Project Nurgle Part 11 - The Tale of a Tentacle.

The 2014/15 painting year got off to a bit of a slow start. On top of that once I’d found my feet and settled into painting Gutrot Spume it was time to put him aside to concentrate on Mole. It’s clearly going to be a less productive year in terms of the number of minis I’ll get finished, so I’ve decided to concentrate on quality and enjoy myself by obsessing over Gutrot. 

Instead of leaping straight back into painting Gutrot, I decided to paint something as a warm-up exercise to re-familiarise myself with my ‘Nautical Nurgle’ colour palate. It’s been a useful exercise as I’d become very focused on Mole’s palatte over the last few weeks and the palette for Gutrot is extremely different. 

I picked one of the Kraken tentacles from Gutrot’s base for my warm up. I’ve probably spent far too much time and effort on this one tentacle than is entirely sane but it’s been a highly enjoyable little project. Spared the pressure of trying to get back up to speed on Gutrot himself I’ve been able to reacquaint myself with the palette while still contributing to the overall project. Now I’m back up to speed I can return to Gutrot with confidence. 

Apart from using a wide range of colours from the palette I wanted to paint some texture onto the tentacle. The first step towards this was to sponge a blotchy pattern onto the skin. I used natural sponge for this rather than blister pack sponge. This resulted in a pattern of large soft splotches that were built up in several different shades of green. Over this I painted and highlighted a series of fine parallel lines to give the impression of a ribbed texture. 

Another embellishment was the replacement of the sculpted slime drips with trails of dripping water. These were built up over shards of clear plastic using water effects and microbeads. 

The final touch is several coats of gloss varnish. These tentacles are most definitely intended to look wet!

Project Nurgle Part 1 - Gutrot Spume

With Golden Demon 2014 done and dusted my personal painting calendar has reached the end of another year. So a new painting year has begun with all the potential of a fresh start. Having a schedule of painting competitions spaced through the year has really helped me to focus and structure my hobby. For the most part I’ve found it a positive experience to have this ‘driving force’ to help me keep up some momentum. But recent experiences have also taught me that it’s all too easy to become a little too driven and too focused on competition results and deadlines. At the end of the day, I paint minis because I love to paint minis - and that has to remain my main motivation. So I find myself at the start of a new project with all the buzz and excitement that always brings me! 

I’ve been quietly pondering the idea of painting a Nurgle themed mini of some sort for a while now. I’ve got (very old) history with Nurgle and there have been so many developments in the hobby and in my own painting since 1990! I’m quite excited to find out what I could do now. When Games Workshop previewed Gutrot Spume, and the Putrid Blightkings, at Warhammer Fest, they had me hooked and reeled me in right there and then! 

My initial feeling is that I’d quite like to see if I could paint a unit for the first time ever. The minis are so varied that my usual reservation about painting lots of the same thing doesn’t seem valid. I may change my mind about this as the project progresses and maybe ‘Project Nurgle’ will end up as a diorama, or even just a single mini. But aiming for a unit seems to be a good place to start. I also intend to try and pace myself over the year with this one, enabling me to slip in a couple of other projects, between Nurgle minis. As I said earlier It’s a new painting year full of potential. Reality can (and will) kick in later, but this is the time to get ambitious. 

Reading the background for Gutrot Spume has provided the spark of an idea for how I’m going to approach these minis. So it’s time to get nautical! Gutrot Spume (I love that name!) is the master of the plague fleet and it’s from him that I am taking my main inspiration. I’d like to include a little conversion work in the project and I can already feel a generous distribution of tentacles coming on among the Blightkings. Tridents may also play some part in the proceedings. I’m particularly enthusiastic about getting a nautical ‘horrors from the deep’ feel to the painting and colour scheme while still remaining true to an overall Nurgle palette. There is plenty to work with here and I need to pull it altogether into a coherent and consistent whole. 

First of all I’m going to paint Gutrot Spume himself. This makes sense to me as he will be setting the tone for the entire project. I’m not doing too much conversion work on the mini, however, I have decided to swap his axe for a trident to add to the nautical feel of the mini. 

At first I considered putting something together from parts of other minis but I have now decided to build a trident from scratch. Taking a lead from the shape of the spikes on Gutrot’s shoulder. I put together a design for the trident in Adobe illustrator. I then printed this out to and glued it with PVA to a piece of plasticard. Rather than trying to cut this shape out straight away I made the job a little easier by drilling holes all around the edges before cutting along the dotted line. The resulting trident is crude to say the least but it can then be trimmed, carved, filled and sanded down to refine the shape. 

The pictures below show the main stages of the process. The final picture is an initial test fitting of Gutrot and the trident. I want to spend a little more time refining the trident but I’m happy with the progress so far. 

Project Nurgle part 17. Painting Gutrot’s Boat - The Wood.

Step 1 – Basecoat

The choice of a grey basecoat is informed by a search for reference material. I looked up a lot of pictures of old and wrecked wooden boats and this sort of weathered wood has a predominantly grey tone. 
Grey will also play well into my overall colour scheme as I plan to use colours from the same palette that I used on Gutrot to paint the base. This will help to tie the elements of the piece together. Grey is featured on Gutrot but in a very minor role. Having it as a dominant colour on the base will help to give the base definition and separation from the mini while still making it feel a part of the overall scheme. 

Step 2 – Shading

I’ve applied the shading with a series of washes followed by some controlled glazing. The shading acts as a sort of under painting to the later stages it also gives definition and separation to the elements of the boat. 
I’ve used Scalecolour Black Leather for this step. This is the same colour I’ve used in the shadows and shading on Gutrot and will further help to tie the mini and the base together. The pinkish look to the shadows is a little odd at this stage but, as the later (and greener) layers go on, it will contribute to the overall depth and contrast of the colour scheme. 

Step 3 – Enhancing the Shading

This is pretty much a cautious repeat of the previous stage but this time using Scalecolour Boreal Green. Overall this stage doesn’t add anything very dramatic but it serves to work a little of the cool green colour from Gutrot’s armour into the base, and it further enriches the shadows. 

Step 4 – Algae

A lot of the pictures I looked at showed bright green algae growing on the side of the boats. This is a great way to introduce some spots of vibrant colour and extra texture. To create the algae I used my new best friend baking soda mixed with Scalecolour Sherwood Green and Vallejo Matt varnish. Sherwood Green is the dominant green in Gutrot’s flesh tones. The yellow green of Sherwood Green contrasts with the pinkish and cool green tones previously used and starts the process of balancing out all the colours used on the wood. 

Step 5 – Soggy Rotten Wood

This is the stage that pulls all the previous ones together. Using a mix of Scalecolour inks (Inktense Green, Yellow and Chesnut) I built up glazes of a dirty yellow/green. 
The ink builds up a layer of shiny saturated colour. This adds significantly to the wet and rotten look of the wood and ties the algae effect into the rest of the paintjob. 

‘Alas, poor Gutrot! I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.’

The Tragedy of Sproket, Prince of Denmark Act 5, scene 1. 

 

 

 I’m something of a nervous traveller, especially so when it come to transporting my miniatures. But with the exception of my Nurgle Predator, which arrived at the 1990 Golden Demons with a broken banner, I’ve been lucky enough to have transported my minis without any mishaps. Until now that is!

I knew there would be an element of risk involved in taking Gutrot Spume with me to Copenhagen last weekend. But Gutrot was the best choice to bring as an example of how I brought together different types of contrast on one mini, so I took a deep breath and packed him up with all the care I could. I’d purchased an ‘Art Bin’ to transport my models in and, although this proved to be an excellent practical choice, I think it was also my undoing!

The damage was done before I even left Heathrow Airport. Going through Airport Security I’d placed my Art Bin on the conveyor to be scanned. There was then the usual business of going through security myself and then having to put my belt and shoes back on. I looked up from this to see my Art Bin being held up and shaken from side to side by one of the security officers! The whole thing happened very quickly but my partner witnessed the tragedy play out. It was turned around, tipped and then turned completely upside down before the shaking was administered. It was then shoved back onto the conveyor belt and scanned where it was, of course, deemed safe and harmless!

I can only think that my Art Bin drew this attention because it was an unusual looking piece of hand luggage, which is fair enough. I appreciate that the security checks are vital and are as much in my own interest as anyone else’s. What I don’t understand is why it was necessary to treat my Art Bin so roughly! Based on the treatment it received it was clearly deemed unusual rather than dangerous. After all why would anyone, let alone a trained security officer, pick up and shake something they considered a potential hazard!

The security staff all have a very important job to do and are far too busy to pander to the concerns of an uptight miniature painter. But I can’t see any good justification for such careless and, quite frankly, aggressive treatment of a person’s property. The staff at Copenhagen airport were no less busy and just as vigilant but they managed to carry out their duties in a way that treated both passengers and their property with respect.

Now I’ve got that off my chest my ranting is over and my priority is getting Gutrot back to his gruesome best.

I decided to wait until I got to my hotel before I opened everything up to see the damage. I suppose things could have been a whole lot worse considering the rough treatment but the sight that awaited me sent my blood pressure through the roof! The prongs on Gutrot’s trident have all been snapped off. Mercifully the breaks are clean and at the base of the prongs where it should be possible to reattach then. I should then be able to reinforce and cover up the join with a little extra corrosion. More problematic is the damage to Gutrot’s helmet, as the tip of it’s crest has been snapped off. I will see if I can rebuild this tiny part but it may be necessary to trim the crest down to a new, shorter point.

On reflection I got off lightly, as the breaks are clean and only affect the extremities. It’s a massive relief that the paintwork has suffered no damage beyond those breaks!

I now understand exactly why some painters bolt their minis into place for transportation and I will be leaving nothing to chance next time. I hope my mistakes serve as a warning to anyone transporting their minis. Leave nothing to chance and make sure your minis are totally secure for transportation! 

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!

Project Nurgle Part 5

To be honest I’ve not been 100% certain that things were going well or that the finished mini would see the light of day! Gutrot Spume is providing me with a very different painting experience from my usual approach. That’s been due, in part, to the cold induced hiatus; but mostly to the process of working out an entirely new colour palette. It’s taken time to become familiar with these new colours and things have felt very unresolved. 

For someone who is used to working an area up to it’s finished state before moving on to the next one, that’s been an uncomfortable experience. But this last weekend things really seemed to come together and I’m feeling much better about how the paint job for Gutrot is coming together. So I decided it was time to tackle the tentacles! 

It might be stating the obvious but the tentacles are a major feature of this mini and as such require special attention. I decided early on that I wanted to achieve a graduated effect down the length of the tentacle overlaid with irregular banding in a contrasting colour. This was strongly influenced by the results of a search for octopus reference pictures. I wanted to bring some real world influences to what is a very fantastical mini. 

The underlying graduation is deep pink through to pale green and uses the basic skin tones from Gutrot. To contrast this I painted the banding in a deep green. It’s fiddly work, and creating an irregular effect is deceptively tricky, but I’m delighted with how it’s working out! Somehow those green stripes have made all the difference for me. 

 
The deep green from the banding has turned out to be another key colour in the overall scheme. I’ve used a little of it to glaze over some of the mid tones and shadows in the armour and it’s provided a vital finishing touch. The deep green somehow ties together the blue, yellow-green, purple and turquoise. I never would have imagined that I’d be using so many colours in such a small area, but I really like the complex and nuanced feel that they give. 

Gutrot no longer feels like a project that I’m trying to figure out how to proceed with. There is a lot more work to do, and plenty of opportunities for things to go wrong, but I’m confident and happy about the direction I’m taking. 

Looking back... and forward.

About his time last year I’d reconciled myself to a less productive 2015, at least in terms of the number of minis I’d get finished. I decided to concentrate on quality and enjoy myself obsessing over Gutrot Spume. Gutrot was painted with an eye to entering the Golden Demon competition, whenever that happened; and I’d resolved to quite literally push the boat out for him.

As it turned out 2015 was a far more productive year than I had predicted! After a slow start, Gutrot came together and was finally finished in September. I’d already taken time out to paint Mole, but once Gutrot was done, I switched up in scale to paint Commodore Borgossa, and most recently Abalam Prince of Hell. I also started painting a unit of Plague bearers as part of the preparations for my Weekend Workshop in Cardiff.

And now we finally have a date for the next Warhammer Fest and the 2016 Golden Demons! Sunday, May 15, at the Rico Arena in Coventry. It’s been a long wait!

With Abalam finished, all bar his plinth, I am turning my attention to the next project. I was going to paint another mini for Salute (April 16) and then return to the unit of Plague bearers, but the Golden Demon announcement has changed everything. The Plague bearers have jumped right back up to the top of my painting priorities. Remembering 2014’s last minute Haemonculus, I want to try and complete them without putting too much pressure on myself.

Project Nurgle is all GO….again.

Project Nurgle part 16

As I said in my first posting for ‘Project Nurgle’, I’d been quietly pondering the idea of painting a Nurgle themed mini for a while. When Games Workshop previewed Gutrot Spume, and the Putrid Blightkings, at Warhammer Fest, they had me hooked and reeled me in right there and then!

It’s almost always like that for me. I may have the germ of an idea for a project but seeing a mini I want to paint is the thing that sparks things off. Further to the mini itself, Games Workshop’s background info on Gutrot fuelled my imagination and gave me the idea of creating a nautical theme for this project.

With Gutrot Spume now finished, and at such a key point in the project, it’s no bad thing to reflect on it’s origins before I move on to the next stage.

I set myself specific goals for every project I undertake. They are a useful way of pushing myself to try new things, and to develop and refine my skills; but they shouldn’t be taken too seriously. First and foremost mini painting is my hobby and it’s meant to be an enjoyable pastime not a task. Secondly a project can often develop in unexpected ways and the goals should never hold back creativity.

My goals for ‘Project Nurgle were as follows:

 

• To develop a distinct ‘nautical Nurgle’ style for the project. The aim here is to come up with something original that still fits with the established look and feel of Nurgle;

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• To become familiar with ScaleColour paints from Scale 75 and their uses;

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•  To ‘go back to my roots’ and explore a strong palette of contrasting saturated colours in an up-to-date context.

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• To pull out all the stops and try to paint my ‘best’ mini yet!

Broadly speaking I’d say ‘so far so good’! The use of colour is crucial to achieving all of my goals, so it’s vital to develop the right colour palette for this project. From the onset I knew that green would be a key colour – it is Nurgle we’re talking about and you can stretch things only so far! Red was a likely choice for a contrasting colour and not inappropriate bearing in mind all those sores and diseased wounds. I also felt that with a nautical theme blues and blue/greens would feature in the palette.

So far so good but just picking a few likely colours isn’t enough. Those colour will have to work together to good effect providing both harmony and contrast as required. The colour in the shadows and highlights must be considered at an early stage in order to create a cohesive palette. All in all there was an awful lot to bear in mind as I wanted to create a complex and colourful palette; and, to be honest, I was having some difficulty getting my head around this in the early stages of the project.

The solution came, as it so often does, when I wasn’t directly looking for it. I always put together a folder of reference images and it was while I was looking up octopus pictures (for tentacle reference) that I discovered my colour palette.

The picture below became my inspiration for the overall balance between the red and blue/green shades. My aim was not to copy exactly but rather use the image as a starting point in developing my own colour scheme. It was particularly influential in my decision to use a light turquoise/blue as the base colour for the armour and then to shade it with deep greens.

The colour palette helps to reinforce the ‘nautical Nurgle’ style but the addition of a few customised details really help to sell the idea. I wanted the conversion work to be fairly minimal as I liked the mini but, I thought swapping the axe for a trident made a strong statement. This together with the addition of some barnacles, I think, really helps to sell the nautical theme. The base will be the single most nautical part of the project and is likely to make or break the piece.
I’m really looking forward to completing the base for Gutrot! The boat, water and tentacles will provide some interesting painting challenges and I think it’s going to be a lot of fun. The future looks likely to feature lots of texture and water effects and I’m almost certain that Nurglings are going to get in on the action at some point too!

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 12

I was a little concerned that taking a break from painting Gutrot Spume mid-project might cause me a few problems. Thankfully I’ve managed to get straight back into the swing of things and I’m still thoroughly enjoying myself with this mini!

The first parts to be painted on the lower body were Gutrot’s thighs. Although the sculpt suggests to me that this area is armoured, I wanted bare flesh here. The careful painting of a few creases and cracks was enough to transform armour plates into heavy sagging flesh. 

The chainmail kilt was next and it proved to be fairly tricky. My ‘gut feeling’ was that the chainmail needed to be adjusted towards something much rustier looking than the crisp detail suggested. I’m O.K. with what I’ve done in this area, but feel that I probably need to re-visit it once the surrounding areas are painted. 

I’d considered several options for Gutrot’s loin cloth/kilt ranging from intricate scroll work to free hand Nurgle icons and even tartan but in the end I decided on a worn leather effect. There’s already a lot going on with the paint job on this mini and I think extra free hand detail in this area would be too much. A leather effect would provide a ‘plain’ surface but still allow for some interesting texture work. 

I briefly considered dark red leather but rejected it in favour of brown a colour more in keeping with a Nurgle colour patette. It would also match the leather straps I’d already painted. 

Painting went well and I began to achieve a pleasing texture but the plain brown leather looked boring. I needed to introduce more colours into the leather to give it some life and interest. One option would be to work extra colour into the shadows. Instead I decided to graduate the colour of the leather, so that it went from brown at the top to green on it’s bottom edges. This came about by following my ‘gut instinct’ that green was the colour to introduce here. I decided to try and make the leather look as if it had been dragged through and stained by all manner of Nurgle-ish filth. 

I used the combination of a stippled bright yellow green glazed over with a darker blue green. The combination of the two tones gives depth and richness to the green and adds visual interest to what is, after all, just a stain on the leather! 

Project Nurgle Part 9

After getting off to a slow start I'm really enjoying this project and I've a good feeling about how it's progressing. It isn't very often that something turns out exactly how you wanted it to but so far so good. There is still a fair bit of painting to do on Gutrot and the base will need all due care, time and attention to pull off the look I want. But by making this my big project for the year, I should be able to do the job properly. 

 I've come to the realisation that there is no way I'll get a Putrid Blightkings unit painted in time for GD this year so I’ve rethought my painting schedule. I still want to do the unit but it will have to be a long term project. It's the Dark Eldar diorama all over again! On the positive side, with the deadline pressure off, I can really go to town with the nautical theme for the Blightkings. 

 I’m going to tidy up Gutrot and finish off the upper body then he will go onto the back burner for a while. I have a (hopefully) smaller project in mind for Salute that will take over for a couple of months. After that, and once Gutrot is finished, I might see about doing something else for GD - but I'll see how it all goes.

Project Nurgle Part 8 ... It’s an ill wind

I didn’t get much painting done last week. I couldn’t quite drum up the energy and enthusiasm to settle down and get to it, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when I felt the first signs of a cold coming on last Friday. For the record that’s the third cold I’ve had since starting ‘project Nurgle’. It’s enough to make a person superstitious! 
At the weekend I decided not to tempt fate by forcing myself to paint. Gutrot Spume is going well but the paint job takes a lot of effort and concentration and I really didn’t feel up to it. I decided instead to tinker with some ideas for his base. That way I could get something constructive done without risking the mini. 

I’ve always been sure that I wanted Gutrot to be on a boat of some kind. His role as master of the plague fleet had inspired me to adopt a nautical theme and a boat just seemed like the most natural choice. But even the best idea in the world is no use if you can’t make it a reality. What I really wasn’t sure about were the details of size, composition and construction. That’s been worrying me quite a bit. I’ve gathered together a collection of reference pictures and spent a lot of time just thinking about what I wanted to do and about how to do it. 

I realised that the best solution was to simply stop worrying and start constructing. If things didn’t work out there would be no harm done, and some useful lessons might be learned. I began construction with cardboard and masking tape. The idea was to knock up something rough and ready that would help me sort out my ideas and figure out the practicalities. 

My first try at a card dummy of the boat worked out surprisingly well. With a spare Gutrot Spume to hand I was able to figure out both the size and composition very quickly. I think all the time I’d spent worrying had helped me develop my ideas to the point that all I really needed to do was to have the courage of my convictions. 

The card dummy was the correct size and shape but it lacked any sort of strength or stability. My initial plan had been to use this dummy as a template for the ‘proper’ construction. I decided to see if I could stabilize and strengthen the dummy with super glue and milliput. The super glue soaked into the card and set the construction rigid while the milliput filled the gaps to give me a solid core over which I could add the surface textures. Before I knew it my cardboard dummy had become the core for the final piece. 

At this point I’ll apologise for the lack of work in progress pictures. I had no idea when I started that my experiment would go so well and was simply enjoying a weekend spent tinkering with cardboard and glue. 

With a solid core constructed for my boat I turned my attention to the surface detail. I’ve always favoured balsa wood as on option but was unsure about the details of construction with this material. Now that I had a solid and stable core the balsa could simply be used as a surface veneer. Sunday was spent cutting strips and panels of balsa that I then carved and shaved to fit the core. A combination of PVA wood glue and super glue fixed the balsa in place. I’ve begun working on the surface with wire brushes to add some texture and damage to the wood and the boat is beginning to develop a bit of character. 

The biggest surprise is that the resulting boat is very close to my initial ideas! There is a lot of work that needs to be done to finish off the detail and add texture but my weekend of experimentation has proven to be far more productive than I ever could have imagined. 

It looks like Papa Nurgle knew what he was up to when he gave me this cold!