The Lord of Flies



The Lord of Flies



As with all projects it has to start somewhere. This project all begun with my Forge world greater daemon that had been sitting staring at me on my shelf for several years. This model was to be the centre piece of whatever army I now started.

The Idea

I drew inspiration from allot of steam punk artwork and that combined with a few of my close gaming group looking into Warmachine I got the bug for some kind of rusty daemon model.  And so the Lord of Flies was born. I used Fimo green stuff and plasticard to sculpt up all the parts I needed for him at this stage this is what he looked like.

The Skin

I didn’t want him to be in the traditional greens and browns you see everywhere for Nurgle so I tried something different. I went for yellows and purples to give him a bruised appearance. I started with a white undercoat and decided on the top half being yellow with the bottom half in the purple. I base coated with (ID) Iyandan Darksun for the top and (HP) Hormagaunt Purple for the lower areas.

I then blended from the yellow to the purple through the middle of the model.  I then used this mix to shade the yellow areas adding more purple in the deepest crevasses. I then highlighted the yellow starting with (ID) and adding (GY) Golden Yellow starting with 50/50 mix and working in more golden. I then added (SW) Skull White to the mix for the very final highlights.

The mix of (ID) and (HP) worked as a great way to highlight the purple pushing it towards a brown for the highlights by adding more (ID) to the mix. I then used (LP) Liche Purple to shade the purple, now I know (LP) is a lighter colour but with purple and yellows being opposite it makes the shaded bits stronger than using a flat black in my opinion. You will note that by the small amount of colours I use I prefer to mix than to use allot of different shades bought from companies.

Colours used for the skin All GW paints

(ID) Iyandan Darksun

(HP) Hormagaunt Purple

(GY) Golden Yellow

(LP) Liche Purple

(SW) Skull White



Pic of the finished skin



The Metal

This was going to be the most important part of the model I felt as the skin had turned out well the metal had to compliment it. To do this I needed to keep it dark but I also wanted it to be very rusty as you would expect being fixed to a puss seeping greater daemon of Nurgle. I looked at allot of photos of rust to see where it formed where the colours were strongest etc... I then had to adapt this to my own slightly cartoony painting style. Before I really started painting the metal I used a bit of the new games workshop textured paint to give a bit of a bobble to the areas without using sad where the particle are just too large.

To basecoat the metal I used an undercoat of (CB) Chaos Black, and the basecoated the metal with a 50/50 mix of (CB) and (AB) Adeptus Battle Grey. I wanted the surface to be very mat as when you look at drain covers they don’t shine; sometimes I think everything in 40k has been chrome plated.   From this point on it was all about the rust.

I started the rust with a heavy stipple of (SB) Scorched Brown on the whole area I wanted to look rusty (don’t rust the whole thing completely as you will lose some of the depth of the basecoat). I then applied a lighter stipple of a 50/50 mix of (SB) and (DF) Dark Flesh this is done towards the edges and not designed to fully cover the whole area just done. An even lighter stipple of pure (DF) is the added to random areas.

Now it’s time to get a bit creative so I water down 10/1 ratio of water and (BO) Blazing Orange and wash this over some parts of the armour. And I use a 5/1 ratio of the same mix to wash into the crevasses to leave an orange hue.

Once this has dried I apply a final stipple of (DF) and (BO) 50/50 mix.

I like to stylise the metal with a few edges picked out with (MS) Mithril Silver to show a scratch in the metal or a broken edge etc...

It is now time to do a final weather using the forge world weathering powders (AR) Aged Rust followed by (LR) Light Rust, and a dusting of matt varnish to set it.

Paints used for Metal

(CB) Chaos Black

(AB) Adeptus Battle Grey

(SB) Scorched Brown

(DF) Dark Flesh

(BO) Blazing Orange

(MS) Mithril Silver

Forge world powders used

(AR) Aged Rust

(LR) Light Rust



A pic of the finished model including base



I hope you have enjoyed reading this article, the model really was a joy to make and paint and I will have a few studio shots of him coming up in the not too distant future.

Thanks for reading x