Afternoon #warmongers and #warhammercommunity a wise man once said "'cause you come from out of nowhere, oh, oh" and I've been #paintingwarhammer my #Nurgle #BloodBowl Rotspawn which has done just that. Having built the thing I primed it Army Painter Bonewhite [not forgetting a warm soapy bath beforehand - Nurgle really appreciates the cleanliness before it gets dirty, dirty, dirty].
Ok, let's address the Rotspawn in the the room - veins. I once saw an episode of How Do They Do That, which featured artificial eyes and one of the tricks they do to make them realistic is they embed red woollen fibres under some gloss varnish to represent veins. I think they also draw some on but that stuck with me and I wanted to do the same.
Now the only red wool I had was really bright so I added some sepia wash to get some variation and then applied it with some Lahmian Medium to try and bind the fibres on. Overall it wasn't bad, but I really shouldn't have deviated from the recipe of gloss varnish. Gloss is thicker and would have provided a smoother transition between flesh and vein. As it was the Lahmian Medium left the fibres very much on top of the skin instead of embedded in it. Also, I did pause between applications and that meant some of the sepia washed fibres dried and became difficult to mould to the form below - lessons learned.
I obviously wanted a pale grub but with some underpainting going on. So, rather than go in with the Bonewhite highlights after some shading I went straight to my Miniature Paints Cream. The only problem with that is even thinned down it's still quite opaque.
VGC Heavy Red [Khorne Red] again comes to my rescue to add that angry rawness to the skin.
I also added some shading to his horns, although I get the impression from the painted box art they might be tentacles, he at least has that mutation in his stats. Anyway, I'm doing horns. I also added Burnt Umber shading on the lower part of the model and Typhus Corrosion to the armour plates.
I'm already surprised how quickly this is coming together, I guess in no small part because it is just a big maggot with a couple of orange armour plates and horns - there aren't too many colours to contend with.
The face is starting to reconcile itself, it's almost just like a Lamprey. I do still wish there was an alternative head to go on it but it's not quite as bad as I feared.
Here's where the choice of Lahmian Medium as a binder for the wool fibres rears its ugly head. You can even see in some cases the fibres have broken loose and I'll have to 'surgically' remove them. Frustrating because the process is sound, I just executed it poorly, but it was a first attempt and we live and learn.
I tried to paint over some of the veins to help embed them under the skin. I think that lack of a gloss finish made them even more pronounced so I think a gloss varnish now might help. It could be closing the stable door after the horses have bolted, but it's the best option I have right now to try and smooth things out.
Here we have it glossed up with some more progress on the model - oranges and yellow pustules.
It's improving and with the bits of purple and red there are all kinds of mottled skin effects going on. I know it could have been even better but I still think this is beyond what I was expecting to achieve.
The gloss coat on everything has gone some way to embed the veins a bit. It's not perfect but better than it was. I just can't believe how quickly it has all come together. Admittedly it is still a distraction from my Aegis Defence Line and Aberrants but it would have sat on a shelf for so long if I hadn't just gone with the flow.
The face is a mess, literally and figuratively. I'm not sure if it's better or worse but I'll keep plugging away at it
So far it is definitely the most disgusting player I have on the team and although it's not perfect it's definitely an improvement. When I come to do my Death Guard Kill Team I'll be using this as my template, that for certain.
