Nurgle, Nurgle, quite horrid purple, how does your Garden grow?

09 Aug 2019: Progress So Far… – OnTableTop – Home of Beasts of War

That was the last time these minis saw any progress. They were received in the Hachette/ GW Conquest partworks magazine from 2019.
It’s time to get them done. It’s also a good opportunity to get some practice in using Greenstuff to convert and modify minis, something that I’ve been wanting to do for a while now. At least if I make anything look wonky it can be explained as chaos-y, Nurgley mutation and corruption.

I dug the minis out and got cutting, pruning and grafting.

I started, as I did last time, with the Plague Zombies. There are two sets of 10 minis. One set I build as standard. These later get greenstuff added to change spikes and spines into giant fungal growths.
The second set get chopped up, mixed around and rebuilt. Then greenstuff fix anything that needs patching.

Part of the set included Typhus, Herald of Nurgle and his Destroyer hive, but I wasn’t interested in having existing named characters in this set.
Two pieces jumped out at me as a potential conversion. Typhus’ front piece and the axe from the other terminator.

I filled in the socket in the end of the arm using shavings from mould line removal and plastic glue. I cut the axe with the hands attached along the red lines, then removed the head of the axe since it wasn’t going to reach as it was. Greenstuff work required!

I cut all the minis off the sprue and ran through cleanup quickly. They were set the pieces out then slowly looked to where I could start making changes, conversions, part swaps etc.

One mini in particular I agonised over was the Chosen with all the bells. I was rather taken with the idea of the Warhammer units of old, with the Command miniatures, Champion, Banner Bearer and Musician.
There’s an Icon bearing mini that would have fit the Banner role, and this piece with all the bells would fit the Musician role…
In the end I decided against it. Which then progressed into removing all the bells from this mini, and any others I could find on the other Marines.

The majority of the cutting and editing has been done. Heads swapped; arms changed; some gaps filled with greenstuff; some embellishment started.
I’d not used the bug swarm on Typhus, so I thought to put it use elsewhere. I started tinkering around with some of the other DG and got some pieces to fit elsewhere.

This mini had a head swap, and the obvious addition of the garden on his back. I’m feeling more confident working with the Greenstuff. Knowing to let the GS sit for some time until it’s ready to work with. Also planning how I’ll add the details to the mini and texture them.

I replaced the lower half of the face with the lower part of Typhus’ helmet. I never liked that smile. Added the expected fungus to the spikes. I’ve been looking up a few other options online for fungus during this project. Research and learning!

Some clearer shots of the new cuffs to go with this guy’s new hands. These were formally Typhus’ hands. Maybe this guy will be the “Hand of Typhus”. I plan to build up some height beneath him, since the scythe hangs down low.

With a break in the recent downpour, I got some priming done. Everything done, or so I thought until I came back in and found some of the plague zombies had been missed for the greenstuff treatment. I’ll get them done then catch them up and move onto the painting phase. Super excited for that!

After fixing the four zombies above, I have spare greenstuff left over. Rather than let it go to waste, I decide to craft something for the bases: more mushrooms!
I used a pin as a wire-frame, and built some shapes around them.

This batch has only added greenstuff fungus. No conversion work done here.

This batch has no fungus, but each one has been converted and modified.

A side-by-side comparison of each of the body types, showing the original and the converted alternative.

I sat down and decided to paint one of the two Spawn this evening. Using just the same colours as the zombies, I threw myself into it.
Originally, I intended just to base coat the mini. But once I got started, I kept going and in just over an hour I got to a point that I was happy to call finished!

I didn’t bother to wait for paint to dry, so I suppose I was kind of wet-blending. I was also using thin coats, so it was drying reasonably well as I went. I also didn’t get too precious about colour mixing and layers. I just wanted it to look like a warped, fleshy being. The back is intended to look tortured and raw.
This was aided by using Citadel Blood for the Blood God technical.

Basing will be done when I complete the rest of the minis.

I probably could’ve gone to town on conversion work… but at this point I just want to get them done. I may add some extra paint/ detail in the future to make it a bit more Nurgle-y… see how it goes.

Getting started on the armour of the Plague Marines.

The grind is real… all the main base colours are down. Same as previously used.