Heavy Support - Defiler of Nurgle
The Defiler was the model that quite simply took me the longest to convert and paint, due to the enormous amount of surface area to cover. In order for the Defiler to match the rest of the army I needed to reshape every single component to give the model a battered and decayed look. I did this in three stages; carving, texturing and surface details. The first stage is very simple, but terribly time consuming and that is to carefully use a sharp craft knife to carve into any straight edges at an angle removing any symmetry and creating a battered and dented look. It also helps if you use a rotary grinding tool to add dents to any flat areas of armour. The second stage was then to retexture the components to appear corroded. I did this by using a cocktail stick to dab very thin super glue into numerous joints and corners. These areas were then dipped into a very fine sand which once dry was vigorously scrubbed with a stiff brush. The sand and glue remaining leaves a rough texture not that dissimilar to rust. For the final stage I carved into a few sections of the hull and added open wounds, pock marks and sores. The head and gun in particular needed special attention to create a more familiar Death Guard look. Whilst I sculpted the head and added tiny filters to match the head of Typhus, Dave kindly sculpted the Death Guard icon over the battle cannon. Overall, the process of converting the Defiler centimetre by centimetre into something more corrupted took just over a month on and off. With the exception of the back two sets of legs all of the other joints are fully articulated still, in particular the torso which can turn. This very simple to do and involves a length of plastic rod, plastic tube the same internal diameter as the rod and a little green stuff. Before attaching the torso to the lower chassis, but after the rest of the model has been assembled, drill a hole into the base of the torso wide enough to insert the plastic rod. Glue the rod in place and cut it to leave a short length a few centimetres long. Repeat the process with the lower half where the torso is to be attached drilling a wider hole large enough to insert the plastic tube. glue the tube inside the hole as far as it will fit and then cut it so that nothing sits above the height of the socket. You may need to sand the area back into a nice smooth convex shape. At this stage the green stuff is purely to fill any gaps (other than inside the tube!), so you may or may not need it depending on how you got on. That's pretty much it, the rod on the top torso will fit snugly inside the tube allowing the top half to rotate smoothly. The best part though is the two halves can be taken apart and reassembled easily making the Defiler far easier to transport! Painting wise I just followed the same steps as I did for the two Rhino's and the final part of my army was complete. So where to from here? Well, the Tournament has been and gone now at the time of writing and overall I was very pleased with the way my Death Guard performed, a truly fun army to game with down to their characterful wargear and phenomenal toughness! It also goes to prove that an army can be built with an eye to the background and yet still remain competitive. Finishing a very close Runner Up in the Best Army competition after splitting the votes with Gary Marsh's Slaanesh force was an added bonus. As Pete Haines so amusingly described them "The Poster Boys of Nurgle", which can't be bad for an army whose look is supposed to be, well, foul! On that note, I'm off to disinfect my workshop before anything nasty takes hold. |
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