Monday, September 21, 2015

Putrid Blightkings: Death Guard Terminator Conversion 3 Finished

Death to the False Emperor!
With the first two Deathguard terminators completed, I was down to a single model to complete. For each of the others, I explored different aspects of Father Nurgle, from the corroding smoke stacks and boney spikes of the first, to the bloated corpulence of the second.  With the third Death Guard terminator, I decided that I wanted to explore another iconic aspect of the XIV Legion, the Deathshroud. The Deathshroud were chosen from the elite of the Death Guard Legion, and served as bodyguard for their Primarch Mortarion. Each member was suited in terminator battle plate and carried a two handed power scythe known as a Manreaper. Additionally each was equipped with a wrist-mounted flamethrower fueled with potentent chem munitions. I was never very impressed with Forge World’s Deathshroud offering, finding them very plain with oversized scythes, so I set about trying to make something more to my liking (with the added benefit of mine being post-Heresy, when they fully embraced Nurgle).

The third Death Guard terminator is ready to join his ancient brothers in the Long War!

No Deathshroud terminator is complete without their Manreaper scythe and wrist-mounted flamer!

The most important visual element of a Deathshroud terminator is their wargear, so I knew I had to convincingly create a Manreaper scythe and a wrist-mounted flamer. The Manreaper scythe was converted from one of the scythes included in the Blightking kit itself. The haft of weapon was shortened and the hand was repositioned to make it appear as if the model was lifting the weapon aloft. To power the weapon I added a small power generator and cable to the base of the scythe blade. For model’s wrist-mounted flamer weapon, I made use of one of the plastic terminator apothecary arms. With a little trimming and greenstuff work I managed to incorporate a new nozzle to the weapon, taken from a Phosphor Blast pistol from the plastic Skitarii Rangers.

Effort was taken to armor up the Blightking's rotting arm, adding torn webbing at the elbow joint along with an elbow guard. 
I think the scythe I modified from the Blightking kit is much more interesting than to overused Typhus one.
I added a round shield to the terminator's shoulder pad to mimic to look of the Forge World Deathshroud. What do people think? Yes or no?

Like the terminators before, for this one I needed to do a lot of cutting and greenstuff work to properly attach the terminator armor to the body and legs of the Blightking that I chose as the base for the conversion. Luckily, I only needed to replace one of the Blightking’s legs with that of a Cataphractii terminator because the other was a bloated wreck that burst completely from the armor. To make the addition of the Cataphractii battleplate convincing, I spent a fair amount of time adding small details with greenstuff, making the transitions from Blightking and Cataphractii terminator more seamless. Some of these details included adding torn webbing between armor joints, adding additional armor plating on this right arm, and adding boils/blisters to his back.

The galaxy will burn.

With this corrupt Deathshroud terminator, I finally have a full squad (3 is enough for Chaos!) of Death Guard terminators!  It also marks the completion of the initial Blightking conversions that I started last year, a project that was a long time in coming.  I suppose there are still pieces available from the Blightking box to make another terminator.  Time will tell. We will see where my muse takes me!

- Adam Wier

36 comments:

  1. I love these. Some really great converting, and the changes to the weapons work much better.

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    1. I am glad you like my converted Death Guard terminators! Now they just need to get painted...

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  2. Hmm, not the biggest fan of the round shield...maybe chip it up so it's no so perfectly round? The conversions on these guys is beautiful.

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    1. Thanks for the suggestions. I am also not too convinced with the little shield. I considered adding it to strengthen the connection of my conversion to the official Forge World versions (although I don't think that is really needed). I will probably leave the shield off.

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    2. Sounds like a good solution. It just doesn't fit with the aesthetics. You could always come up with something that is similar in function, but not a shield that went with the model.

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    1. Thank you for the comment! The excitement and support goes a long way in encouraging me to convert more models (and paint a few...). (:

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  4. Great work as always, and much better scythe than the other one.

    Not a fan of that round shield. I do like the idea having a tilt shield though, as a dark analog to the imperial terminators, but maybe you could scratch build something out of plastic card (maybe a three part fly, like the plague bearers have?)

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    1. I am pleased you like his scythe!

      I know what you mean about the round shield. Trying to convert one having the likeness of a stylized fly is a good idea. I will try and play around with plasticard. If I am not pleased with the results then I think I will just forgo the shield entirely.

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  5. Those look really nice, congrats on a job well done

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    1. Thank you for the comment! With a little luck they will all be painted in a few months, ha ha.

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    1. Thanks for the comment! I am pleased that you like them. Your Nurgle conversions have helped encourage me to finish these terminators. :)

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  7. That is brilliant! Man each one has been more impressive than the last - fantastic work!

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    1. Thank you for the support! It has been a challenge to maintain the overall look and feel between these three terminators (and not have one far out-shadow the others).

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  8. Wow Adam, this is definitely my favorite so far! It's pretty close to what I thought a Lord version based on the scythe wielding Glottkin brother would be and I'm honestly a bit stumped on how you could go about making one as these are so imposing already.

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    1. It will be tricky to make another terminator to act as a Chaos lord. Ideally I would want to make the model slightly larger in size than these first three. It should be doable, but will take a fair amount of planning. A future challenge!

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    2. I'd imagine it's only the scythe wielding Glottkin brother and the Lord with the tentacles are the only ones big enough. Merged with a suitable primarch perhaps?

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    3. What about using the new Age of Sigmar Slaughterpriest as a base model for the conversion? He has a really large stature and with some extensive converting could work well.

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    4. That's a great idea actually, that miniature has a ton of potential!

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  9. Thank you for the kind words! It is hard for me to believe I finally finished converting all three of them. :)

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  10. Looks fantastic, much better than the Deathshroud! My favorite of the three. I would probably ditch the shield, it doesn't work for me.

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    1. I am glad you like the third terminator in the unit! I am not going to use that little shield. I don't feel it really fits with the look of the model either. Thanks for the input!

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  11. Late to the show , but better later than never right!.

    These look brilliant. These last two in particular have been fantastic - the first one is still good, but I think it lost too much of the Blightking in the conversion - as in you spent a lot of time and effort carving apart a Terminator and then rebuilding it around the Blightking such that you almost would have been better off building the Blightking into the Terminator - or at least thats how it seemed to my eyes (which is not intended as a criticism - you should know by now I love you and the other lads work with GS).

    That putrid raised leg sells the mini to me. Its always one little part of it with your stuff that sells the whole.

    With this last guy, I do wonder whats happened to the right shoulder pad. I can't tell from the angles you've shown if its been torn/worn off leaving something behind, or if its been missed?

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    1. Thanks for all the kind words; your comments are always some of my favorites!

      You are right that the first of the terminators does not show off much of the Blightking model used as a foundation. That was the model I was trying to make his outward corruption much less visible. For the conversion I had considered just adding Blightking components to a Cataphractii terminator initially. I pretty quickly realized that by doing so however, the model would be much smaller in stature than I wanted. By carving out and stretching the Cataphractii armor to fit the Blightking bodies I was able to achieve models that are much larger in size. Their bodies (and legs to a degree) are much broader than they would otherwise be.

      The last guy with the scythe is missing a shoulder pad as you noticed. I was trying to make it look like the armor on his arm was tearing off. As such he lost the outer portion of his right shoulder pad. All that is left is the support system on his shoulder the pad would mount to (sculpted in greenstuff).

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    2. That makes loads of sense when you put it like that. I hadn't even twigged that they were bigger than standard.

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  12. These are all so perfect. EXCELLENT work! I think the reaper automation one has to be my favourite.

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    1. Thanks for the comment! I too am really pleased with how the Reaper autocannon terminator turned out. Sculpting his torn armor was a challenge, but I think it turned out well. :)

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  13. Hi Adam - I love your terminators! I was planning on using my Putrid Blightknights for terminators, so I found this page with a Google search...genius using the FW 30k stuff. Have you seen my Hexfleet Virules Nurgle conversions? Based on your stuff here, I think you would like the models I've made: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/279118-hexfleet-virules-nurgle-csm-daemons-and-rh/

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    1. I am glad you found my conversions and like them! They have certainly taken me a long time to plan and convert. The Putrid Blightkings are a fantastic kit and I would strongly recommend trying to use them in conversions for your army!

      Thank you for keying me off to your impressive Hexfleet Virules army, it is truly a feast for the eyes! I really need to convince myself to stay focused on converting models for just one army. :) I would love to eventually have such a nice playable army to actually use in games of 40K like you have achieved.

      Your converted Maulerfiends are wonderful; those heads from the End Times Maggoth lords are perfect and you done a fantastic job of integrating them with the maulerfiend components. Additionally, I love how you have made use of the Forge World Death Korp models for your traitor guardsman. They are some of my favorite guardsman around and they fit in perfectly with the theme of your army. The conversion with the Death Korp Quartermaster squad are really nice too. I am very fond your Primaris-rogue witch conversion. The single-eyed plaguebearer head and the nurgling really transform the model.

      I will have to keep an eye out on how your force progresses. Keep up the great work!

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    2. Hey Adam - thanks for the nice reply! I just now saw your post, but I actually did go ahead and make myself two Nurgle Mutilators with all my Blightknight parts like I had planned! You can see them on my blog on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/hexfleetvirules/?fref=ts) or on my B&C thread. I hope you like them!

      And I am glad you liked the other stuff I have made...I love my Nurgle traitor Krieg! But converting ~100 of them was awful, haha. I have 40 Krieg Zombie models that I still need to build...found out this one guy in Poland makes them. Can't wait to add them to my army!

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  14. So well done and inspirational. Just superb work!

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  15. Just stumbled across these as I'm looking at converting these Blightkings to replace the death guard characters that came in the Dark Imperium box, going for them looking more consumed by nurgle than standard plague marines. Fantastic work and plenty of inspiration ��

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    1. I am glad you stumbled across them and they have provide inspiration!The kit is a wonderful starting point for conversions for 40k models. I would eventually like to convert up some of the Death Guard stuff from the Dark Imperium set. :)

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