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Sunday, May 19, 2019

Gudvanger's Body Puppets

Continuing with the Nurgle theme, here is my (somewhat) non-Nurgle take on the Putrid Blightkings. From the narrative standpoint, they are supposed to be botched clones of Haralamb Gudvanger and just like he, they are bloated and distorted servants of the Lady of the Bog, not Nurgle worshippers - so they keep the bodies and mutations, but all the chaos iconography is filed off. You can see the unpainted, converted minis together with some design principles HERE.

I had a lot of fun building them and painting was the same - it was really enjoyable to paint all the different hues, reddened, mutated flesh, discolorations, boils and lesions. The basecoat was wetblended to achieve a mix of various colors from the beginning, which were then brought together with shades, glazes and highlights.

The bases saw my second use of two-ingredient water effects and I'm pretty satisfied with the results. The resin actually seeped into the sand that I used as the first layer, creating a pretty interesting, muddy impression. I also stuck those thin, long strands into some of the tufts to imitate lone strands of long grass that I noticed in the wetlands during my last vacation - and I think they help to sell the 'bog' effect a little better - what do you think about them?


The horrific Flesh-stitcher Haralamb Gudvanger may be known best for his lumbering monsters, but he considers himself his best handiwork. For countless years he has been building replacement body puppets, which continuously replace him after each death. It all started when he was still learning the secrets of anatomy by himself, fruitlessly looking for a way to cheat death and achieve immortality. Only when he started to study under the Lady of the Bog he discovered that while he can’t stop his own body from eventual deterioration in any acceptable way, he could build a puppet, a duplicate of himself - one so perfect, it could replace him without any loss at all. Since then, every time his body died, a puppet woke in its place, identical to the original, with the same memory and intellect, continuing his work as if nothing happened - everything a secret he keeps from everyone but the Lady herself. Still, the process is difficult and some results are… botched. They are unusable as replacements but those flesh automatons have their use - Gudvanger arms them and commands them to patrol and guard his domain. Thus they lumber tirelessly through the mists around the Black Bog, attacking anyone they stumble upon. To some extent, they believe to be the Flesh-stitcher too, that’s why sometimes they will hack away the hands of their victims, or try to build gruesome compositions out of their victims’ bodies. Terrifyingly strong, resilient and unrelenting in following their creator’s (their own?) commands, they are almost as dangerous as Gudvanger himself.

First, the whole group of six fleshy automatons - a little from above to make the bases easier to see:

Unit of 6 converted Putrid Blightkings miniatures with swamp bases, standing on a unit tray made out of bardboard and balsawood.

And some close-ups of the individual creatures, the first three:

3 converted Putrid Blightkings miniatures painted in a Dark Souls / AoS28 aesthetic viewed from several angles

The second three:

3 converted Putrid Blightkings miniatures painted in a Dark Souls / AoS28 aesthetic viewed from several angles

9 comments:

  1. Ależ fantastyczna orgia dekadencji, zepsucia i entropii!

    Te skądinąd świetne wzory Wojowników Nurgla zyskały dzięki Twojemu fantastycznemu malowaniu.

    Dawno tak długo nie oglądałem zdjęć modeli.

    Bardzo dobra robota!

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    1. Bardzo mnie to cieszy, wielkie dzięki! Brud i zgniliznę zawsze dobrze mi sie malowało/rysowało ;D

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  2. Jesteś MISTRZEM! Kolekcjoner dłoni jest debeściakiem!

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  3. Piątka z plusem za przekonujące zaczerwienienia skóry oraz operowanie matem i połyskiem (jęzor!)

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    1. Dzięki, cieszę się, że zwróciłeś na to uwagę, połysk czasem trochę ginie na zdjęciach :)

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  4. These are fantastic. I particularly like the guy with the axe and shield with the huge spikes in his shoulder armour. The blight lords kit is great fun and I look forward to your Bloaters/Nurgle Warriors for your BB team.

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    1. Thanks again! I also like him very much ;) The kit is indeed one of the best - and I am having even more fun on those Bloaters - they will be up here in a week :)

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