Converting Dark Imperium Plague Marines

Nurgle seems to be getting some love these days, but what about everyone else? If there's one thing that a decade of collecting Chaos has taught me, it's that if you sit back and wait for nice new models to come out for your faction, you might be waiting a while.

With that in mind, I picked up some of the new Plague Marines on eBay (from Troll Trader). For those who don't know, I have a very themed force of Emperor's Children, with only Slaanesh units. Needless to say, I wasn't interested in using them as Plague Marines, but mostly in putting together a new unit of standard Chaos Space Marines that would be cooler than the ones that you buy off the shelf.

There were a few things that worked in my favour; namely that there are some similarities in the Nurgle and Slaanesh aesthetic. Mostly in the form of gribbly tentacles, and a few bells doesn't hurt on your Slaanesh either (although you have to be a bit careful). The main part that obviously had to be changed was the Nurgle icons and a few of the puss-ier details. The other obvious choice was to change their heads to some more standard Chaosy ones. Handily, eBay has a wide selection of bits up for grabs, and I picked up some Raptor and Warp Talon Helms, which are excellent parts to use in Chaos conversions like these. I also had a few parts from one of the Silver Tower kits (Karric Acolytes?) in my bits box, and they were also a good source of parts.

The other thing that concerned me was the scale. I'd seen some pictures of the plague marines that made them look pretty big compared to regular marines. It was a relief when they turned up, and they were almost exactly the same scale as the Dark Vengeance Chosen minis, as I knew that they would work with what I had.

With the talking part done, here are some pictures of the miniatures that I've come up with so far. In the end, I had to swap out a few shoulder pads and bits too, as well as combat weapons. I still need to greenstuff them, but I think that the squad is looking great. They're really nice minis to work with and handily, they weren't too difficult to convert if you're willing to put in a bit of extra time and effort.

The Lascannon guy is still in need of quite a bit of work, but he looks pretty badass so far, so I'm looking forward to adding the finishing touches to him.

Well, that rounds out day 2. I've got more painting on the table next, so check back tomorrow to see what I've been working on.

Mortarion Primarch of the Death Guard Painted

Well, I finished painting Mortarion. I'm happy with the results, although I have to admit that I found the whole process rather difficult. It was mostly just getting the colours to look good that I struggled with. My own style tends to be quite vivid, I like bright reds, blues and purples, but Mortarion is a sort of creamy off-white. It wasn't difficult as such, but more that I found it difficult to think it looked "good" as it isn't a colour I would personally choose. To compensate for this and to make him look a bit more interesting I used the full range of Death Guard Colours (adding in green and red compared to the Forgeworld one). I'm particularly happy with the freehand numerals on his armour.

On the subject of his armour, it was also difficult to match the colour of his armour with a good colour for the base - too light and he'd just blend straight in. Equally though it had to be muted so that your eye would be drawn to the model and not the rock he was standing on. In the end I went with a stone effect for the top and just tried to keep the rest fairly dark.

For those who missed it, I also painted Roboute Guilliman (Primarch of the Ultramarines). You can read all about it here:

Painting Guilliman 

That article contains a fairly comprehensive painting guide for him too if you're interested in the kind of techniques I use.

Mortarion Commission Part 2

Work is well underway now. I've gone ahead as planned and changed around one or two colours to get more contrast going on. So far things seem to be going well.

I snapped off a few pictures earlier today that I'll add below. The armour was airbrushed in a graduating shade off creamy off-white that I mixed myself and highlighted with pure white. When I'm airbrushing I almost exclusively use Vallejo products as they just flow a lot better in the machine. For brush work I'm using good old citadel paints.

I always begin a new project by running a test for the colour scheme - even when I'm only painting one model. In this picture you can see I've finished his leg (seen bottom right) to completion, while the rest is mostly still just base coated.

You can see in the picture above that I've taken the scheme and run with it following the successful test. I'm using red as a bright contrast to breathe some life into him compared to the nice, but very mono tonal Forgeworld one.

Still a long way to go on this one though...

Mortarion Commission Part 1

Well work is now well underway on my latest commission. This time I'm tasked with building and painting Mortarion, primarch of the Death Guard.

I've completed the build and at the moment the greenstuff is drying. The natural break has given me some time to consider the colour scheme. Obviously there isn't much leeway, as he will have to be presented in full Death Guard finery, but at the same time I would like to make a few adjustments. The Forgeworld version is too mono tonal for my tastes and I know I can make the model look better, so I plan to introduce a bit more contrast into the scheme. An obvious change will be to switch the cloak to black so that it is visually distinguished from the armour. I will also introduce some green details in keeping with the traditional scheme, but that seem to be missing on the Forgeworld model. To finish things up I'll use a red as a contrasting colour for the smaller details.

I'm planning to start with airbrush work to achieve a smooth blend across the armour. At the same time I will use the airbrush to begin a non metallic metal style blend on the scythe blade. We'll see how it goes from there.

As a final step I plan to make a few slight adjustments to the scenic base to ensure that he can be moved in and out of it smoothly.

I'll be posting more as I go, so stay tuned for the next update where we'll be taking a look at how the painting is going (hopefully well!)