Mortarion – Daemon Primarch of Nurgle, part 2

Last week I posted about painting up Mortarion’s legs (here), and this week I’m carrying on with him, but in a slightly different way. I’d planned on painting him up in stages, so legs, cloak and backpack, etc, but discovered that in order to paint him like that, I kept having to handle each side of the cloak, which caused some of the paint to get rubbed off.

Instead what I ended up doing, was getting the cloak based and undercoated, then gluing it together. After trying to paint it up holding one of the flaming spots on the bottom of the cloak, I decided I was going to have to glue him to the based, to stop more paint being rubbed off. Having him glued down has really helped, so my recommendation – if you don’t have a comfortable way to hold the cloak parts while painting, base coat and wash the inside of it, then glue it together and crack on with the outside.

Okay, the first thing I did was to apply all the base coats:

Vallejo Russian Uniform WW2 for the cloak,
Vallejo Model Air Steel for the silver metallics,
Vallejo Model Air Rust for the bronze areas
Vallejo Model Colour Basic Skintone for the fleshy bits
Citadel Rakarth Flesh for the bony exhausts.

Next came the washes:

Citadel Agrax Earthshade shade for the bottom half of the cloak (it’s two pieces of cloth) and the bronze
Citadel Nuln Oil for the silver metallics
Citadel Drucchi Violet for the fleshy areas
Citadel Seraphim Sepia for the top of the cloak and the bony exhausts.How-to-paint-mortarion

 

Realising I was rubbing paint off him, I glued his cloak/body together, and then glued the base sections together. You can see sections of cloak where the white is showing through the green, and that was caused by a gentle grip, this is why it’s worth holding the miniature on something else while painting, like using blu-tac to hold them to a paint pot, cork or miniature holder. In Mortarion’s case he was too big for all of the above, so I glued him to his base.How-to-paint-mortarion

I reapplied some Basic Skintone to the fleshy parts, leaving some of the Drucchi Violet showing through, which gives the sickly daemonic purple colour I was going for.

I went with the usually Citadel Ushabti Bone mix for his armour, so applied that to the back pack.

I decided, since I’d already changed how I was going to paint him mid way through, I’d also change my usual routine, and decided to work on smaller sections instead of all the base colours, all the shades, all the highlights, etc.

Using Seraphim Sepia, I shaded the areas around ridges and edges where dirt and grime might collect , then used Agrax Earthshade and Nuln Oil to add streaks and runs to it. I also added the pustules to the flesh with a mix of Citadel Averland Sunset and White. I then used Citadel Carroburg Crimson to line the pustules, and colour the rips in the flesh. It was also used to create the blood trickles on them.

To add to the metallics, I applied large patches of Seraphim Sepia to the chainmail, and these areas will be where rust will be present when I come to add the final corrosion to him.

With the purple growth coming through his armour on the front, I used Citadel Xereus Purple, washed with Drucchi Violent, then highlighted, once using Citadel Genestealer Purple once using Citadel Emperor’s Children.

So far for this week, that is it. I’ve not started the cloak as I was short on time this week, but next week we’ll finish that off and start work on the next parts.

There’s a couple of posts and videos that may be of use if you’re working on Mortarion, or any Death Guard for that matter, and I’ve linked these below:

Death Guard Painting Techniques 1

Death Guard Painting Techniques 2

Death Guard Corrosion and Weathering

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