit of Nurgle cheer back in to balance out the rest of the squad, and by making it the face of the squad’s champion I could really put it in the spotlight, allowing me to make things as grim as I wanted everywhere else.
June 5th, 2016 at 3:51 pm
Do! I usually find Nurgle really hard to get into. I much prefer the others, especially Tzeentch 😉 I can handle all the skulls and blood that Khorne chucks around, and as for Slaanesh, well, I’m sure there are about a million jokes you could make about handling all those tits 😛 But with Nurgle its all about the gross, which is just… gross. The nurgling side of him seems weirdly appealling though, kinda jolly! It gives all the gross some context that makes it a bit more impressive and less yuck 🙂
June 5th, 2016 at 6:54 pm
Precisely – without the jolly elements Nurgle becomes almost bland. All the character comes from those cheerful elements, without them it’s just gross-out horror, which over a large collection of models becomes rather drab once it’s lost its shock value. Every Nurgle model you see has its guts hanging out so it’s got no punch any more. The fact that they look happy about it makes it creepy all over again though. It also plays nicely into the philosophy of the faction. They know their fate and have embraced it. Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow (or even later today) we rot. It also leads to an interesting friction between Nurgle and Tzeentch. Nurgle is predicated around the idea that you cannot change your destiny, rich or poor, weak or strong, we all die and rot. Tzeentch relies on hope, the idea that no matter how desperate things might be you can change your fate. Nurgle says ‘all men must die’, Tzeentch says ‘but not today’.
June 4th, 2016 at 7:43 pm
I’ll be the first to admit that I wasn’t quite sold on the WIP version, mostly because that face is just a bit too jolly for my taste 😉 That being said, you’ve really managed to change my mind, as the paintjob just brings it all together very well. And that grille you’ve added to the breastplate provides the perfect extra bit of 40k-tech. Excellent work on this chap!
June 5th, 2016 at 12:41 pm
Truth be told there was a while there where that happy face was the only bit of the model I did like! 😉 I liked the bare ceramite in theory but in practice it was just too bare, it wasn’t until I added the grill on his chest that it all started to come together again. Glad I managed to change your mind 🙂
June 4th, 2016 at 10:18 pm
Whoa! One of your best Id say. I love the bits of rust and the crazed look in his face. He looks ecstatic at the thought of an oncoming bloody battle. I like the remnants of battle on the base too.
June 5th, 2016 at 12:52 pm
Cheers mate! He’s a happy dude isn’t he? He knows that no matter what happens Nurgle always wins in the end 😉
June 5th, 2016 at 8:23 pm
Awesome piece! Great sculpting on the torso. The colour scheme keeps on rocking too, great stuff 🙂
August 5th, 2016 at 6:03 am
Cheers! I’ll admit there were moments I wasn’t too sure about the torso but I think adding the grill sorted it in the end. Glad you like him (and apologies for the delay in replying – not sure how I managed to overlook this for two whole months!)
August 4th, 2016 at 1:18 pm
That’s how you do it, I love his smiling nasty face 😀
August 5th, 2016 at 5:58 am
Thanks very much! I’ve always liked the carnival aspect of Nurgle, the celebration of life soon to pass rather than the bemoaning of inevitable death, and I find it helps to counterbalance the more horrifying and gory side of the models. Glad you like him 🙂
August 6th, 2016 at 2:43 pm
Have you ever played Mordheim? I’d love to see a Carnival of Chaos warband converted and painted like your termies.
August 7th, 2016 at 9:22 am
Never played it but, like Inq28, there’s a definite appeal to the idea of small heavily converted and personalised warbands that draws me to it so we’ll have to see… 🙂
November 19th, 2016 at 7:07 pm
[…] the completion of the champion for my squad of Nurgle worshipping terminators I decided to strike whilst the iron was hot and get the squad’s icon bearer finished off as well. […]