CSM Nurgle Sorceror - better pictures!

Back in business with a new laptop, although it will be a few days till I can recover all my old materials and data. In the mean time though, I can finally upload the better pics of the finished Purge Chaos Space Marine Sorceror:

I'm quite happy with the end result, though the shade of the green armour does seem to be a tiny bit off compared to my old Purge miniatures (see group shot further below). The is part due to the different feel of the armour, which has less distinct, deep areas and sharp corners suitable for the wash techniques used on the original squad.

Secondly, I opted to add more damage and decay to the armour than the normal Purge Chaos Space Marines. The original colourscheme needed a that little tweak to actually work with the large areas of skin on this miniature. Instead of merely going for brown ink washes, I started from an orange basecoat for most of the damaged armour segments.

The flies are definitely my favorite bits on the mini and I'm glad I took the advice of a few fellow Astronomican forum members to ditch the original backpack for something more unique and striking. Though it certainly made for a much tougher paintjob with so many details in such a small area, it was great fun and added to the overall feel of the mini!

 In addition it just feels rather nice to work on such an oddball character as an addition for an old squad from my collection. It is definitely tempting to revisit thee guys again, but I have plenty of other minis that first need attention!

Not in the least two Ork for a miniature swap:

And that does it for this update, coming up this weekend and next week - Ork characters, a few random minis & back to the Tyrant's Legion.

Nurgle CSM Sorceror - part II

Another long work week followed by a filled-up weekend, but there's still a little bit of hobby progres to share. The Nurgle Chaos Space Marine Sorceror is about ready for painting:

All in all it really didn't take much work to get him to this stage, in fact it only took two backpacks, a plasma pistol arm, a Death Guard arm, Chaos shoulderpad, a resin pouch (from Maxmini), some Green Stuff and a bit of patience.

Both arms took some sculpting and gap filling, but most of the work went into this gut. Though slightly gruesome, it's grimdark 40K afterall, I really do enjoy sculpting organic areas like this. There's just something about taking a random lump of putty and making it fit in with the rest of a mini.

For this mini I used a combination of Masq-Mini's Tubetool (link) for the tubing on his back and in the gut, and the saving grace for any amateur sculptor - clay shapers. I got my first set from Heresy Miniatures (link) many years ago and have been using them ever since on virtually every sculpting project since. Tools like this aren't cheap, but they last for a very long time and will greatly help both for texture and smoothening of putty.

One thing is certain though, this fellow turned out huge. Below there's a size comparisson with him, a true scale Techmarine and one of my old Relictors (based on 3rd edition Tigerius).

This coming week I'll take care off the final detailing, afterwhich the painting can begin. Rather looking forward to tackling the Purge colourscheme again, should be interesting to somehow combined it with all the flesh on this miniature.

Nurgle Chaos Space Marine Sorceror

Time to get started on my latest hobby challenge - converting a Warhammer Nurgle Chaos Lord into a 40K Chaos Sorceror. Games Workshop has done a great job on the plastic Nurgle Lord, the detailing, custom base and ease of assembly are fantastic. The plus sides of the mini do come at a cost though, both in cash and in lack of posing opportunities.

Luckily the mini comes in enough pieces that it is easy enough start the journey from the magical world of Warhammer to the scifi madness of 40K. By simply leaving out the grizzled axe you free up both arms for other poses and weapons, while at the same time both the gut and head get much more exposure. A bit of driling, some wire, a spare plasmapistol and sword arm later the basic concept is well underway:

Sure, giving a plasma pistol to a Chaos Sorceror isn't the best idea, but it certain fits well with the Nurgle-theme. The added toughness provided by the Mark of Nurgle also makes the pistol slightly less of a risk.

Besides a ton of clean-up the mini has several areas that really need extra attention before he'll be ready for paint:
- The gut needs to be partially re-sculpted as there's no longer an axe shaft to fill up the gap;
- Both arms need extensive resculpting as the original arms are attached to the axe;
- The backpack will need a rather tight fit, so a rather hefty gap needs to get filled in;
- More scifi bits and bobs need to be snuck in there, moving the mini further away from its fantasy origins;
- And, finally, I need to figure out what to do with the base.

At the very least, he's certainly big and menacing. This guy doesn't wield any kind of warp power, but rather he is a vessel of Father Nurgle's dubious blessings.

Next week I'll be back with the finalized conversion, showing any further changes before moving on to the painting.