Nurgle Chaos Lord Conversion – Work in Progress

I figured I’d make a short post and show you the progress I’m making on my Nurgle Chaos Lord conversion, which I first mentioned in a post from a few weeks ago. I like how he’s turning out so far.

In spectacular 360-Vision!

I did the priming in black with my airbrush, making him the first single figure I’ve primed with my airbrush (I primed a vehicle a month ago with it). I used the Vallejo Black Primer (the bottle, not the spray) and it works great. And easy, really smooth coat that’s easy to get in all the nooks and crannies. Priming with the airbrush also wastes a lot less paint. I’m really looking forward to doing more priming soon.

The basecoat green was also done with the airbrush, using Vallejo Model Air paint. I tried to only get it to come down from the top to give the illusion of highlight and shadow. You can’t really tell how well it worked in these shots, as they’re lit by the shoplight on my workbench which throws off a heck of a shadow by itself. Hopefully, when the figure is finished and I shoot pictures of it in my lightbox setup, then the effect from the airbrush basecoating will really stand out.

So for now, I’m adding some washes to the skin and I’ve painted his chainmail loincloth (*shudder*… pinchy) all metallic, so next it’ll be painting a dark metallic color on his boots and wrists, then figure out what I want to do with his shoulderpads and those big honkin’ spikes.

Starting on MERCS Minis and Surviving OshCon

So another OshCon has come and gone. We had 237 attendees this year, up 17 from last year. This is exactly what we like to see, so we were pretty happy with the turnout. Everything went smoothly and everybody seemed to have a good time.

Some OshCon 2011 gaming in the big room

The day after the convention I traditionally take the day off to recuperate and get my voice back and such. This year was no exception, so I slept in a bit, hung out at the coffee shop a bit, and then came home and did laundry and worked on some minis projects.

Left is not highlighted, the right is highlighted with airbrush

These guys are from the USCR (think corporate Neo-Soviets, I guess) faction from MERCS. I primed them with the Khaki color of Krylon Camouflage spraypaint last week when the weather was still agreeable, and then I highlighted them with my airbrush from above to give them depth. I’ll admit, the shadows are pretty harsh in the above photo, so you can’t really see the effect, but it’s there, and it speeds along the painting process by leaps and bounds. I also used the airbrush to highlight some terrain I had bought from Miniatures Unlimited at OshCon and I primed my Nurgle Chaos Lord conversion. Being able to prime models in the house with my airbrush is going to increase my output greatly.

Anyway, I’ll post again soon with some progress on the tubby little Nurgle Chaos Lord and the USCR guys, and hopefully I’ll have more progress to show off on my Realm of Battle board, as well.

Realm of Battle Board: A Busy Weekend

I purchased a Realm of Battle board from Games Workshop a few years back. I knew I would eventually paint it and get it all set up, but I didn’t have a table to put it on, so it sat in a case, in the closet, for A Long Time.

You’ve heard a story like this before.

Anyway, this summer I did finally build a gaming table with the help of friends, so now I really had no excuse: I had done all of the research, figured out my plan of attack, my materials and how I was going to make it happen and I just had to start. And a few weeks ago, I did start… but only on one of the six 2×2-foot pieces. I looked at it as a test.

And then on Saturday, I woke up and decided that today was the day.

A dusty, sandy wasteland sitting in my driveway

I’ll be honest, it’s still not finished. There’s all kinds of little rocks and details and skulls and skulls and skulls (if you’ve seen this thing close-up, you know that the planet it represents seems to be made of skulls) so those things still need to be painted, and there’s a little bit of airbrush shading and highlight drybrushing I want to try, and then there’ll be the Dullcote clear varnish spray to protect it. But then, it’ll be completely done. I would say I’m at 70% at this point, maybe 75%.

Also this weekend, I primed a daemon prince and my entire USCR faction (six models) for the skirmish game MERCS. I’ll have blog posts about those things as they move along, I assure you. I’m really looking forward to painting the USCR guys. The daemon prince is a little scary because he’s so big and detailed.

On Sunday, I built a Nurgle Chaos Lord that I had picked up at Chimera a few weeks ago and converted him to make him work for Warhammer 40,000 instead of Warhammer Fantasy, which is what he was designed for. I like the way he’s turning out so far:

He seems to have a little problem there... and there... and there...

I mainly just added an old Chaos Space Marine backpack, a Nurgle shoulderpad on his right shoulder, a bolt pistol on his hip, and of course the bayonet he seems to be perplexed by, but overall not too concerned with. I’m really looking forward to painting him (as I do with nearly any kind of figure with the words plague or nurgle in the title) and will probably prime him and basecoat him with my airbrush some time after OshCon, which is coming up this weekend. If you can, you should attend and play some games. It’s a good time, if you’re a gamer. If you’re not a gamer, then you might want to make other plans.