Blood Bowl Nurgle Team - Rotspawn WIP

The mighty Bloaters, the 'fast' Pestigors and the fragile Rotters are painted, but a Nurgle team is nothing without the Beast (or a Rotspawn as it is called now)! There are the official one from Forge World, GW minis that can be repurposed and many other third-party options, but I couldn't find one that I really liked. The obvious solution in this situation was to make my own from scratch! I have been sculpting Nurgle guts on existing minis for a long time now, so this shouldn't be that much more difficult.

First design principle was to make it 'ugly cute', like HERE - the picture that inspired me the most. Beasts of Nurgle always had the background of having a puppy-like mentality and I wanted to show this quality, despite the 'official' art direction for new Rotspawn. To achieve that, I gave it large, round eyes - which will be painted glossy black - to get that 'puppy eyes' effect and a wide grin with tongue sticking out. During the sculpting process, I also decided to make its face flat and with many folds to make it similar to a pug. The arms are also posed like that to get that 'pet animal' effect.

The second design principle was to make the tentacle really important. In the game, the 'Tentacle' mutation that the Rotspawn possesses from the start dictates it's the whole role on the pitch and plays a giant role in the whole team's strategy - and most miniatures used for this creature have their tentacles stuck to the head or the back, almost like an afterthought. I wanted this sticky appendage to be an integral part of the whole miniature - so I designed it as an extension of the beast's head, the tentacle IS its head! Only from that main one smaller ones grow out to make the whole composition more wriggly and untidy.

Other than that, it was your usual Nurgle pleasantness, with open wounds, sucktion cups, toothy maws, spikes, boils and many similar. In the end, only the pauldrons, three spikes on the back, a nurgling on the side and two maws are made out of existing bits, all the rest was sculpted by me - I used all the greenstuff that I had on hand at that time. I am pretty happy with this result and now I can't wait to put some equally sick colors on it!

Before I started all the greenstuffing, I did a plasticine 3d-sketch, to get the scale and proportions right. I still had it after the finished model was done, so I made a comparison photo of them together - I find it interesting to see how different and yet similar they are.

Drazhan the Younger

Another small update of one of the wight heroes - only this time it's not much of a hero, but rather a constructor, sculptor and an architect - Drazhan the Younger, the Magnificent Maker.

The whole idea with him was to kitbash a version of a Necrotect from the Tomb Kings roster that would fit with the aestethics of my army - the conversion can be found in the link above. I painted him in the usual color scheme for my wights - only now he's not a warrior, but a craftsman. The metal parts are rather minimal, the patterned black and yellow cloth is also small and it's the red hat that's the focal point of the composition - I tried to create an impression of an building site foreman (who also often wear differently colored headwear).

Besides being a gaming piece, he's also narratively a creator of constructs (like the Effigy of Death) and a reason to start creating my own takes on iconic Tomb Kings constructs such as the Ushabti, Tomb Scorpions and Bone Giants.

Zlyshko was very satisfied with the Effigy he managed to bring back to life, but one was not enough for his plans. The fact that all remaining ones were destroyed didn’t help. Only way to deal with this was to get their creators to make more. They may be all dead, but that wasn’t as much of a problem nowadays. A wide search was conducted - it wasn’t easy, for the architects-sculptors-engineers that made those marvels often omitted their own name out of humility. Only one - Drazhan the Younger - was honoured (or prideful) enough to be buried with all the information about him. An egocentric, brilliant creator and a harsh overseer, Drazhan was most pleased to be able to glorify the Death God with his creations once again and with them, drive away nonbelievers from Varsavia.

Blood Bowl Nurgle Team - Rotters

I showed you the Bloaters, I showed you the Pestigors, now it's the time for the fragile, unsung heroes (not really) of every Nurgle team - the Rotters.

Unlike the other two kinds of players, this time the official ones from the new GW box were exactly what I needed! Small, scrawny, funny and easy to convert! This even fits well with my backstory, where the Bloaters are ancient, Pestigors are pretty old and the Rotters quite up-to-date with the times - it makes sense for them to look the same as the current team. Still, I converted every single one of them to represent the upgrades that they rolled - and it was both a great opportunity for some interesting modifications and a way to make them all really different.

When it came to painting, they had all that the Bloaters and Pestigors had - armor, flesh, tentacles, green clothes, some leather. That made them actually more tasking to paint that I anticipated! As for their names, I was inspired by Blood Bowl 1 video game, where they all had painfully mundane names with some disgusting, Nurgly byname. I decided to make a twist on it and make it more ironic, with noble and bombastic bynames, just to exploit some BB silliness where it fits the most - the poor, easily killable and replaceable linemen.

WIP can be seen HERE.

With the time-traveling Putrid Punters, the spectators can marvel at the ancient, elaborate armor of the Bloaters or outdated, but savage playstyle of the Pestigors, but with the Rotters, well, there’s not much to see here! Bereft of regeneration and easy to crumble, they die easily and are replaced so often, they are actually quite up-to-date! Their armor conforms to the current regulations and if their brains weren't mushed at this point, they would actually understand the fans’ current slang! Still, Grandfather Nurgle rewards them generously for their selfless service to him and the noble game with numerous mutations. This makes them quite versatile and useful on the pitch - no matter if it’s about kicking a ball or getting kicked by an Orc to keep him busy and let more valuable Punters actually score.

The one on the left here has the most useful 'Guard' skill - I represented it with shields he has all over him. The middle one, 'the Great' rolled a lucky Agility upgrade, making him as nimble as an elf! Because of that, he got a 'tricky' pose with a ball raised high. That and pointy ears too. The one on the right has 'Thick Skull' - I showed it by sculpting a turtle shell over his head - a built-in helmet!

Here, the guy on the left has the 'Big Hands' mutation (obviously). Since the WIP post, I glued a small topknot on his helmet to bind him just a tiny bit with the Bloaters and their headcrests - maybe he's the captain of the Rotters, or the oldest one? The middle one has 'Prehensile Tail', also pretty obvious and simple. The last one is the precious 'Kicker' of the team, so I changed his pose to make it seem like he's preparing to kick a ball. Maybe in the future, he'll get 'Dirty Player', which will also fit pretty nicely with this pose!

Ignatyi Ognemet

This was the last time I painted so much fire!

Half a year ago I posted my WIP pictures of converted, odd Necromancers and it's finally time to wrap up the project and post the third and the last one of them painted, the fire-necromancer Ignatyi.

As you can see, this one was all about fire all over him - the rest was my standard dirty clothing. Unfortunately, I have a weird dislike for painting flames, I don't know why, but it just drains my motivation. I noticed it already on my Hexwraiths, but this time I thought I can force myself through it and maybe it'll at least look good. To make it even more interesting (and worse for me) I bought a Burning Head endless spell because it works just perfect with this character.

The whole idea came to me when I was reading rules for 9th Age a long time ago - and they decided to give necromancers Lore of Flames, to give them more offensive potential. This gave me an idea to create a crazed Necromancer, shrouded in green balefire - if not for the game, then at least as a painting/modeling challenge. Since that time the creators of the game changed the whole idea of Lores of Magic, to my miniature no longer applies there. Oh well! I will leave the assessment to you if he looks good enough to be worth all the stress those flames costed me.

Being a fire wizard is one of the surest ways to get yourself banished from the Kislevite society - not only you pose a hazard to all the wooden buildings, but you also stand in direct opposition to the traditional ice magic practiced in the land. Such was Ignatiy’s story - what started as an unusual talent which could find its use on the battlefield, soon became a reason for discrimination and exclusion amongst his traditionalist peers. That, together with pyromania which started to creep into his mind, soon led to his banishment. Ridden with paranoia and slowly losing his sanity, he was found by a certain hooded and masked individual. That creature showed him that his talents can be melded together with necromantic arts to use the energies of the dead and create an especially fell and devastating kind of fire. Wielding those sinister green flames, Ignatiy descended into almost complete madness through all the years he plagued Kislev. In that state, he got recruited by Hautfell - as a very volatile, fiery artillery for his necromantic coven.

Blood Bowl Nurgle Team - Pestigors

After the fighty, tough Bloaters, it's time for the fast (as far as Nurgle allows), ball handling Pestigors.

Just like with the beforementioned positionals, I wasn't satisfied with the official GW ones - while it's a good sculpt, there are just two of them in the box, both with the same pose. To get all 4 in different poses I decided to use Beastmen from the Doom Lords Blood Bowl team and convert them into the rotten versions of themselves. Using BB minis also spared me making them more sporty, they were unarmed and quite dynamic already.

In comparison to the warriors, those guys didn't have that much armor on them, so it was purely an exercise on disgusting, Nurgly flesh - and it was, of course, a lot of fun. Like the others, they got also converted to represent somehow their upgrades - which I describe below. Their names were inspired/taken from BB1 and BB2 video games, where the generator makes a pretty good job creating some beastly-sounding monikers for the goats.

WIP can be seen HERE.

When the Putrid Punters disappear into the warp, only to reappear many years later, they do so together - players, coaches, staff, etc. Only while you can see on the nigh-unkillable Bloaters how they are from another era, the Pestigors are never really keen on following the universal cultural norms, so the changes on them are not that noticeable on the first look. Here it’s the playstyle that’s different - while Bloaters smash and stink as always, modern beastmen are more refined and organized in their behavior on the pitch. In comparison, the Bloaters’ Pestigors are more bestial and chaotic - relying on their instinct more than on the coach’s instructions. Thankfully, they have a brain (unlike Rotspawn!), so it usually works out in the end.

On the left there is a goat with the 'Sprint' ability - the intestine trailing behind him is supposed to give him a sense of speed. The one on the right rolled the unlikely 12 and got a bonus to his strength - to represent that, I made him much bulkier, beefy - making him resemble a Bloater a little more (which makes sense, they are ST4 too!).

And the remaining two runners. The Pestigor the left is the one with 'Extra Arm' skill and the first one that I converted. Such an upgrade is also usually the first one that I take in the video game, making the first lucky goat into an official ball handler. The other one has 'Two Heads' mutation, which makes it easier for him to dodge (somehow). The additional head is small and malformed, which was also inspired by the video game, where it's similarly represented.

Kaliglav the Scarlet Priest - WIP

Recently I got miniatures to be used as human followers of the wights and their Death God cult - and after getting them, I started wondering if I could represent somehow people following the Lady of the Bog, their priests - to mix some religious imagery with blood and flesh horror. Then I saw THIS artwork from the amazing Bogdan Rezunenko and it really got my gears moving. This resulted in me buying Taddeus the Purifier, the priest from Blackstone Fortress to change him into what I need - bringing us the update this week, Kaliglav the Scarlet Priest, the pious servant of the wise and fair Lady of the Bog.

I had to get rid of all the technological elements, smooth out the details and make it everything much grittier and dirtier. Just like with the tentacle-legged Nurgle sportsman from before, I attached the priest to the base with a rod and then built up all the tentacles around it - which gave me freedom when sculpting and posing them. I could also give him more than just two hands - it strengthens the effect of being 'beyond human form' and it actually references the original miniature, who had a servo skull with a gun as the third 'limb'. I also cut off the top surface of the base - I will fill it with some resin to represent a murky, dirty bog.

Blood Bowl Nurgle Team - Bloaters

Finally, after much deliberation, I can start showing my beloved, heavily converted Nurgle Blood Bowl team, the Putrid Punters!

I am spending much more time and energy painting those than any of the earlier team, so I decided to separate the positionals into their own posts - this will give them adequate space to show everything and give me time to finish other ones. After everything is done, I will post the whole team together, of course. The color scheme was inspired by their look in Blood Bowl 2 video game, with the yellowish skin. To that, I choose cold, black armor with white markings - and it was a lot of fun painting all that.

First come the Bloaters, which I wanted to paint the most, the biggest and the nurgliest of the bunch. They are also the ones carry the Roman theme of the team the most - which is explained in their backstory. I based my conversion on the awesome Putrid Blightkings kit because I wanted my Bloaters a little more warrior-like and diverse. Like the rest of the team, they are modeled to represent an additional skill they possess, to make it easy to recognize who is who on the pitch.

WIP can be seen HERE.

The Putrid Punters have a very strange relationship with the Grandfather Nurgle - they can play season after season enjoying the favor of their god - until something happens that displeases him and they disappear into the warp without a trace. Many years later the Punters show up again as if nothing happened - willing to spread pestilence and score touchdowns as always. This quirk of theirs is especially apparent when one sees their Bloaters - durable enough to be with the team since the very beginning. They wear armor that remember the warlike times before Blood Bowl, they speak in an aged dialect and block their opponents just like ancient gladiators. Now they are back to show once again that the old ways are the best.

Here the left you can see the Bloater with Jump Up ability - spider legs on his back represent how easier it would be for him to get up after getting knocked down. I did put arm(?)bands on them to make him look more sporty. On the right is the captain of the team, with the very obvious Claw upgrade - easily my favorite model from them all right now.

And the other half of the team heavy lifters. The one on the left is a Stand Firm guy, who uses numerous tentacles he has for legs to make him almost impossible to push around. The one on the right has a Mighty Blow skill - I pondered quite a bit how to represent that without straying accidentally into Claw, Big Hand or Tentacles territory. In the end, I made him a thick, fleshy mace for a hand - which not only gives him indeed some might but is also properly disgusting.