Blight Drone of Nurgle

Some of you may have seen my Death Guard army from a few years ago. Well, while reorganising my study in order to accommodate some books I moved out of my old office I discovered this Blight Drone at the back of a shelf. The model was painted quite some time ago but I’d never finished the base. A quick bit of drybrushing and the addition of some basing materials soon sorted this out. Now that the model is 100% complete I thought I would photograph it and show it off on the blog.

Finding the Blight Drone has inspired me to paint some more Nurgle models. Keep an eye on the blog for these in the near future.

Andy.

Pre-Heresy Death Guard conversion

This model was created for an online hobby challenge on Twitter called #BitsBoxChallenge organised by Andy Tunley (@atunley). The challenge, as its name suggests, was to create a model using only those parts found in your bits box. My idea was to create my version of a pre-Heresy Death Guard marine in the modified mkIII Iron Armour that they are famed for. The inspiration for this came from an illustration in one of the fantastic ‘Index Astartes’ articles in an old issue of White Dwarf.

The inspiration.

I used a spare Forge World Death Guard torso which I had left over from doing my Chaos marines as the basis for the conversion. The chest plate had to be cut away and replaced with a suitably Heresy-era looking chest plate taken from the Tactical Squad set. I then had to sculpt the neck area in green stuff. The plastic arms are also from this set as is the studded shoulder pad. At first I was uncertain over which shoulder pad to use. I was toying with the idea of using one from the Chaos Space Marine set as it matched the look of Forge World’s Iron Armour more closely. However, in the end I decided to go with the ‘rule of cool’  and use the studded pad instead which looks much better.

The bolt pistol and backpack are ones that I have had in my bits box for a very long time and come from the previous Space Marine range (before the release of the current line of multi-part plastics). The legs are from an old metal veteran model which was sawed in half. The gaps were filled with green stuff and parchments and grenades from the Space Marine set were used to cover the join.

What started out as an idea for a simple kit bash became one of the most ambitious conversions I’ve attempted to date (I usually just build stuff straight out of the box). There was a lot more sawing, filing and sculpting than I anticipated. I really enjoyed this little project and hope to get him painted up soon. The next #BitsBoxChallenge is scheduled for 6th May so check out the hash tag and get rummaging through your bits box!

In other news, I have made some more progress on my Dark Angels army and I hope to share this with you soon.

All the best,

Andy.

Plans for 2012

Well, it’s the end of the year. So what have I got planned for 2012? Next year will bring a lot of big changes to my life. I will be finishing my PhD soon (I’m hoping to submit my thesis around Easter time) and will also be looking for a job. However, I do have a number of hobby plans as well. First of all I have a number of unfinished projects which I am hoping to complete such as my Dreadfleet set and my Mordheim project.

I got a job lot of Mordheim models from ebay recently which included enough undead models for a starting warband. I plan on painting these up for a friend to play with when I start my campaign. Here are the models as they were when I received them. As you can see, they have a very basic paint job which will need stripping and repainting.

Rumors of Chaos

If internet rumors are to be believed, a new Chaos codex is planned for release in 2012. If this is indeed the case expect to see a return to my Death Guard army. My enthusiasm for this project stalled a little as they simply aren’t fun to play with. Hopefully Codex: Chaos Legions will make it possible to play with a fluffy army which is also competitive and fun. I plan on finishing painting my current units and adding a few new models as well. I have my eye on the fantastic  Plague Hulk and Daemon Prince models from Forge World.

An Unexpected Journey

Obviously the big news for next year is the release of the first installment of The Hobbit movies. The first trailer has already been released and looks brilliant. The trailer has been reposted on several blogs so I won’t repeat it here but if you haven’t seen it it is definitely worth a look. It doesn’t really give anything away but it is nice to see Tolkien’s world back on film. As a massive Tolkien-nerd I’m very excited about this and the news that GW will be producing a range of models for the franchise.

Happy New Year!

Andy.

Death Guard added to the gallery

Over the last year or so I have been working on my Death Guard army. This is an ongoing project but those models that are fully painted and based have been added to my gallery page. You can find them here.