I loathe everything about it. I dislike the bulky, lazy sculpting. I hate the crude, angular, inorganic appearance of the Nurglings. And I dislike just how unintelligent and generic he is: he's a tallyman, but he has no quills, no scrolls or books, the only conceit to his administrative nature is a hourglass, more suggestive of a timekeeper than a tallyman. Compared to the beautiful and intelligently designed new Scrivener model, he's very unimpressive. So I decided I'd have to kitbash him.
First of all was the palanquin: without that you can't get very far because the rest has to be built around it. I had some bits for the Chaos Warshrine lying about, and upon inspection I realised that the front end of the chassis would make a good palanquin. I sawed the component in half just behind the chaos starburst, and then sanded down the edge to remove the messy, frayed shreds left by the saw. I turned it back to front so that the leering face on the front of the Warshrine would face the back.
Next it was the Nurglings. These were incredibly easy: it was a case of just rounding up spare Nurglings from wherever I could find them and gluing them onto the palanquin in such a way that they were more or less on a level. Obviously, I attempted to pin and stack them together to strengthen the bond where I could. I added a couple of books from the Grey Knight Terminators box on the palanquin, with the imperial icons removed.
This left me with Epidemius himself. I wanted him to have an impressive bulk, and to at once signify his scholarly role and his brute strength. I chose Otto Glott because he's big, bulky, disgusting and because his feet are already on a slope, he's easier to move into a sprawling position. I lined his body up against the palanquin and wedged him in a half-sitting, half-sprawling pose. The angle was right, but it looked ridiculous - there was a massive gap between his back and the palanquin. I decided that I would fill that space, to give the impression that he's lounging on a throne of rotting human flesh and offal. I achieved this with a mixture of tissue and PVA glue. This is quick, cheap and easy to build up. It takes a while to dry, but it quite tough when it does. Once dried, I coated it in liquid greenstuff. At his sides I added detailed, particularly on the right where I added skulls and bones from various kits to create a kind of armrest. I had a special plan for this.
Next, though, came the head. Otto's head would be at the wrong angle, and in any case would be too 'mortal'. I chose a Plaguebearer champion head then glued and pinned it into place so that it was looking forward and a bit up. This left a massive gap behind it, which I filled using the tissue, PVA and green stuff approach detailed above.
The left arm was no problem: I wanted him looking as though he was declaiming, booming out pompous demands for greater productivity. A spare arm from the Maggoth kit did the trick. There I moved onto the right arm, knowing that this would be... awkward.
I really wanted him to be doing something scribe-like, and I'd come up with the idea of him writing his tally in blood in a ledger, a daemon bookkeeper cheerlessly writing eternity away. I also wanted him to be holding a quill pen so that I could visually keep him consistent with the new Scrivener model. But how to achieve this? I took a weapon hand from the Blightkings kit and removed the weapon. Then I drilled a hole diagonally (downwards from back to front) through the hand, so that it exited between the fingers. On the front, I pushed in the point of the quill, which I made from a random thin spike. Then I added the bulk of the quill to the other end of the drilled hole, using one of the plumes from the Warhammer Fantasy Empire Pistoliers kit. I left this to bond with poly cement for a good long while, then added it to the arm. I wedged a book from the Burning Chariot of Tzeentch kit underneath the hand, and then filled the gaps as needed.
An then we have it! Epidemius... but a bit more fitting!
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