First Strike Death Guard & Pox Walkers Completed

I've run out of Pox Walkers to paint. Whatever shall I do? :)

I am having so much fun with the Death Guard. I massively over weathered these guys, but since I enjoyed every moment doing it, it was worth it!

Pox Walkers From First Strike Box Set

On Saturday a package from GW came in with the First Strike box set and an additional box of Pox Walkers. Had I known the miniatures were the same I would have only order the box set. The miniatures are just as interesting as those from the Dark Imperium set, but the edges are a little softer. Still, I really enjoyed painted them. I'm using a wet on wet method with generous amounts of wash. Pigments and blood splatter rounds out the miniatures. I'm very pleased with how nice these look in groups, and how well the miniatures contrast with the Plague Marines. (the newly released PM models are up next!)

Death Guard Army Shot

I had to shuffle my painting area around to make space for more Death Guard models, so I figured it was time for a quick army shot. I'm looking forward to brining this army to a game. I haven't figured out what points or power level it is yet, so that is a bit of a problem. Once my pre-ordered DG stuff comes in, there will be more pox walkers and plague marines. That should round it out nicely.

Painting Pox Walkers Walking Dead Style

After figuring out how to make mud, and basing all of the Death Guard, it came time to tackle the Pox Walkers. I knew I needed a speedy way to paint these guys since I have even more coming. The method I settled on is fast. I also think it is visually effective. Once these guys are based and standing near the pale green marines the real look of the army can be seen. Now the pox walkers are fantastic models, but I didn't want any one model to stand out too much. To accomplish this I heavily limited my palette, and use heavy successive washes to darken the lower half of each model.

I have to give thanks to Roman Lappat over at Massive Voodoo. His speed painting zombies class gave me the basic idea which I then modified to include much more airbrushing.

Experiment: Making Mud

I experimented today making mud and rusty barbed wire bases for my Death Guard project. My first attempt included adding realistic water tinted yellow to all of the likely areas to have pooled water. That proved to be too busy, so I removed the water and stuck with varying browns and oranges. The edges aren't cleaned up, but I think when they are these will look pretty good. They contrast really nicely with the cool greens and purples already on the models. I'll base most of the models in place, rather than making the bases separately. However once I do that there is no turning back.

Death Guard Rhino WIP 1

My Death Guard army is almost playable! I've painted loads of rhinos, and some are more inspired than others, but few of them were completed as quickly as this one. I started this model while on a video chat, and finished it the following morning. It needs paint chipping and additional streaking, but I am happy to add it to the force. I am not certain about the darker green color. That is a byproduct of painting the base colors at night when I can't see so well. I suppose once I have added fresh mud to the model it won't matter. It will blend in with all the other muddy infantry bases and gear.

Death Guard Daemon Prince With Rust

 The rust reveal! This guys still needs some turquoise verdigris on the brass portions and smoke stains on the smoke stacks, but that will be done in batch with some other models. I really want to spend more time lavishing environmental effects on this guy, but I think it is going to be important for cohesion to do all of that at the end of bulk force painting.

Now it is time to move on to the Death Guard's first rhino transport. I've painted so many of these, this should be a fun excursion into rusting, streaking, and paint chipping. I still need to figure out a symbol for my force. Maybe I'll pull a 30k DG logo out and use that. The backstory says DG remained a cohesive legion after the failed rebellion, so that kind of works.

Death Guard Daemon Prince WIP 2

This old finecast model is quickly becoming one of my favorite Death Guard models so far. Given that, I figured it would be interesting to post a photo of the model before I add the orange rust. I think the large orange rusty blade is going to add a tremendous amount of contrast and interest. I wanted to share the photo with you guys before the big reveal. (too much HGTV with my wife!)