Fast forward four and a half months and I'm in a rather unique position for myself. Having just finished Typhus, Lord of Contagion, the only Death Guard model that remains is Mortarion himself!
To be perfectly honest with you, I'm not so sure why Typhus didn't get painted sooner. All the other characters and elites were painted long before. And it's not that I didn't like the model in the first place. Sure, I've heard some people say he looks like a bit of a rock star. But that never really crossed my mind, let alone impeded the order in which he was deserving of attention. It's probably just that I had already painted the Lord of Contagion from the 8th core set, and Felthius had followed in his wake.
Anyhoo, once I'd taken a look at the sprue, I began to realise just what I'd been missing out on not starting Typhus sooner. There is an incredible amount of detail on this model. I know that's true of pretty much all Chaos Space Marines, but it's especially true of the Death Guard in general, and Typhus in particular. And as you pour over the two sprues and particularly large base you soon realise that Typhus is a fair bit bigger than his Nurgle-worshipping fellows.
But be warned! It's not just about having to make the model in two stages if you want to be able to get the paintbrush everywhere you're going to need to be able to get it. It's about that iddy biddy teeny weenie face mask. I was incredibly cautious about taking it off the sprue. I even impressed myself at being able to catch it as the clippers completed their task. But then, dang nabbit, the piddly piece of plastic went and fell out of my hands. And boy did it do the disappearing trick of the century.
We were down on our hands and knees trying to find where it had bounced off to. Even Sandy, our labrador was sniffing about trying to figure out what we were looking for. So when we eventually found it, there was only one thing to do... push it into the blutak on my pin vice until I was ready to fix it in place.
Honesty, you don't need that stress! Personally I can't see why GW didn't just make it a part of the head piece anyway.
Thankfully the rest of the assembly was straight forward. I went for a full assembly of Typhus, but kept the smoke and flies that billow out his back on the sprues. There's no way you can paint them, let alone Typhus' back properly if you glue them in place before you start painting.
The smoke and flies were checked carefully and any mould lines were removed before paint went anywhere near the model. That way, the only tidying up I'd have to do would be on the areas where the sprues touched the parts.
Undercoat Colours
I began by painting Typhus black. Once this was completely dry, I then added a second undercoat of Vallejo Model Colour (VMC) 70884 Stone Grey to paint all the tentacles, bones, and the Nurgling clutching his side, and undercoated the smoke and flies with this colour as well.
Armour
I began with a mix of Citadel's Death Guard Green and Vallejo Model Colour (VMC) 70889 USA Olive Drab, roughly 70% Death Guard Green to Olive Drab. I then start adding more Death Guard Green to the mix, working to a final layer of pure Death Guard Green. This gives you the armour colour you can see in this next photo.
But that's not the colour I've been leaving my Death Guard Models. So the next thing I did was to take some VMC 70881 Yellow Green and added a little water to it. This was then applied to the armour, adding a highlight to the main panels, and allowing it to catch the bottom of those decaying holes. I deliberately ignore any recessed areas of armour, and anywhere I want to remain in shade. And because it's me, I do this stage again, but don't paint as far down to the edge of where I painted last time. This makes a nice gradient. And then, because I clearly like to torture myself, I get some VMC 70978 Dark Yellow. This is my edge highlight on the armour panels, down the middle of the knee pads, and on the bottom lip of those holes int he armour. And sometimes, to really emphasise it, I'll apply it more sparingly on extreme edges.
Gold Armour
These sections are base coated with Citadel Retributor Armour shaded with Army Painter Soft Tone Wash. I then reapply the Citadel Retributor Armour as a highlight. And then, just for fun, I add a dab of VMC 70997 Silver to the Retributor Armour and apply it as an extreme highlight.
Tentacles
I base coat these with Vallejo Game Colour (VGC) Squid Pink. When dry, I apply Army Painter Red Tone Wash (sometimes called inks). I'll then add a second coat of this as a targeted wash to the areas I want darker.
Bones 'n' Stuff Like That
With the bones already base coated in the undercoat stage, all I did to these was apply an Army Painter Light Tone Wash to them. When they are dry, you can go in and reinstate some VMC 70884 Stone Grey as a highlight. Or, if you want to save yourself from that bother, simply apply some Flow Medium to the tip of the bones, and then apply that first wash to the deepest recesses and brush towards the flow medium. You'll get a lovely fade out of the shade colour as a result, and you may not need to apply the Stone Grey as a highlight.
Rusting Metal
These areas were all base coated with VMC 70863 Gunmetal. When dried, I get a ruined old brush whose bristles resemble more of a hedgehog than a brush. I dip the ends into into some VGC 72044 Dark Fleshtone, wipe off the excess and stipple in as random a way as I can over parts of the gunmetal. Then I take some VGC Orange Fire and do the same, focusing over where I have placed the Dark Fleshtone. You want to use less of this than the fleshtone. And it doesn't matter if the two colours mix a bit. In fact, I rather prefer it if it does. When all this is dry, I apply Army Painter Soft Tone Wash over it all. And when that is also dry, I pick out some edge highlights with VMC 70864 Natural Steel.
Smoke and Flies
To keep things simple, I deal with the smoke first, applying the washes with no regard for the safety of the flies. After all, I'll be picking these out with my painting only when the smoke is well and truly finished.
I took some Vallejo Game Colour Gold Yellow and add it to my Flow Medium (which you can read all about here.) This goes to the top third of the smoke. This is where you want the palest colour. And then, with a quick clean of the brush, I added some Citadel Technical Hexwraith Flame and applied it to the rest of the flame, blending it into the yellow. After another clean of the brush I took a small amount of Citadel Technical Nighthaunt Gloom and add it to the the deepest recesses of the smoke. If it isn't mixing, well I add a little pure flow medium to help it wet blend together. And if it happens to dry with a hit of a shine, you can apply some acrylic medium over the smoke when it has dried.
When it was completely dry (which takes a good half hour or so depending on how much flow medium you've used) it's time to pay some attention to the the flies. I painted their wings with VMC 70907 Pale Grey Blue. It was at this point I was really glad they were still on the sprues. It made them so much easier to handle. Somde of the larger flies had their bodies and legs painted with VMC 70881 Yellow Green. Their carapace, and all of the smaller flies were painted with Citadel Mechanics Standard Grey. Why the change, you ask? Well, it's really an aesthetic. I wanted the flies to stand out. And while it's fine to paint a couple of large flies in a yellow green, doing so with the other would mean they wouldn't stand out against the smoke. Sure, I could have gone for the grey blue smoke I've talked about in some of my earlier posts, but I still don't think the contrast would be quite so strong.
All the black on the flies received a coat of targeted Army Painter Dark Tone wash. All the green parts received a wash of Citadel Athonian Cammoshade wash. And the wings? Believe it or not, I went for Army Painter Soft Tone wash.
And here's the model in all it's final glory!
Holy crap! I pray for your mental health situation after all that tiny detailing!!
ReplyDeleteOutstanding!!!
You're very kind. Typhus is on the big side of Death Guard models so not quite as bad as you may think. And being a GW model, the details are nice and crisp, which helps the painting along nicely!
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