Been a while since my last offering to father nurgle, but I have decided to make a start on my golden daemon entry; Ku’gath Plaguefather (for warhammer).
To start with (my main reason for posting), I have started converting my GUO into a sitting position. Hacking apart the lower model has been easy enough, but I have hit a problem. The stumpy little legs the model has means that when he is in a sitting position they look a bit small…
Do you think I would be better to just sculpt some new ones? Or try and extend them? Or just leave them as they are?
I am an accomplished sculpter, so suggest whatever would be the most effective.
I have tried to find suitable inspiration models, but without much luck. I’m going to have to sculpt all the nurglings underneath mainly as I don’t want to buy Epidemius just to use the nurglings as a base, but also because they would be too small already anyway (40mm to 50mm).
A few other things I’m struggling with are how best to represent his extra equipment. Not that I own it ( ), but the Chaos Daemons description includes things like; brazier, alembics, sieve, distiller and pipes. This is much more detailed than the DoC description, if I went with that would it look out of place in WH?
If anyone wants to type up the exact description from Chaos Daemons codex and pm it to me it would be much appreciated (or scan and I’ll pm you my email address) I wouldn’t need all the extra fluff, just what he looks like.
On another note, as I’m using the GUO body I’m not sure what to do in the way of a weapon? The raised arm would make sense as the one chucking the nurgling, but would it look right putting a weapon in the other hand? What weapon should I do?
I’ve drilled some holes ready for the nurgling infestation, I thought I’d do the old ‘stretched PVA’ for the slime trail.
Theres probably no way around sculpting new legs, as he is riding on a giant palanquin.
To be honest, I would probably just resculpt the lower half of his body, in order to get a more reclined pose, plus you could make him fatter. No GUO can ever be too fat! :cheers
What are you doing about the palanquin? I think this will decide what his legs will look like and what you should do.
The raised arm with a fistful of Nurglings would look awesome Maybe even try and have one slipping out of his hand, connected to the hand by a trail of slime? Would give the model some extra movement.
I reckon if you changed the angle of his other hand slightly, it would look fine holding maybe a mace or a rusted sceptre? Or you could just keep the chains from the original model. Or maybe give him a book of plagues?
Concerning the palanquin’s extra paraphenalia, you could go absolutely mental
That cage from the plastic giant springs to mind: some poor unfortunate waiting to be added to the mix. Epidemius has some cool looking stuff on his palanquin. Even if you don’t get him, maybe use him for inspiration. I would suggest Plague Monks, Flagellants or Zombies (maybe Corpse Cart too) for bells, braziers and the like (I have no idea if you own any of these kits of course, just spamming ideas). The Ogre plastics have a fair few oddball bits like Gnoblars carrying bags of garbage and body parts, maybe they could be altered too?
As a sidenote, I always fancied doing a GUO holding some poor guy up, dangling him inches above his open mouth about to swallow him whole (huuuge mouth agape, horrible tongue etc). Maybe something else to go on.
I actually have most of those sprues… I’ve spent too much on WH I know.
The body looks in a fairly natural pose so far, and resulpting the whole lower half would be a lot of work when it already looks ok. I think I will completely finish the base before deciding on his legs.
The palanquin I’m making using the 60mm circle base the model comes with. I plan to take some photos on sunday, so you can see how it’s going so far. 60mm is plenty of space to do anything I want!
I’ve just sculpted my first nurgling, it came out well, though if I want to make it look more natural I will need to have some with their arms sculpted away from the body (on a piece of wire). That was something I didn’t like about the epidemius ones, their faces are also very different to all the previous nurgling models.
Something I have been playing around as an idea is sculpting a Dwarf plaguebearer or two to push the palanquin at the back. I know that Dwarfs are highly resistant to magic, but pushing round a GUO for all eternity inside the realm of chaos is bound to bring them down in the end.
I have two ideas for how best to do the weapon; either I stick it on his palanquin, probably with a sack of nurglings ontop, or I have a line of nurglings carrying it along on a scenic base. I think having him doing something else with the non throwing arm would look better than carrying a sword.
I now have the Ku’gath fluff thanks to a generous donation!
Here are the first pics. I’ve decided to complete the base before I start on Ku’gath.
First we have the palanquin base thing, made from an upturned 60mm round base, with circles cut out and a dimple effect sculpted with a pencil. I hope you like the nurglings, consider all of them WIP.
Next we have my attempt at a Dwarf Plaguebearer. I know fluffwise Dwarfs are supposed to be highly resistant to magic, but I figured it would be a cool play on this guy’s fluff to have a few mutant dwarfs pushing him around. Do you think he should have a beard? I was thinking on the other one he would have a cthulhu style tentacle beard, so this one could have a regular hairy one for variety?
You can see on the base pics I’ve tried to give momentum by putting it towards the front of the base, I’m also trying to have the general profile of the nurglings part like a wave. The arms of the nurglings will hopefully all make it look like it’s actually moving, and I left space on the back for my dwarfs.
IMO, if you don’t have beard on the mini how will people know it’s supposed to be a dwarf?
Now, if I had the skill I’d go with lots of tentacles ala Chuthulu for most of them, but one should have hair, and maybe someother Dwarf accutrements to emphsize where these lads came from or are in parody of.
You can tell it’s not a human sized PB, but I agree there is a difference between him being a very short PB and being a dwarf.
I might go with a tentacle beard on the next one and see how it looks. There would be room for me to do 3 of these guys on the back, would that be better than just 2?
I’ve been working on this a fair bit in the last couple of days (and my Tzeentch lord, but that one can wait until I’ve done more).
I finally decided on the pose for the legs! He’d got one leg bent close to the body infront, and the other one stretched out more. Looks a little like he’s putting his (considerable) weight behind the throw. I’m just about to start sculpting the bulk of the meaty parts of the legs. At the moment he looks like a bloated frog!
I think I will need to make his arms thicker, and I may need to make him fatter as well.
A small update with some pics of the beast! This is proving a challenge, but sculpting diseased flesh seems to be coming to me naturally…
I need to go back over many areas exaggerating the height differences and adding in loads of small details like worms and pustules. The face I will need to do more work on the upper lip and do the second tongue (also sculpting the back of the head and the horns).
Do you think he looks a little too happy? I wanted to get that evil grin from the 40k version, but it’s hard to do too much to that head without completely resculpting it. I think making the head wider and adding the horns will help a lot.
Although I didn’t take a shot from that side, he will be sitting so his outstretched leg is past the normal centre line for that model, so it will look like he’s twisting and putting his bodyweight behind the shot. That’s as good as I could make it as I couldn’t twist the upper body for obvious reasons. Anyhow, on the other side you can see I’ve positioned the head so I can sculpt a neck! :o Yes, a neck on a GUO!
I also need to do more to the more finished leg to make sure it sits better. I might add a layer of greenstuff underneath the whole model when I’m done to glue him to the palanquin and make him sit better.
Maybe even try and have one slipping out of his hand, connected to the hand by a trail of slime? Would give the model some extra movement.
