Project Nurgle - Plaguebearers

You could be forgiven for thinking that maybe I’d had quite enough Nurgle in my life recently. With Gutrot Spume finally finished it must surely be time for me to turn to another subject and, so it is, but not quite yet! 

With my Weekend Workshop in Cardiff fast approaching I’ve been busily working away behind the scenes to get things ready. The featured mini for the workshop is a Nurgle Plaguebearer, so I’m not quite done with all those boils and sores just yet! 

The mini has been a delight to paint and it’s relative simplicity makes it an ideal subject for ‘Monster skin and texture’. It also makes it the fastest mini I’ve ever painted as I turned this little beauty around in under two weeks of evening sessions. 

I’ve also prepped several other Plaguebearers to various stages to assist with my painting demos and I’m seriously considering their potential as a unit for the Golden Demons. 

It looks like Project Nurgle is far from over and done!

Project Nurgle part 19. Gutrot Spume - Finished!

When I first started to work on Gutrot Spume I had it in my mind that I might paint him as the leader of a squad of Putrid Blight Kings. So much for my initial intentions! Work got off to a slow start but once it got going it quickly became apparent that Gutrot was going to constitute a significant project in his own right.

I‘ve been working on Gutrot for the best part of a year and at a rough guess I'd say I’ve spent around 300 hours on the project! I’m perfectly happy about that as I made the decision to go all out on this mini, and to take as much time as I needed to do the job ‘properly’. That decision was in no small part influenced by my experience painting a Dark Eldar Haemonculus in two weeks for Golden Demon 2014. While I proved to myself that I can turn out a well painted mini at speed, I also confirmed a long held belief; when I’m painting just for myself, I’m at my happiest and do my best work when I take my time over it.

Although there are plenty of things I feel could be better (aren’t there always), I’ve had a very happy painting experience with Gutrot. I’ve experimented with a number of new materials and techniques and I feel that I’ve significantly pushed my boundaries on this mini. The end result is something I’m very happy with!

The Weekend Workshop presents ...

... Texture and Monster Flesh With David Soper

“Twice Slayer Sword and multi award winning painter David Soper will be teaching you how to create texture and paint monster flesh in this two day workshop!
Using your free GW Plague Bearer model, David will take you through, step by step how to use variation in saturation, colour theory, texture and slime effects to create truly exotic and menacing looking monsters!
The workshop is being held at Firestorm Games in Cardiff on October 3rd and 4th at a price of £125! Places are proving to be very limited so act quickly to ensure you have a place at this fantastic workshop!” 

Tickets are available from The Weekend Workshop. 

This is something that I'm really looking forward to doing! For almost the entire time I’ve painted miniatures, I’ve done so in splendid isolation. In recent years the online painting community has given me a place to show my work and share what I do, but it’s time to take things a step further!

This workshop gives me the opportunity to demonstrate my approach to painting miniatures and share many of the techniques I’ve used over the years. I’ll be showing how those techniques can be applied to the GW plague bearer and used to create a range of different textures and skin effects.

Then I’ll share some of the effects that can be used to enhance a painted miniature and make it truly special.

Sproket in the flesh … painting flesh, it’ll be a lot less kinky than it sounds!

Using baking soda to add texture to a mini.

It probably hasn’t escaped the notice of any one who visits this blog regularly that I’ve been using baking soda (also referred to as bicarbonate of soda) on my minis recently. I first experimented with this material when I was looking to create snow effects for the Dark Eldar diorama and you can see the results here. Ultimately I rejected baking soda for use as snow due to its tendency to go yellow over time. The less said about yellow snow the better! 

More recently I was looking for a material to simulate moss and algae on Squarg. I’d seen some examples done using ultra fine sawdust and liked the results but my own tests didn’t prove successful. Remembering my earlier experiments with snow, I wondered if baking soda could be used for moss and algae. 

I was looking for a very fine grainy texture. In the (far distant) past I’d used fine sand for moss effects but the texture is on the course side and, in my opinion, the individual grains are a little too large to work in scale as moss. In contrast bicarbonate of soda has a fine gritty texture that works very nicely in scale. 

To create my effects for Squarg’s base I mixed the baking soda with green paint and a little PVA glue. The PVA helps to bind the mix together and give it a little more strength once dried. Without the varnish the mix can be a bit crumbly. I’ve since adapted my recipe and now use Vallejo matt varnish as a medium. 

I’ve found that a wetter more fluid mix works very nicely for moss and algae as it dries to a softer looking finish. Before it dries you can push it around a little and (using a clean wet brush) soften out the edges for a more natural and subtle look. It can also help to work on a surface that has been dampened with a little clean water. 

Once dried you can add extra layers of baking soda to build up the effect and/or work over it with ink & paint to tweak the colour. I found washes worked especially well to blend the baking soda into the overall paint job, as it’s slightly absorbent. 

To use baking soda for rust/corrosion and dirt, simply make a drier mix. This will result in a rougher texture that can be carefully built up (a few grains at a time) if you wish and pushed around with a clean damp brush. 

The following examples show how I’ve used baking soda to add texture to my minis.

Squarg the frog rider:

I used a particularly wet mix of baking soda, paint and PVA glue to create the algae for Sguarg’s base. After adding the baking soda, I applied washes and glazes of green ink to blend everything together.

Gutrot Spume:

I used baking soda to add some algae to the handle on Gutrot’s trident. I also used a drier, more textured, mix to add some corrosion to the trident and chainmail. 

And for the boat base I used baking soda extensively along with a little sand to add texture to Gutrot’s boat. I’ve applied thicker patches to the sides for algae and a thinner more dilute mix to add some texture to the rope. Notice the difference in the grain size when comparing the sand used on the anchor to the baking soda. 

Project Nurgle part 18. Painting Gutrot’s Boat - the anchor.

Over the last few days I’ve painted the anchor and finished off the details on the rails and as a result I’ve finished painting Gutrot’s boat.

I wanted the rope to look like it was overgrown with weed and algae so in addition to the ever present baking soda I used a little cotton wool. Once soaked in green ink it took on a suitably weedy bedraggled look.

It’s now time to paint the second tentacle for the base and when that’s done I can start to add the water effects.

I’ve also been experimenting with my camera settings and have finally managed to take some photos of Gutrot that give an accurate representation of the colours!