Aleksandr Kurganov, Krell, and the most disturbing gnome...

 Aleksandr Kurganov, Chief Commander of the KST.  This is a massive, and heavy, model.  I chose the metal version for this one and it plunks down on the tabletop with authoriTAY!

Shown with a Nurgle Terminator and Assault Marine for comparison.  I like that he is shorter than the Space Marines but still imposing.

 I split the difference on positioning on the base.  The left foot overhangs the base a bit but shifting him too much farther over and the cloak would have become a weapon in it's own right!

He's on a 40mm beveled base like the Terminator and is pretty stable on that.  I went with a Grey and Red scheme to fit in with some incoming Inquisition troops that I'll be working into the campaign fluff.

 This cape has a lot of room for silliness.  I did some stark shading but decided against freehand for the moment... I'm kind of torn between inventing a House Kurgan Sigil and waiting to see what Raging Heroes comes up with in that regard.

 Reaper Bones I Kickstarter.   I really just signed up for everything with the idea that I'd be using it to fill out a long neglected FRPG collection as my interest in Tabletop Roleplaying was perking up. 

In one random bag that I pulled out of the massive Kickstarter box was this... Gnome... pleasure cultist?  ... Inquisitor?

In spite of being perhaps the most disturbing Gnome miniature I've ever seen it was a lot of fun to paint and gave me a few ideas for story lines... I was a bit inspired by the Penny Dreadful character with the outrageous and, I assure you , completely natural..... hair! 

 Yeah... chaps!  pimpled, warty, gnome buttocks... oh my!

It did get a Slaanesh-esque sigil on the hood but otherwise but otherwise a plain utilitarian purple color.  I thought about designs and stripes but thought they might obfuscate how outrageous the miniature really was.










The Gnome spending some quality time with Warlord Krell...

Krell is still missing his back banner and is on a round lipped base instead of his original square one.  I think both of these minis are being added to the pile of stuff for Carnevale. 

Have fun and beware of gnomes in chaps!

Forge World Great Unclean One Step by Step

The last of the Contagion Salvage Project group that I picked up second hand a few months back.  I've been coveting this model for years and just never worked it into my purchase plan.  I thought I'd do a walk through of how this guy painted up.

For the initial color blocks I painted all the flesh areas with Vallejo medium Flesh and dry brushed with Vallejo Flat Flesh.  The sores, tongue, and open wound areas were base coated with Vallejo Rosa and highlighted with Vallejo Salmon Rose.  I used GW leviathan Purple inside the mouth to vary it a bit and add depth to the gullet. The gums got a glaze of Vallejo Salmon Rose highlights to tease them out a bit.

 The wounds were then treated with a Dried Blood Wash from Secret Weapon then layer highlighted with Vallejo Rosa and Salmon Rose.

 The Skin was more complex.  It was washed with a different color by skin texture,  Warty Patches had Secret Weapon Sewer Water and normal to shredded skin with Secret Weapon Flesh.  Once these were dry upper areas of normal skin were highlighted with Forge World ash powder, crevices with Forge World Medium Earth Powder and green shadows with Forge World Light Green Powder.  These areas were then damp set and the extended shadow areas had GW Ogryn Flesh Wash applied to for blending.

 The Horns and nails were a work up of the Reaper Master Series Khaki triad with a final highlight of P3 Menoth Highlight.

 The sword was also done at this point getting the standard "Blighted Weapon" treatment that the rest of the Contagion has.  Basically Vallejo Brown stippled with the Reaper master Series fire triad.  Some Vallejo Flames of war German Camo brown and German Light Camo Brown with a wash of GW Gryphon Sepia saw off the leather bits.

A little Green Stuff to texture the base to match the rest of the Project painted in reds from the Reaper Master Series Blood and Fire triads and some Secret Weapon Red/Black and Drying Blood layered washes gives the guy some contrast. 

I went with a chariot base for the time being in part because it'll work out for fantasy battle (although really a 100mm square is more appropriate) and mostly because it'll pack easier for the big move back to the states.  I'll likely magnetize the thing and have a fantasy and 40 style base to swap out as needed. 

 I sprayed the whole thing with Army Painter Anti Shine Varnish at this point (the green stuff based figure above) and the spot varnished the eyes, sores, mouth, and red areas with Vallejo Gloss Varnish.

The figure was a lot of fun to paint and should make a suitably disgusting centerpiece for the Contagion or for a Daemon Host.

Raging Heroes mounted Brunhilde

 Its hot!  With no AC handy its been hard to paint but some progress has been made.  The two Brunhildes are finished and ready to join the Mordheim game or make some appearances in Fantasy Battles.

I had a frosting issue with the sealer and had to do some repainting darn this humidity!

 The pair don't sit comfortably next to each other so would be twitchy in a formed unit.  for skirmish games this isn't an issue of course but I think I'll have to make a musician to sit between them or something similar.  Actually the sword position will make them twitchy for forming in general and a specific movement tray/front line figure order will be required.

 The gold was worked up using Reaper Master Series (RMS) ocher gold triad and the blues were a RMS blue triad with the final highlights from Vallejo the reds were the RMS Blood triad except the plume on the standard bearer which was the RMS fire triad.

Below there are some IMEF Marines from the Reaper Bones Kickstarter which I'm experimenting with a friend's Tau color scheme, which is a bit smurf like but also passable for Law enforcement, Starship Crew, or Corp Forces.  The idea is to use them as Human Auxiliaries for the Tau and as police heavies or Corp proving Teams in SF RPGs.  About half of them are toting shotguns which seems appropriate for general purpose crew or explorer types.

You can also see the initial coat for the necrotic fleshy bits on the Nurgle Plague Drone Engines.

Forge World Plague Drone Engines and Raging Heroes Brunhilde Mounted WiPs

 Continuing the Contagion salvage project with a set of four Plague Drone Engines from Forge World.  Three of them were acquired as bare resin but one was a nearly completed model by one of our local painting fiends Ryan P.

This model actually was the one that fired me up to purchase the salvage project pile in the first place.  I've always liked the feel of it and Ryan did a bang up job on it.  I was fortunate enough to get him to drop by and go over some of the techniques and approaches he used on this and I was able to chat with him about some of my ideas for finishing it up and integrating it into the rest of the Contagion.

 I really love the necrotic flesh and the purulent weeping sores.  Armed with Ryan's recipe I'll try to replicate that flesh this week.  I'll also largely replicate the bronze with its great green corrosion but will modify the carapace scheme to have some of the blight marks found on the other models in this collection.  My plan is to paint up the other four into a final state and then do some adjustments to this model to tie it in with them while preserving as much of Ryan's work as possible.

 Most of the unfinished business on this model is weapon and cable highlights and some point source lighting for the plasma chambers of the weapons.  I'll also likely add some Siwa Contagion Heraldry bits.

 Moving back to Mordheim I cracked open a couple of mounted Brunhilde minis from Raging Heroes.  These are challenging to paint mostly because they beg for extra attention!  I've been tinkering with these for a couple of weeks between other projects but will buckle down and make a determined assault on them this week.

 One of the few downsides to this kit is that there is only one, very dynamic, pose for the horse itself.  This prevents me from building a whole elite front line unit from this kit so I'll make do with two rearing command figures.  You can see the rider's legs are molded as part of the horse... its a beautiful piece of design.

Just as I did with the Konigsmarck sisters I've done a rough cobble base while deciding where to go with the Mordheim theme.  

Figures as striking as these really impact the speed at which I can work.  Painting in musculature and managing sharp lettering really slow this old bulk painter down.  I'm loving every minute of it though!

There is still a lot to be done on these before finishing the bases.  Gold/yellow shading and highlighting, heraldry details, scrollwork, lettering, and the leather girding straps are all unfinished.

As is often the case with the Raging Heroes offerings the models come with a couple of different heads.  In this case I'll use the princess head in the "sword and board" configuration as a commander and the plate helmed head as a standard bearer. 

Its going to be a busy week!

Nurgle's Obliterators

 The Siwa Contagion salvage project gets some heavy duty reinforcements today... literally!  These Obliterators are huge chunks of metal that are very heavy and hard to work on.  They continue the Death Guard theme although I've not added anything in the way of Legion Markings... ie.  no flies or triple dots etc...  to the armor itself although there are a lot of three dot recurrences in the mutated flesh.  They also have the same corrupted weapons treatment that marks rest of the Contagion.

The models are both viscerally representative of the madness of the Ruinous Powers and strangely shallow in other regards.  The heads in particular are very difficult to pick out and give depth to.  I almost added some Max-Mini Bio-hazard heads just to make them pop... but ultimately decided to save them for some cultists that are looming over the horizon.  On the whole I like the sculpts but wow are they heavy!  I'm afraid some of the more fiddly plastic weapons that I used to replace missing bits will not endure.

These guys have had massive amounts of green stuff added to them, in the same manner as most of the minis from this project, to cement the Nurgle feel.  Its the sort of a 'Flesh gone Wild' approach that I would normally associate with Tzeentch... except for the fact that Obliterators are inherently of the Carnival of Moving Flesh variety.

The next addition to the Contagion will be a set of Forge World Plague Drones but they'll be in line behind some Raging Heroes fantasy minis and some assorted Witch Hunter style retinue that are primed and ready for the brush.   There is also a small pile of Sigmarite Sisters in process along with a few random Mordheim personalities.

More Morbid Termies, some salvage Obliterators, and Konigsmarck Sisters WiP

 I luvs me sum Nurgle!  For some reason the jolly Lord of Decay is really fun to paint for.  I finished up this second half of Terminator Brotherhood Morbid last night.

This squad, like part one is more moldy and green hued than Squad Typhus which makes them more prone to blending into the base.  To help combat that tendency I made sure not to use much yellow on the Terminators themselves and to make sure that the bases had a yellow glaze. 

These are obviously not painted in the GW style but i think they capture the feel of the fluff and of the concept art in the vein of the concept art of John Blanche... just with less expertise!

I've been experimenting with various ways to portray the corruption of Nurgle which I think about as being different from simple corrosion.  In some cases I'm pretty happy with the results, for example the blade of the power axe, the pinkish areas of really rotten armor, and the grime accumulations in the rim of the shoulder pads. 

The weapons so far in this project have have been platforms to experiment with the corrosion theme. I'm likely to come back to the weapons once the bulk of the painting is complete and add some details to personalize and define them.  They will still retain large areas of plain corruption since they are actually consecrated artifacts and are powerful symbols of the triumph of the Ruinous Powers over the loyal sons of the Emperor.  Fallen Astartes bear their profane weapons with pride and purpose




The great fear I have about painting the followers of Nurgle is that, in my quest to get the right feel of glorious decay, they might turn out to look like litter box foundlings on the tabletop.  So far the Siwa Contagion is doing OK in that regard and the minis look very sharp on the tabletop.




The termies are constructed with Death Guard conversion kits from Forge World.  They have really great atmospherics and sharp detail.  I'm such a junkie for this sort of thing.




As a painter of armies meant to be played, my first goal is to pass the '3 foot test'  If it looks good enough at 3 feet that someone is compelled to pick it up for a closer look it passes.  Of course it helps if it also looks decent once they get picked up!  I also strive to create a coherent that is easily identifiable in terms of WYSIWYG.

 

The next batch of recruits for the Siwa Contagion are six Obliterators.  Here you can see them in the state they arrived in.  A couple of them have large tracts of green-stuff in a similar fashion to the rest of the army.  They will need more of that still as there are some really prominent gaps and parts joins to conceal.  The bases are also either blank or pumice so I'll have to do some work to get them in theme with their compatriots.

That brings me, at long last, to the Konigsmarck sisters from Raging Heroes.  There are three of them (although one suffered from camera fail and was sent back to the dressing room) and a mascot.  I sprayed them black and brushed them up with Bone Jack, Menoth White, and Menoth White Highlight (all from the P3 series) to get a better look at the detail.  Awesome!  very characterful!  There was a lot of great detail and each mini had optional gear which will be handy in equipping the rest of the war band.  Since these photos were taken I've done the sculpting of the cobblestone and debris bases.  I'll get some precast resin bases in that theme for the bulk of the war band but I wanted to get these available for play in our current campaign so...

Chop Chop!  'ere we go!

Plague Marine Icon

The belatedly located Icon Bearer for the second squad of Plague Marines in the Siwa Contagion line up.  Like the rest of the squad it is Death Guard with armor being supernaturally corrupted by extended contact with the Ruinous Powers. 

It is an old metal Plague Marine and the backpack was broken long ago which gave me an opportunity to continue my experimentation with green stuff... so I created an elongated, fleshy, exhaust vent arm to go along with the other goops, fleshy and otherwise, that I'd already inflicted on the model.

The second half of Termie Squad Morbid is coming along and should be finished up in the next two days.  Tonight I'm off to see the Lt Dan Band so I won't get any work done at all!

Next up are the Konigsmarck sisters from Raging Heroes and prep on some Nurgly Obliterators.

Nurgle's Morbid Termies and a pair of Kurganovas

Today I'm looking at Olga and Malinka Kurganova and Terminator Squad Morbid of the Siwa Contagion.

I had a some trouble, and only limited success, with these two Kurganovas.  They are inspiring miniatures that are heroically posed and full of character.  Admiral Olga and her Bulldog Charlie are just dripping with aristocratic disdain and the Jaunty Kommander Malinka is full the arrogant confidence that makes me imagine her as a bold, and fast burning, commando or privateer. 

I worked these up over a black base and was aiming for a cartoon version of weathered and gritty.  I struggled a bit with color schemes as I'd already gone the red route with Ivanka and her Red Caps.  Malinka ended up in a khaki variation and the Kurganova Regulars are likely to be in that vein.  Admiral Olga is a Naval Officer and I went with mustard yellow.  I wanted a light color to contrast with the dark cloak.  Fortunately the naval troops are mainly in the liaison role so I haven't thought much about the enlisted uniforms.  I put these on Secret Weapon bases from the Trenchworks line and plan to continue this theme through the entire HSF.

This approach works pretty well on GW minis since the detail has so many sharp, hard edges and deep recesses.  The Raging Heroes minis, on the other hand, are very subtly sculpted and its less easy to make the sculpt do the painting for you.  On this pair its been a struggle to get anything approaching a clean line and I've not yet got it nailed down.  Its getting there and I remain smitten with the sculpts so I'm just going to have to up my game... and probably the magnification on my glasses.... EVIL RANGE DEPENDENT VISION!  Nothing like not being able to focus on anything closer than two feet as a disad for a mini painter... yeee HAW!

The Siwa Conatgion's second brotherhood of Terminators is lead by a Champion of Nurgle called Morbid.  A veteran of the Death Guard he brought several of his battle brothers with him to the Contagion.

This squad is a little more of a murky green hue than Squad Typhus, which is more bone and brown.  The two basic schemes are similar enough to mix together if I need the flexibility but are different enough to be easily identified as separate squads in a complex melee if fielded as imagined.  The main difference between the squads is the heavy weapon option with Typhus taking Heavy Flamers and Morbid preferring Reaper Cannons.

For this squad I did a heavy brush up of Bone Jack followed by a dry brush of Menoth White (both colors from the P3 range) and washed it with Sewer Water from Secret Weapon.  Highlights were added in using RMS olive highlight.

Corroded areas were done with the brown and red/orange splatter or with a rose flesh through salmon and light flesh work up.

Bases, as they are for all the Contagion, are either MicroArt or are worked up with greenstuff to look similar to the MicroArt bases.