Nurgle champion n°51-55 from the Lost and the damned : Phalless Whistletongue

Today I'm presenting you my first model of the year. This model is actually my entry for the Realm of Chaos challenge on the Oldhammer forum : The bestiary of the unfortunate and the exalted.

A project has been proposed to make a model of every entry in the pre-rolled champions presented in the Lost and the Damned book.

Since we can freely choose our entries, I opted for an easy one to start with  : n° 51-55

An headless champion with extra joints in the arm can't be that hard to model right?

 As a base, I started with a pair of plastic legs for those horrible warriors of chaos released for the 5th edition of WHFB. This was one of the first multi part plastic kits after GW had sat on the idea if I remember correctly. The poses you could build were all silly to me but bits are bits and they can be whatever you need them to be with a little patience and modelling...

 

You see where that extra fear point comes from?

On this base I added a plastic ogre head from the ogre kingdom range (quite reminiscent of a certain other mutant I know) and added  plastic arms taken to a beast man and chaos marauder. I added the extra joints in the arms by using another pair of arms. Now at first I tried a version with both joints placed the same way  but it felt silly, something was off (should have taken a picture), so I started over and decided the extra joints should not be placed the same way on both arms. This gives a feeling of extra creepiness and unease while not evident at first.

Serious skin problems here

Things got ugly when I mixed some green stuf to just add a belt to hide the link between the torso and the legs. At that point I had already integrated the head and arms together and had hidden all nasty joints. 

I mixed a ridiculously too large amount of green stuff to finish the belt and couldn't throw the putty away. So I used all I had...

I first added sphincters, pustules, herpes here and there... then I added rotten fabric to the shoes and a weird toe coming out... then a long creepy tongue, until I was left with a little ball I shaped in some sort of chaotic mushroom I added on the base.

 Talk about organic construction process...

Painting wise, I knew I wanted one thing :  no green AT ALL. I know I've already said that I'm tired of green Nurgle and all but so far I've nearly always failed at avoiding green...

I have to say I really got inspired by Stuart Bannister's excellent blog : the lostandtheverydamned . If you don't know him yet, check it out, it is wonderfully creative and for me he really captures the essence of the realm of chaos books.

Since I love working on rust, I started with the armour (it's also the real messy part so you definitely do not want to drybrush orange all over your blended skintones...).

Working on a black prime with an added zenithal spray of grey, I worked my rust from tin brass to orange with drybrushes and brush taps of brown in between (see the mixes on my flesh palette).

Once that was done, I opted for a very light blue I desaturated a little to contrast with the vivid orange in the rusted parts.

 With a sepia wash and building highlights with a bone then white colour, I achieved the sick and pale skintone I wanted. The rest was just painting details in a manner that wouldn't draw the attention from the armour and flesh.

Flesh parts weer then altered with some glazes here and there around the sphincters and wounds to add vibrance and break the monotony. The tongue was basecoated with pink and recived a red to puprple wash from tip to base with translucent white spots here and there. a couple of glazes and blood later,it was done. I used some "bloddforthebloodgod" technical paint from GW and though I'm quite happy with the result, I am still half convinced by that pot. Maybe I should try to work with it thinned and in more layers...

 

Like any good chaos champion, this one had to have a name and I learnt this one is called Phalless whistletongue. He was a norse marauder who roamed costs with his crew. He had a few successes that got to his head that made him lazy and far too reliant on his fame. His decadence brought him to worship Nurgle which in return granted him the adequate mutation, namely the loss of his head (father Nurgle must have thougt he had already lost it long ago) and extra joints that made evry move awkward and vain. the tongue (not listed inthe mutation

From this point Phalless has tried to gain the consideration of his patron god but one on the path of Chaos rarely gets it when he most needs it but will always have it when he doesn't want it...

Since the project is still on, I might choose another entry in hope to finish it quicker than this one... like last year, I always take pleasure in such contests as they make one work outside teh comfort zone and make one do things differently.