Blood Bowl Nurgle Star Players - Conversions WIP

The core team of the Putrid Punters may be finished, but my work on Blood Bowl Nurgle is far from over!

I want to make a whole range of staff miniatures, upgrades, inducements and markers for them - and I started with the Star Players - special characters known in the Blood Bowl lore, famous celebrities from that universe, that can be employed for a match for a fee. 4 of them are strictly Nurgle-based and I decided to sculpt the whole set of them. Each time I was referring to the official illustrations from GW publications - and it was actually interesting, trying to sculpt something from an image.

Now to focus on each of them separately.

First is Guffle Pusmaw - he was included in one of the first supplements for the 2016 edition of the game, so I treat him as the most famous Nurgle player. As you can see, he got blessed with a giant, toothy maw on his belly, which makes it easier for him to catch and hold on to balls - he's actually the only player in the whole game with the 'Monstrous Mouth' skill (yet). Nurgle teams are bad at passing, but I still wanted to have him.

I built him from leftover Putrid Blightkings legs and torso, with BB Bloater arms. He has only Strength 3, unlike a Strength 4 Bloater, so I wanted to make at least his legs more scrawny, but in the process, I made him overly high. Oh well, it's not like Chaos cares about proportions!

As a comparison, HERE is his picture from the Spike! magazine.

The second one is an ex-circus Player, Tolly Glocklinger. This one is special for having a 'Ball and Chain' skill (think night goblin fanatics) - which he naturally interprets, in a Nurgly fashion, more like 'Bell and Intestine'. He sports also whopping Strength 7 (normal humans have 3 and big guys like ogres and minotaurs have 5) - so to represent it all I wanted to make him really fat and thick. I based my conversion on a Bloater miniature - I didn't use them in the core team, but they are still pretty amazing models. The bell was taken from the Putrid Blightkings and mounted on a brass wire, covered later with Greenstuff.

As a comparison, HERE is his picture from the Spike! magazine.

Next, the Pestigor Star Player, Bulla Shardhorn. The concept for this one is 'almost a chaos spawn' - with 'Two Heads', 'Extra Arms', 'Disturbing Presence', 'Foul Appearance', 'Horns' and even a 'Stab' for good measure. Now, while the Pestigor from the GW box was way too unique and monopose for me to use it in the team, this was the perfect use for it. I glued both options of head here (merging them with some greenstuffed flesh), added extra arms from Plaguebearers and Ghouls, and covered him with branches from the Dryads kit - I wanted him to be a twisted, shaky and gnarled plaything of Chaos - and seeing how difficult it is to read what is even happening here, I think he works quite well.

As a comparison, HERE is his picture from the Spike! magazine.

The last one is arguably the least spectacular, but also probably the most useful, Bilerot Vomitflesh. He is basically just a Bloater with extra strength, making him kind off like a Nurgle ogre of sorts. I based him on the second Bloater model and besides changing his head, pose and adding a shirt over his chest (to get him to look like the official depiction) I made his arms and neck extra bulky, to represent his extraordinary strength.

As a comparison, HERE is his picture from the Spike! magazine.