Sunday 25 February 2018

Battle brothers of the Synod of Suffering


The 2017 Plague Marines are a work of art A monstrous, horrible work of art, but a work of art nonetheless. I love the grotesque details on them so much that I - a pathological tinkerer - don't feel the need to convert every one of them. In this squad there's only one conversion (the champion's hefty axe). 


A question I sometimes get is: 'why don't you ever paint Nurgle green?' The reason for this is actually pretty simple: green doesn't say 'decay' or 'disease' to me. Green evokes life and fertility to me. Now arguably, in a dark way those are aspects of Nurgle. But to me, that monstrous feeling of disease and misery should be pervasive. The armour colour is simply Leadbelcher>Typhus Corrosion>various oranges drybrushed. This dilapidated brown/orange to me suggests slow rot and degradation. On flesh areas, if they are large enough, I sometimes also use a range of purples and very thinned yellows, the colours of bruising and infection. The only green I use is fairly random splashes of Nurgle's Rot, to suggest oozing pus or slime. 


You've probably noticed that everything is caked in stale old blood. The reason here is that I think everything Nurgle-oid should be suffering. Now, being that they're lunatics who have given themselves over to an insane god, they can shrug off that suffering, not even feeling it or even delighting in it. But nonetheless, I feel as though every Plague Marine should be actively... dripping. That's also why ichor is trickling from joints and corroded patches in the armour - I don't think there's anything like the biology of a sane universe under that armour. 


I used a kind of parched yellow static grass on the bases, as well as areas which I didn't sand and instead filled in as unwholesome gloop. Where there was room I added coils of rusting barbed wire or chainlink to give a wasted, World War 1 type feel to it. I debated black grass at first, the idea being that the presence of the Plague Marines has leeched the life out of it, but the models are largely dark, so I wanted a lighter shade.


Some people don't like painting these models, but I love them. I've got four fully painted squads and another one on the go. They're different enough from each other to make it fun. 




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