Death Guard WIP: Pandemic

Cadaver · **Rotten Rewards:** 0 Donate

I'm more and more impressed each time I check this thread. Simply amazing work. I can't wait to see this army all finished and painted!

Svartmetall · **Posted:** Fri May 29, 2009 2:56 pm

Between live roleplay events and working on my original sculpts there hasn't been much time to get stuff done on Pandemic, but I got some more done on the Rhino - now with Havoc launcher and pintle-mounted bolter assemblies done, and battle damage added in places:

It's definitely starting to take shape now; next I'll glue the top on and add any GS bits that need to stretch or intertwine between that and the sides (for example, where there's a hole near the exposed section of track on the right front. I took the combat blade off the twin-linked bolter, since it didn't make any sense to me to have what's basically a bayonet on a weapon that's permanently mounted on top of a vehicle.

I don't want to go too overboard with the battle damage, since even though they're Plague Marines and not too fussed about appearance they'd still repair anything that damaged the structural & defensive integrity of the vehicle (it still has to work after all, dedicated to Father Nurgle or not), but I like the scratched battle damage on the left front. I wanted it to look like they'd been up against 'Nids at some point and something gribbly had been trying to carve its way into the hull...

Detail of the Havoc mounting:

I made an X-shaped assembly of sprue in the hole to mount the launcher onto, then pinned the Havoc assembly to that (figuring it's going to get knocked over or something at some point and so a bit of structural strength would be handy), then built up the organic GS texturing around it. I particularly like the multi-stranded segment of flesh reaching out from inside to wrap around the base of the launcher. I'm looking forward to doing the front panel, since I have what I think could be a nifty idea for a trophy-rack sort of thing there; pics when I have them.

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Animerik · **Posted:** Fri May 29, 2009 3:06 pm

Great stuff mate, having lurked your blog at relic I must say that your army is top notch and following your improvment in gs and paint really makes me wnat to work harder,

you are an inspiration to us!

great stuff keep it comming

Tapeworm · **Posted:** Sat May 30, 2009 6:05 am

The sculpting on this rhino is just brilliant! Have you thought about the edges? I know that I go way over the top when I texture, but the edges (corners) seem to be too clean for a vehicle that has been around a while. I think that some cosmetic stuff (dents and chips) along the edges from hitting and running over things would add a great deal to this model.

Svartmetall · **Posted:** Sat May 30, 2009 12:58 pm


	Tapeworm wrote: Have you thought about the edges? ...the edges (corners) seem to be too clean for a vehicle that has been around a while. I think that some cosmetic stuff (dents and chips) along the edges from hitting and running over things would add a great deal to this model.

You're absolutely right, but I didn't want to start on those until the top was glued on so I could make things look consistent - I want scars and scratches that stretch from the side to the top, so it needs everything to be one solid entity before I can do that properly.

And doing this Rhino has finally gotten my head around doing Nurgle vehicles, so it's really made me contemplate doing a Vindicator next...I have some nifty ideas for how I want my Plague Vindicator to look

nurglephill · **Posted:** Sat May 30, 2009 4:31 pm

Fab Fab Fab...

Can i ask your opinion on something though....would you advocate doing nurgle vehicles in batches like we do with the basic PM? I am thinking (as I am working on a rhino myself right now) that all the time i spend waiting for the glue or GS to dry (or inspiration to hit!) I could be working on another tank. Or do you think they are too big to build this way and you will have a better eye for detial etc if you do it one at a time?

thanks

and super work

oldschoolgamerOo · **Posted:** Fri Jun 05, 2009 11:13 pm

Seeing work like this inspires and depresses me!!! Makes me wanna do better but makes me realize I can never make it look that good. Well done!!!

Svartmetall · **Posted:** Sat Jun 06, 2009 7:53 pm


	nurglephill wrote: ...would you advocate doing nurgle vehicles in batches like we do with the basic PM? I am thinking (as I am working on a rhino myself right now) that all the time i spend waiting for the glue or GS to dry (or inspiration to hit!) I could be working on another tank. Or do you think they are too big to build this way and you will have a better eye for detial etc if you do it one at a time?

It probably depends on how much time you'd have to do more than one vehicle at once; with me, I know I would rather concentrate on one and get it right. That said, this is still only my first Nurgle vehicle - so, now that I know what I'm doing in terms of how to convert them, I could maybe do more than one at once. I'm thinking of doing a Daemonically Possessed Rhino just to give me an opportunity to really go overboard with the Nurgliness on a vehicle, though, since I've kept this one pretty low-fantasy in terms of how nuts I could go so it fits in with the overall 'realistic' feel of the rest of Pandemic

Svartmetall · **Posted:** Tue Jun 09, 2009 11:46 pm

Now, what does any good Chaos vehicle need?

Why, it needs a hood ornament, of course!

It was kind of fiddly threading all the bits onto that very fine chain, but worth it for the final look. The Rhino's pretty much done, now, I just need to attach the rear door and that's it. It does feel nice to have finally wrapped my head around how to Nurglify a vehicle in a way that I'm happy with, and getting this one done means doing the rest will be a lot simpler since I'll already have a template to work from.

Since I was already working on a couple of original scratchbuilt models, it seemed a good moment to have a crack at something I've fancied making for a long time - a Herald of Nurgle based on the one from the Chaos Daemons codex; if you read that, on the page about Plaguebearers it goes on about how they are recognisable by their thin wasted frames and bony limbs, and then proceeds to show a drawing of a hulking great Sumo Plaguebearer :D I've always thought the one in the drawing would work well as a Herald of Nurgle (the bigger, tougher and more disgusting Plaguebearer; it is to a normal Plaguebearer pretty much what an Aspiring Champion is to a normal Plague Marine) model, so I've started to make one of those from scratch as well as the other models; here he is at his current very early stage, next to the drawing from the Codex:

I think I'm starting to get the feel for posing armatures now, and I like his businesslike striding-forward-to-eviscerate-you body language. In the background of that shot, you can see the very skinny (and small) armature for the Ghoul design of mine; to give you an idea of scale, the Herald is just slightly taller than a Chaos Terminator.

I've also started work on painting the Possessed Terminator for the painting competition, and will tomorrow be beginning work on the scavenger-worm creature from my original designs.

More when I have it...

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tallmantim · **Posted:** Wed Jun 10, 2009 5:53 am

That looks really nice.

The legs pose looks a little stilted, but I do love that pic and I'm sure with the detail you lavish on your scratch builts it will be brilliant!

Svartmetall · **Posted:** Thu Jun 11, 2009 11:57 pm

Here's how Herbie is coming along...

I dunno why...he just looks like a Herbie to me

Svartmetall · **Posted:** Fri Jun 12, 2009 10:11 pm

And just to prove that I haven't forgotten them, I finally today finished basecoating the 22 new & resurrected Plague Marines; it's amazing how much time even plain basecoating can take when you have a lot of highly-detailed figures to do. 3 of the ones in the front row in the first picture are further along in the painting stages than the others, but rather than just do those and leave the rest plain undercoat I figured I wanted to get them all at least basecoated just as a psychological step:

Now you can see the conversion work beginning to sit properly with the original figures; even at this early stage I think they'll be a force to be reckoned with once finished. Nurgle alone knows when I'll have time to completely paint all 22 of them, but at least now - unlike when I was desperately using literally every waking moment not in work to paint things for the WHW deadline - I can chill out a bit and do them in lots of maybe 3 at a time, which is considerably more relaxed.

Svartmetall · **Posted:** Sun Jun 14, 2009 5:38 pm

Here's Herbie with new and improved moobs, a smoother and slightly bigger eye, a section of spine added to his back (which will be visible poking through the final skin texture), better leg proportions and some really tiny teeth:

It's probably not clear from the pics, and there's obviously a long way to go yet, but in the flesh he's now starting to feel like a recognisable version of the one from the original art...

...I think I'm finally getting over my mental block about scratchbuilt figures. Which is nice.

tallmantim · **Posted:** Mon Jun 15, 2009 12:29 am

Your plaguebearer is looking very tasty!

Nice one.

nurglephill · **Posted:** Mon Jun 15, 2009 2:36 pm

superb stuff sir. keep it up

Death Guard WIP: Pandemic

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