King of Spew York

Having finished the High Elves, it was time to paint the rewards!

Guess who's coming to dinner?

In terms of sculpts, the Putrid Blightkings are one of the best to come out of the End Times, imho. The steampunk rat ogres are a close second - I'm not a big fan of most of the very large character sculpts, striking and imposing though they undeniably are. And the PBs are a lot better than the Khorne equivalents, who I reckon look a bit dull.

These guys capture the spirit of the fluff very well, as well as some of the original illustrations I remember from back in the day. And it's a good kit, lots of alternatives and spares.

Not quite as many as I'd hoped. Although there are eleven different torsos for example, they fit together in quite specific ways. So really you're looking at five models, each with a choice of tummies and arms. Because it's a plastic kit, you can chop and change fairly easily, but it's not as multipose or interchangable as you might expect. It's a slight stretch to use all the best bits in one build, a clever way of suggesting you buy more. I managed Full Command with a few tweaks and some of the less-well-advertised heads, though, and I like them.

All the same - nice kit, nice models, nice look. They've been festering in my imagination since they turned up a couple of months back, and I decided I wanted them drab and rotting, almost more like big zombies.

So there's almost no metallics, and a lot of browns and pale colours involved. I really like painting things this large, I find it a lot easier than normal infantry scale. Quite fast, too - this lot took a total of about six hours, split over three days.

My favourite thing is the attention to gross detail on them. Maggots in the elephantiasis legs, tiny nurglings bursting out, broken horns and spikes. And the flesh! It took me back to my days in diabetic clinics in London. I remember trying to test a lady's foot for functional sensation once, only to have her gangrenous toe break off in my hand. She didn't notice, so the registrar I was working with tucked it back on her foot and covered it again with her slipper. First do no harm, I suppose, and if you can't manage that, keep quiet about it.

That's the mindset I was painting with. Enough of that, here's the painting guide:

• Skin - various. The gangrenous green guy is Goblin Green, Drakenhof Nightshade wash. The bluish one with the erupting nurgling was Blue Grey with a Druchii Violet wash, and he got Changeling Pink touches on his groinal tentacles as well. Mr Scythe has Kislev Flesh with Druchii Violet, the other two have Dwarf Flesh with the same. All of them then had unifying Kislev Flesh layers with varying degrees of Pallid Wychflesh drybrushing, then Nugle's Rot and BftBG finishing effects.
• Wood - Steel Legion Drab with Agrax Earthshade, then Kommando Khaki drybrush.
• White - Spray White Skull Undercoat washed with Nuln Oil, then layered up with Pallid Wychflesh and a touch of White Scar.
• Leather - Flesh Wash over the undercoat, nothing else
• Metal - Rhinox Hide washed heavily with Nuln Oil, then Typhus Corrosion. Then an anti-drybrush of Ryza Rust, where I took a duff old brush with very short, broken bristles and used it to grind the paint into recesses before wiping excess away with my thumb. Very thin highlights of Chainmail with a bit of Agrax Earthshade washed over the top to bring it down again and shade the orange rust. Similar chainmail highlights on any armour panel to show metal under the paint, kind of thing. Brass Scorpion spikes and details.
• Scythe Handle and one of the Breastplates - Agrellan Earth, painted on thin so it wouldn't crack too much and then shaded with Agrax Earthshade and drybrushed with Tyrant Skull.
• Horns - Abaddon Black, Scrag Brown layers, Ushabti Bone and Tyrant Skull drybrushes, or the same but done in reverse order for a black-tipped horn.
• Modesty Clothes - Mostly Zandri Desert with Agrax Earthshade, Kommando Khaki and Tyrant Skull layers and drybrushes. 
• Gems and Nurglings - Kabalite Green, Nurgling Green and Hellion Green

To lead these wobbling horrors, an even wobblier horror.

All Hail Phlothos Ascended!

This big goat has one of the most appallingly detailed bits of anatomy it has ever been my misfortune to daub paint over. I share it merely to spread the mental woe it caused me.

GOAT TAINT

Otherwise it's a good model, flabby and hairy in the right ways. I like the comedy snake tail particularly, and even if his skull mace is more Tiki than Gothic, it's still good. I've got a 50mm base stashed away to fit under his underground charnel scene one, but I'm not gluing it down at the moment. That 50mm base is my last free one, it must serve duty under all sorts (e.g. disc riders) until I can source some more.

He's originally intended to be Orcus, Demon Lord of the Undead in the DnD pantheon, I think. But what would I know? 

The Reaper stuff is good to paint, by the way - doesn't even particularly need an undercoat, it accepts a basecoat over the white plastic very well. The main difference between it and GW stuff is the depth of the details. Layering works very well on it, but drybrushing comes out scratchy, the raised bits don't catch the edge of the brush as well as GW ones do. Strange to have to adapt techniques to sculptors, or, well, not really once I think about it. But surprising!

Next - I feel a week of terrain coming on...