The Unforgotten – Part 6

The Nurglings are done!

How time flies eh? Back in January 2015 I set out to paint four bases of Nurglings, with a few more to assemble at a later date. The first three I rattled through in a mere few days. As for the fourth, well they’ve only just come bouncing off the painting desk now.

As ever thanks for this minor victory over the unpainted masses rests with Azazel, the man behind the Neglected Model May challenge. Anyone who’s been keeping track of my progress will know that, with just under a week of May left to go, I’ve got only one model from my initial bold pledge still to paint, the Ogren banner bearer. That said I also need to get some rats finished for my Skaven over the next few days as well – no rest for the wicked indeed!

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The Unforgotten – Part 1

Azazel and his monthly challenges strike again! For those not in the know fellow blogger and hobbyist Azazel has been setting himself, and anyone else who fancies joining in, a different challenge every month of 2018. Some I’ve taken a shot at, some I’ve let pass by, but this one has me very interested indeed. Azazel has called for May to be Neglected Model Month – a chance to clear our desks of that miniature that’s been sitting half-finished and gathering dust for far too long (Azazel suggests six months as a minimum – sadly I’m sure I’m not alone in having a few contenders that are much, much more neglected than that!)

Something I’ve been wondering about since I decided to take on this challenge is why some models end up becoming neglected. I’m not thinking about spur of the moment purchases that end up looking less appealing after a day or two but well loved models that grab your enthusiasm and then, as the paint goes down, your interest wanes. It’s hard to put my finger on exactly why this happens, and perhaps that’s because the specifics will differ from model to model, but ultimately you end up putting the model down and never picking it up again.

Once this has happened the problem becomes self perpetuating. Life beyond the hobby is often busy and stressful and we turn to our collections of models for pleasure, not for more work. A neglected model however hardly conjures up good feelings, we feel ashamed of them, guilty that we’ve not been more diligent in painting them, irritated to see them still sitting on the painting desk. No wonder we don’t rush to pick them up at the end of a long and difficult day, who wants more bad feelings in their lives? So we grab the new thing that we’re excited by and crack on with painting it instead and the neglected model continues to gather dust. Now in spite of our tendency as hobbyists to ascribe personality and spirit to our models, and to treat them as little household gods, a more materialistic outlook would insist that these are just little lumps of plastic or metal which, although artfully sculpted, don’t feel particularly bothered one way or another if they have an outer layer of brightly coloured plastic applied to them in semi-liquid form. My models don’t care if they’re painted or not but I do, it matters to me, and it upsets me slightly to see them unfinished. In this regard Azazel has done me a great favour by setting this challenge and encouraging me to get to work painting up some of those incomplete models once and for all.

Thus instead of taking on just one neglected model I’ve dug out a whole pile. Here’s what I’m hoping to have finished by the end of May.

Let’s take a look at them individually.

I tackled this Bloat Drone as part of DreadTober last year. By the later part of the month it was almost done, I was happy with it, and I didn’t want to rush it to meet someone else’s deadline. Why not just take my time and enjoy it, I thought. Yet here we are, in May and it hasn’t see a brush stroke since.

Another DreadTober victim, this Helbrute with flails was first built in 2014 – then took a whole year to get painted. By the time Dreadtober 2017 rolled around however he was looking distinctly worse for wear and in need of some repairs. Did he get them? Did he hell!

These fleshhounds are so neglected that one of them has gone into hiding. In theory I own a squad of five but when it came to setting up this group shot I could only lay my hands on four. Never mind, as soon as I find the fifth he’ll join his pack. I got them a few years ago now as a gift from a colleague for looking after his dog whilst he was on holiday (see what he did there?). We weren’t terribly close mates even then (although I always got on well with the dog) but since then he started acting more and more like a recalcitrant ass at work and generally went out of his way to make everyone’s lives tough. The result; I never did sit down and finish painting his hounds. It’s not their fault they were purchased by a tool though – they just want to devour souls for their master Khorne.

Also rather a fan of Khorne is this ogren berserker. The blood god’s favour will be a long time coming however if he doesn’t get properly painted – the Taker of Skulls may not care from whence the blood flows but he takes a dim view of anyone who doesn’t take the time to finish painting his banner.

I started working on these nurglings at the same time as the others, back in January 2015. Look at their happy faces? How can I have failed to show them love for so long?

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So there we have it, my challenge to myself for the next few weeks. My thanks once again to Azazel for coming up with this challenge and of course, best of luck to everyone else who’s taking part. Your models may not thank you for it per se but you’ll be happier once they’re done.

One With The Flies – Part 3

For my third set of Nurglings I wanted to use some of the fun little characters that often get a little lost in larger swarms. I also wanted to create a little scene that tied in with the character of the models themselves. Reading the background for the Nurglings in the codex I was reminded that they like to present gifts of dead animals, bones, fungi and so on to the more powerful daemons in the hope of gaining their attention and approval. The perfect place to do this, I reasoned, would be a Nurgling sized shrine which the little beasts would gather protectively around.

Here’s the whole swarm (as usual clicking makes it bigger).For now I’m moving on to other projects but as they’ve been so much fun you can rest assured you’ll see more of these little imps at some point.

One With The Flies – Part 2

Did I not promise you more Nurglings? Did you truly doubt my beneficence? Then doubt no more!

I’m really getting into painting these little guys. As you’ll probably have noticed if you’re familiar with the kit I’ve not used both ‘stacks’ of Nurglings something which – although it makes each individual model smaller, makes for a larger and more impressive squad overall. It also lets you see all the individual Nurglings, revealing that each one is very much a character with a little bit of personality all of its own. The designers have clearly poured a lot of love into this element of the kit – yet its something that’s lost if assembled as intended.

At the moment there’s just one more on the painting desk but they’ve been such a fun little bit of post holiday entertainment I’m sure I’ll come back to them before long.

One With The Flies – Part 1

Happy New Year all! Let’s get 2016 rolling with some cheeky little Nurglings.

And of course – as is always the case with Nurglings – wherever you see one you know that there will be plenty more nearby…

Realm of Plagues – Part 2

In my last post I showed the Nurgle terminator that had grown (slowly) out of a combination of loyalist and Putrid Blightking bits, helped along by my ongoing exploration of greenstuff. I actually prefer using loyalist terminator parts for Nurgle models as they’re rather less ostentatious than the chaos models and for Nurgle bare ceramite and rust is the only way to go!

Anyway I didn’t want him to get lonely by himself so I threw together a couple more Nurgly terminators. See what you think – but keep in mind its very early days for these two, and you know how long it took me to finish off the last one.

First of all here’s the squad’s champion.

Part of me wonders what’s going on inside that armour? Has he been blessed with the face of a Nurgling – or is he long dead and one – or more – of the little pox-mites are animating the corpse? Are we in fact seeing one of them peaking out through the front of the armour to see what’s going on? I think I’d rather not know…

We also have this chap, who carries the squads beloved Icon of Despair in the hopes that Grandfather Nurgle will rain his benevolence upon him and his brothers.

If anything he’s got even further to go than the champion – especially when it comes to building up the greenstuff around what is currently a rather waspish waste. As ever your thoughts are appreciated on both of them so if you have any feedback or suggestions I’d be glad to see them.

Your Poison Throne

Continuing the Nurgle theme from last week, this post sees the return to realspace of Slatherbile the Indestructible, slithering back out of the warp to take command of his master’s putrescent servants.Not the most groundbreaking of conversions this but one I’ve yet to see fail. The addition of the Plaguebearer champion’s head to the body of the Nurgle Chaos Lord creates a Herald of Nurgle that is both wracked with disease and obvious decomposition and at the same time looks corpulent and “in-charge” when standing alongside the shambling plaguebearers.
His name plays deliberately to the pomposity inherent in all daemons. Slatherbile must be, amongst other things, an orator, stage-manager, caravan leader and tallyman, encapsulating the spirit of energetic endeavour and motivation that separates Nurgle’s senior daemons from the feverish exuberance of the rank and file.

It’s safe to assume that anyone calling himself “The Indestructible” holds an opinion of himself that is at least as bloated as his rotund figure. Of course it would be unbefitting for such a distinguished individual to walk amongst the ranks of the great unwashed.
My plan – which I hope I’ve pulled off – was to create a suitably chaotic palanquin for him, combining the key Nurgle elements of rotten wood, rusty metal and vats of virulent toxins, plus the ever-present troop of gleeful Nurglings.