Warhammer 40,000 - Dark Commune
With the riff-raff complete I could move swiftly onto the ones in charge of this yet-to-be-named cult. I was toying with The Masque of Creeping Horror but I haven’t settled on it yet. Or, really, they’re ideology. Sure they’re a cult dedicated to Nurgle, but do they worship his “life giver” facade? Or perhaps they seek penance in ravaging their bodies with disease?
I’m taking suggestions in the comments below.
Cult Demagogue
I started with the head honcho, the Cult Demagogue. Essentially, they’re Heretic Preachers giving sermons on behalf of the ruinous powers. As the cult leader, she also needed a name and a backstory. Syfia seems fitting for a name at any rate.
For the model itself, there wasn’t anything I wanted to change so Syfia was assembled as per the instruction. She did some Nurgle representation though, so I quickly made up some maggots from greenstuff and stuck them in various places on the model. Once the greenstuff had fully cured I primed the model with Colour Forge Standard Grey. Next I basecoated the skin with Cadian Fleshtone, the tentacle holding the walking cane with Screamer Pink and the gribbly daemon-thing familiar on her staff with Caliban Green. I then gave the model a zenithal highlight of Liquitex Titanium White through my airbrush. Whilst I had the airbrush out I used it to basecoat the areas of the familiar that had been highlighted white with Army Painter Air Jungle Green. Lastly, I basecoated the maggot with a couple thin coats of Ulthuan Grey.
With basecoats and highlights done I could begin to block in the main colours. I started by giving the skin and tentacle a coat of Kroak Green. The latter didn’t take the wash too well so I ended up giving the tentacle a second wash, this time with Athonian Camoshade which produced the greenish hue that I was looking for. I also used Athonian Camoshade to give the maggots a sickly pallor. The familiar was given a wash of Reikland Fleshshade to bring out its fleshy texture. Once the wash was dry I then drybrushed the familiar with Niblet Green. Lastly for the familiar, I picked out the boils with Vallejo Heavy Goldbrown and the teeth with Army Painter Skeleton Bone.
As the model has a fair few armour plates that will be green and the familiar is already green I didn’t want to make green the main colour of the robes. With that in mind I painted the robes with Garaghak’s Sewer, a rich and filthy brown colour. Syfia’s trousers and hood however I did paint with Army Painter Speedpaint Desolate Brown, which despite the name is a drab green colour. The fur around her waist, the parchment on the staff and the skull on the walking cane I painted with Skeleton Horde. The cane itself I painted with Wyldwood. Lastly, I painted the leather details such as the holster and belt with Gore-Grunta Fur.
The armour on the waist, shin and shoulders I painted with Death Guard Green. Meanwhile I painted the trim on the armour and hat, and at the top and bottom of the staff. The shaft of the staff I painted with Army Painter Speedpaint Broadsword Silver. These areas where then given a wash of Army Painter Strong Tone.
Mindwitch
Now this is a seriously fun looking model, and I love the body horror nature of it. For the most part I left the model as is, but I did do a bit of conversion work on the psyker to give them a more diseased appearance. I clipped off the small horned protrusions and used a pin vice drill to make some small 1mm holes both where the horns were and a few extra points on the skin. I then dropped a 1mm ball bearing into the holes and used some Ammo Acrylic Arming Putty to seal them in place. As there was sufficient space on the base I stuck down a mushroom that I got from Epic Basing, using some spare greenstuff to blend it with the base and create a better bond. The last step before priming was to dab on some Typhus Corrosion on the metal brackets holding the severed head in place. The model was then primed with Colour Forge Standard Grey.
I wanted the severed head to paradoxically look more alive than the poor host body that it is draining the life from, so I basecoated the head with Cadian Fleshtone and the arms of the host with Two Thin Coats Griffon Claw. As above, the model then got a zenithal highlight of Liquitex Titanium White through my airbrush.
I started by giving the skin of both the head and host a wash of Kroak Green and picked out any boils with Vallejo Heavy Goldbrown. I carefully picked out the teeth with Army Painter Skeleton Bone and the eye with Ulthuan Grey. I then thinned down some Greenstuff World Fluor Paint Lime and ran that into the teeth, around the eye, and between the growths on the head. I have a habit of using UV reactive paints for my psykers, no one will ever see it unless they wave a UV torch over my miniatures but I know it’s there.
Moving on I painted the robes with Garaghak’s Sewer and the hood with Skeleton Horde. I chose the latter as I imagined being the living host of a severed psyker’s head to be an “honour” amongst the filthy horde, the dishevelled white rag being passed from host to host. Next I painted the contraption holding the head and the electrical devices on the host's waist with Army Painter Broadsword Silver. The belt and strap to the pendant I painted with Skrag Brown, whilst the pendant itself I painted with Balthasar Gold. The tubing leading from the host to the head I painted with Warp Stone Glow, any clips along their length I picked out with Scale75 Thrash Metal. The candles I painted with Vallejo Pale Sand before giving them a wash with Seraphim Sepia. I then painted the flames with Warp Lightning. I finished things off by painting the mushroom with Imperial Fist which thanks to the grey primer became more of a dull lime colour.
Iconrach
The existing standard was a little too Chaos Undivided if not outright Khorne for me so I needed to change that. It was a simple change to be honest: instead of attaching the icon and the flames at the back, instead I trimmed the back off a Putrid Blightkings shield and glued that to the front. At the back I simply glued on a spare Plaguebearer head. I then glued a greenstuff maggot to the Blightkings shield for good measure.
Once that was dry I primed the model with Colour Forge Standard Grey before basecoating the skin with Cadian Fleshtone and the Plaguebearer head with Caliban Green. As with all the models I then gave the Iconrach a zenithal highlight with Liquitex Titanium White acrylic ink through my airbrush. Like the familiar on the Demagogue’s staff I then basecoated the highlighted areas of the Plaguebearer’s head with Army Painter Air Jungle Green. Lastly, I basecoated the maggot on the Icon with a couple thin coats of Ulthuan Grey.
As before I started by giving the skin a wash of Kroak Green before picking out the boils with Vallejo Heavy Goldbrown. I added a small amount of Army Painter Speedpaint Familiar Pink to the end of the tentacles, blending it with the rest of the flesh. One of the tentacles has some toothy spikes along its length so I picked those out with Army Painter Skeleton Bone. I painted the Plaguebearer head the same way that I did the familiar, giving it a wash of Reikland Fleshshade followed by a drybrush of Niblet Green.
Like the others, I painted the Iconrach’s robes with Garaghak’s Sewer. His tunic and the shawl around his neck I painted with Army Painter Speedpaint Desolate Brown. Like the Mindwitch, I painted his hood with Skeleton Horde but this was mainly to reduce the amount of brown colours on the model. I also painted the skulls on the Icon with Skeleton Horde but in hindsight I probably should have painted them with a lighter basecoat first because they just ended up looking grey. The leather details I painted with Gore-Grunta Fur, while the wraps on the handle of the Icon I painted with Snakebite Leather. The shaft of the Icon meanwhile I painted with Wyldwood to bring out the wood grain texture on the model. The silver details such as the pistol and any chains I painted with Army Painter Speedpaint Broadsword Silver.
For the Icon itself I started by basecoating the Blightking shield with Death Guard Green, then the three circles that make up the Nurgle symbol with Balthasar Gold. I additionally used Balthasar Gold to paint the circular chaos symbol to which the shield is attached, as well as the fittings on the shaft of the Icon. While I had them out I used Death Guard Green and Balthasar Gold to paint the armour and trim respectively that the Iconrach is wearing. The bronze and Death Guard Green areas were then washed with Army Painter Strong Tone.
The model also has a Sisters of Battle helm at its feet that needed painting. I decided to paint this in the scheme of my custom Order, the Order of the Divine Storm. To do this I painted the majority helm with a few thin coats of Vallejo Night Blue and the visor with Ulthuan Grey.
Blessed Blades
Lastly, we have the bodyguards in the form of two Blessed Blades. As they are covered head to toe in robes there seemed to be limited conversion potential. In the end though I dug out a couple spare Putrid Blightkings helmets to use in place of the masks. I trimmed down the head so that the helmets would fit snugly and glued them in place. With that done I primed the model with Colour Forge Standard Grey before giving them a zenithal highlight with Liquitex Titanium White acrylic ink through my airbrush.
Like with the Iconrach, I painted their robes with Garaghak’s Sewer, their tunics with Army Painter Speedpaint Desolate Brown and any leather details with Gore-Grunta Fur. One of them has a scroll of parchment attached to their belt and the other has a mutated skull on theirs, in either case I painted both with Skeleton Horde. The sword blades and any other silver details I painted with Army Painter Broadsword Silver. The hilt of the swords, the helmets, the armour trim and the cult pendants I painted with Balthasar Gold. As always, I painted the armour with Death Guard Green. These areas, along with the bronze areas, were then given a wash of Army Painter Strong Tone.
Weathering
With the models painted I could then go back and add some weathering effects here and there, really make them look like the grubby cultists that they are. I started by running thin lines of Nihilakh Oxide around the edges of the bronze details to give the appearance of verdigris. Next I did a similar thing with some heavily thinned Skrag Brown for the silver details to give the appearance of rust. For further rust effects I shock up a bottle of Dirty Down Rust and slapped it down in a few select areas. Once it was dry I came back with a damp brush to reactivate the Dirty Down Rust and blend it in with the rest of the model. I have to say, I wasn’t overly successful with this, so certainly something I need to practise more.
Bases
Last but not least I needed to do the bases. I started by covering bases with Vallejo Thick Brown Mud texture paste. Once that was dry I gave it a wash of Athonian Camoshade. And once that was dry I gave the base a drybrush with Tyrant Skull. I then thinned down some Caliban Green and applied it to the bases to create the basis of some toxic pools. This was then reinforced by dabbing liberal amounts of Nurgle’s Rot into these Caliban Green areas. I continued the dabbing trend by dabbing on some PVA glue to select areas of the base and sprinkled on some Geek Gaming Scenics Base Ready Forest Floor. Once that was dry I dabbed on some more PVA glue and sprinkled on some static grass. Finally, I painted (not dabbed) the rims of the bases with Warboss Green.