mortem tyrannis: walkers

  ..qui sanat contritos corde, et alligat contritiones eorum
    - Psalmi 146:3

rule of three

As I intimated in the last post, I went a bit crazy in the end of winter, converting up bio-mechanical horrors for my Death Guard project. I decided I wanted to have a trio of dreadnoughts, but wasn't pleased by the idea of them all looking more-or-less the same. Chaos in general - but Nurgle especially - should lend itself to mutability and change. Plus, I'd been staring at moldmoldmold's work way too much, and had some Ideas...

Castraferrum-pattern Dreadnought (corrupted; Death Guard affiliation)

That said, I do like the stock kit, especially this chap from the Assault on Black Reach box. Plus, he was cheap on eBay, being already assembled. Which was a bloody mistake - the pilot really wanted to have been sub-assembled, oh my fucking God.

The sheer expanse of flesh was also quite challenging - not to paint (I think it came out well) but to slog through. In the end, though, it's a lovely sculpt and it was lots of fun. I especially enjoyed drenching the exposed cables in blood as though they were raw and bleeding, although the effect is kinda mid in the end.

Distinguishing between bone, pale flesh, and off-white armour is also not always easy. Here you can see that the armour panels somehow came out slightly differently despite being the exact same technique!

Who doesn't love a mouth-hand?

+ + + ERROR + + + ERROR + + + ERROR + + +

I was worried that I hadn't nailed the intent with this guy, but I have been absolutely blown away by the response to him. He was featured on Goonhammer's Content We Liked and has been shared and liked on Instagram way more than usual. So I guess I nailed it?

He's mostly milliput and half an Age of Sigmar Mirebrute Troggoth, with a Heresy-era twin-linked autocannon from a Contemptor and a missile pod from a Myphitic Blight-hauler (that was covered in milliput!).

The scales on his legs are done the same way as the armour elsewhere in the army (the Stripey White tutorial that's almost lost to time on Bolter and Chainsword - but with some changes), while the fleshier parts were a pale human skin tone. Unfortunately, the distinction isn't as clear after the final white layer, natch.

The intent - like I said, inspired by moldmoldmold - was for something that had overgrown with living fungus balls, swollen and no-longer fully sapient or human in intelligence, but with the rusted-in remnants of his original form (hence the autocannons). Part-way through sculpting, I happened to rewatch Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Keeping the overrun village from the opening scenes in mind helped keep me focused.

The combination of pale organics and dark, tarnished metals delights me. Once I had the specific combinations of rust and metals down, the rest of the piece came together very easily.

I think the missiles are probably conventional, despite the overgrowth, but possibly not...

C0nnn??-t777??-pattern Dreadnought (corrupted; Death Guard affiliation)

Finally, the chap I finished tonight. You can see where (most) of the rest of that Troggoth went, as well as the Blight-hauler. Partly because I'm cheap, but also because I had a vision of a roller-skating troll dreadnought that would not go away and was also hilarious.

In the end, the kitbashing resulted in a figure that looks overgrown and wild, like Chaos sprouting out of control - it would also work for a spawn, probably. My mental vision had the arms slumped, claws dragging along the ground, but my sculpting skills (as you've all seen) aren't quite there yet. The natural pose is pretty close, though, especially combined with rust.

I don't want to talk about how long it took to balance all that together. I'm glad that the gooey paint job helps conceal the mess that went on down there.

The skin and crusted, dried blood-scales were both trying something new. I borrowed the skin technique from Michael Hanns's Gundabad project.  My end result isn't quite the same.

I did Dead Flesh, a thinned Sepia, some Orange in the folds and scars, Dead Flesh > 50/50 Dead Flesh/Elfic Flesh > Elfic > glaze of Sepia (and re-doing thinned orange over the scarred wrist), with the proportions a little guessed. Maybe there was a 75/25 D/E as well? It's hot, I forget.

Hanns does more and thinner layers and glazing, and ends on a final Elfic Flesh highlight, but I was worried I'd repeat the 'flesh and armour are too similar' mistake from Mr Fluffy, above. The process was very fun and highly rewarding, though. I think I might use it on something else as well.

The scabs were done in a couple techniques. Some were pure Blood for the Blood God, some were Vallejo's Thick Blood, some were 2:1:1 Flesh Tearers Red: Cygor Brown: Medium - and some of these last had some of the blood effects placed over the top. All of these effects worked in various ways, but the technical paints were of course glossy, so I went back over the lot with a 1:1 mix of Stormshield and 'Ardcoat (Citadel's varnishes - .i. 50/50 gloss and matt varnish).

I really do think I'm getting the hang of rusted, horrible metal. Note here that the 'head' is actually a secondary engine; this thing's face is in his belly and has lots of little teeth...

That's it for now! I'm on holidays for the next couple weeks, so it's very unlikely there will be anything more painted before 2025. This project is very close to finishing, though - two characters and two tanks left...