Nurgle: Great Unclean One #3

Managed to make some time this evening and continue working on the GUO, it is always nice to work on something consecutively when you are enthusiastic. The focal point of today's session was the intestines and right arm wound that creates a symbol of Nurgle, I went for a traditional pink look to the intestines, but washed down the entire process with a reddy brown wash, I think this worked well as to go from drab colours to a striking pink would look out of sorts - an issue that I have been struggling with for the entire project. 

With the symbol of Nurgle, I decided to add subtle washes of blue and purple to give a swollen effect. I am happy with the outcome and look to use the same method on the hernia on it's back. I think it stands out nicely and still ties in with the rest of the colours used on this figure. An issue I need to address is the colour of both the horn and nails, since the model already has a lot of warm colours, I need to avoid using bleached bone. I think the only option I can take with this is grey with some washes...I will have to experiment.

I also cleaned and fitted both the tongue and sword arm, in preparation for painting and after a bit of hot water and some bending, both pieces now slot into place without any issue. I think all remaining pieces should be glued into place very soon, which will be great as I am really looking forward to seeing the model fully built and at a stage of being mostly painted.

Need to pop to the shop some time next week and pick up some Uhu...

Thanks for reading,

DiStudios

The 14th legion

Nurgle: Great Unclean One #2

Finally found the time to not only continue working on this miniature, but also report about it! I have managed to put in around two days worth of painting all with highs and lows. All the wound areas were re-painted in a more fitting rotting flesh colour, the original choice was far too pink for my liking and has been limited to the intestine areas only, it took a lot of time to get a decent coverage of the new rotting flesh colour, but I think it has been worth it. As a colour break, more red glaze has been added to areas of broken skin, giving it a more sore look, this should work well with the clear blood effect at the end of project. Ideally I will get to work on the intestines tomorrow,extra tentacle details and if time permits any horn/bone areas (spine included), I am purposefully leaving the head till last, so that I can give it maximum attention when the time comes. I am estimating two to four days solid painting before completion, of course getting a 'full' painting day is the hard part!

Rumours of a new Daemon reinforcements/codex have been surfacing on various forums and blogs, chief among these are descriptions of some sort of Nurgle battle fly (undoubtedly to fill the flier gap in the codex). With this in mind I am leaving Daemon Princes out of the painting queue until I know more, I hope the fly does turn out to be true, the concept of giant bugs harassing my opponents will be to cool to pass up.

So what do people think of the Daemon so far? I should probably try to pick up the pace a little so I can start the second one...

Thanks for reading,

DiStudios

The 14th Legion 

Hobby Meltdown - Who Gets the Chop Today?!

Have to be honest folks, finding my self suffering a little hobby burnout due to a lack of inspiration. The Chaos Space Marine release was a big disappointment for me in terms of miniatures and general over hype. Despite the book being visually stunning in terms of design and art direction, I find the actual content nothing more then a general re-hash of the last book crossed with Warhammer Fantasy (and we all see how well that sells at the moment...). I believe this has cemented the trend of no more legion cult armies and the rise of Chaos generic led by 10+ old miniatures - a new Abaddon would of been nice for inspiration don't you think? The book of today is more spikey marines than ever, regardless of what they say and I see the current codex attempt(s) as a child friendly version of what was the biggest evil in the galaxy, the corruption of the dark gods has been diluted down to pure emo daddy hate (with sprinklings of Jurassic Park). Joking aside, reinventing the wheel is as hard as they say, with Chaos being so varied (up to 3.5) it was always going to be hard to re-vitalise the army once Daemons were given their own book, however GW has actively made the choice (in my eyes) to kill off the validity of Mono-God armies/legions across all game sets, in order to sell more product (note - gone are the sacred numbers, the division of Chaos into three sub armies for Fantasy). There is no choice now but to focus on the humanised aspect of the 'long war' ie Chaos Space Marines, Cultists, Dark Mechanicus (via Daemon engines). Perhaps in the future this will yield more interesting results, however right now despite the allies matrix, Chaos Space Marines is just Jurassic Spikey Marines.

Site News: Mo Nurgle Mo problems

Apologies for the lack of updates this week, a combination of work and hobby related problems have left me frustver when ever something good happens, problems re-balance the scales. So what major problem am I whining about now I hear you cry?!: The tongue bit is missing.rated and tired eyed (all will make sense in a moment). I started working on the lovely Forge World Great Unclean One last week and hit off to a great start, the colours and enthusiasm were at an all time high. 

Seems like such a small thing, but when you shell out over one hundred pounds for an item and proceed to lose a piece, it is enough (in this man's case) to drive yourself nuts. I actually turned the hobby den upside down in order to try and find it...this did not help as not only did I not find it, but I discovered other miniatures had gone missing, needless to say I thought I was going all kinds of Jack Nicholson crazy. Well I have put out messages to various friends and even a email to Forge World (I expect no sympathy from them but straws are straws even if short), fingers crossed I will have some form of resolution to the issue next week.

Now a brief note on the "New" Chaos...The more I hear about the book (and have seen from various shots), it seems like nothing more than an evolution of the previous codex:

Mono = Crap, take Poke-dragons and add liberal sprinklings of obliterators.

We will find out fully tomorrow but I am banking on the above being the end result of the "new" Chaos Space Marines. 

Thanks for reading,

DiStudios

The 14th legion

User Comments - Duncan Wright

"I have to say, all these early pictures were pretty crappy. I think you might want to take a look at the new photos, cause I initially agreed until I saw the official pics on the site. In my opinion, they are an awesome new direction and you should definitely take another look."

Thanks Duncan for taking time to read this blog and respond, my apologies for having to 'publically post' a response, but the eternal war between Disqus and Blogger comments continue! I have the digital version of Whitedwarf magazine (which I actually like and have subscribed to!) and have had a close look at the new chaos range, and my standing point remains stronger than ever, you have however cited something very important in your statement and that is 'Direction'.While In some cases it cannot be disputed that the physical design and sculpt (or cut?) of certain figures such as the dragon and the Mauler Fiend are high (while others like the Maulers are simply crap on a stick), it is actually the concept/direction that does not sit well for me. For a lot of older gamers who played Chaos in the 'good ol days', these new designs do not fit into the vision of God centric Chaos created over the last 20-30 years, and this is completely Games Workshop's fault. 

Chaos has always been about the four Gods and were always an all inclusive entity; Daemons, Mortals and Beasts of were all mixed into one; which made for some visually stunning and atmospheric armies.When GW split the Chaos books into Daemons and Chaos Space Marines, it also split the design ethics and diluted the creativity by taking away links to the four Gods (God specific Daemonic troops); instead of Noise Marines with daemonettes, you now have Noise marines with and a liberal sprinkling of Obliterators, and this is ultimately generic-ism. It started with lesser daemons and more undivided cults and now points towards Daemon Forge creations. While you do indeed have Cult troops, by taking them as the core of your army you automatically neuter yourself  due to lore based limitations and no God specific Daemons to augment your force (outside of the allies matrix). With the four Gods background primarily in the Daemons book, what do Chaos Marines become? merely spikey Marines. 

As I said at the start while the new Chaos Dragon, Mauler Fiend and some of the new Chaos Marines are technically very fine models, they follow a trend of undivided additions that alienate Four Gods players, while it is possible for players to proxy/convert it still feels cheap to play something that is not part of your list - a reason why I can't play Nurgle Bloodcrsuhers or Slaanesh Berserkers. A big part of me feels that perhaps Chaos Marines should phase out God Cult troops completely (Khorne/Slaanesh/Nurgle/Tzeentch), as it will allow greater acceptance/freedom for the design team to implement generic/undivided entities. 

Perhaps Cult troops truly belong in the Daemon lists as Elite units.

Follow up comment:

"Thanks for taking the time to respond. I can defend the models, and even the undivided part, but daemons and chaos marines should be part of one army".

And I think this is truly the crux of the argument, while there is nothing wrong with having a undivided army at all, removing the God specific Daemons from the Chaos Marines felt like a massive punishment for wanting to play mono-God. While most of the new models are nice in their own way, stylistically and thematically they they do not cater to Mono-God players.

Thanks again Duncan and please, please grab yourself a  Disqus account so everyone can see the excellent points you raise without me having to create a post for it hehe

thanks for reading,

DiStudios

The 14th legion