Foul Spray

I enjoy painting Death Guard so much, I really must try it when I don't have a deadline looming over me.

As you will have seen from our latest Skypehammer campaign report, Pootle is commanding the Death Guard. Perhaps unwisely, I asked if there was anything else I could paint for the army.

And so we have the Foul Blightspawn! Almost certainly the most useful of the secondary characters, whatever edition he's in. And lovely sculpt too (Darren Latham, I believe). 

The eye is immediately drawn to the sprayer and backpack tank (I think painting that slop-filled window is every Death Guard player's personal challenge), but you miss the mechanism that allows him to pump his own guts to refill the goop. Or the string of used grenade pins on his belt. Or the helpful tentacle that is pulling the pin on his latest blight bomb. Marvellous!

This Biologus Putrifier wasn't even a request, but he seems to pair well with the Blightspawn - the Stormavik to his Schrage (if exceptionally minor characters in 80s comics mean anything to you). The challenge here was his blight racks, so I'm glad I'd learned about slapchop and contrast paints before attempting him.

And since plague loves company, I threw in a couple of regular Plague Marines to paint at the same time. I've got a whole shelf of undercoated heretics, just waiting for their time, which lends itself to spontaneity.

Plague Marines like their special weapons, and with no extra cost to them, it's nice to just grab a selection of whatever. Blight Launcher and Melta Gun for this pair, all painted in the same style as always:

• Armour: Death World Forest overbrush, Nurgling Green overbrush, Zandri Dust drybrush, Althonian Camoshade wash
• Armour trim: Screaming Bell, Agrax Earthshade wash
• Cloaks: Xerus Purple base, Agrax Earthshade wash, Daemonette Hide layer
• Weapons: Mourngfang brown, Agrax Earthshade wash
• Metal: Leadbelcher, Agrax Earthshade wash, Typhus Corrosion wash, Reza Rust drybrush
• Mutated flesh: Screamer Pink, Agrax Earthshade wash, Reikland Flesh highlights, Druchii Violet glaze
• Horns: Dryad Bark, Zandri Dust drybrush
• Buboes: Ulthuan Grey, Lamenter's Yellow glaze
• Nurgle's Rot effects

To make sure I wasn't making life too easy for myself, I thought it was time to update some refugees from The Purge.

After their dissolution at the hands of the Black Legion, I knew the Death Guard would want to snap these guys up (I think the loadout of this squad is illegal anyway).

I didn't want to strip and repaint these Plague Marines, so much as integrate them into my Death Guard scheme. So I left the base colours and repainted the armour trim, cloth, horns, tentacles and weapons.

They merge quite well with the Death Guard. The green is a close enough match, and they still have black torsos and helmets, but they don't stand out on the tabletop (a bit of inconsistency is allowed in a chaos army). But they also show their heritage of their origin warband.

The lighting for these photos is quite dark and moody. It's not my usual lighting conditions, but I'm getting into it for the Death Guard.

This is bringing my tally of Plague Marines up to 15. I've easily got the same number again to paint. Plus some Blightlords. And the rest of the characters. Maybe I need to commit these to an event, and spur myself to completion.

That's all the Death Guard we have for the moment. I'd love to say I've got another batch on the painting table, but... you know, I'm easily distracted.