Nurgle Forgefiend – A Closer Look

There were glimpses of this monster in the battle build-up and our in-game photos. I've had a lot of inquiries about it so I thought it was time for a close-up look at how I converted the standard kit into something more Nurgly.

Adding greenstuff rot and snot to enhance the look of the plague marines and terminators was quite straightforward. This model is enormous in comparison, I would need to upscale the contagion to something suitably grand.

I added magnets to the end of his arms so that I could swap weapons when needed.

I clipped off most of the spikes in the head and neck area, or rather tore them off so that they left damaged remains. I drilled holes in a handful of places and added wooden skewer 'horns'. Similarly, the exhaust pipes had a lot of spikey decoration at the top that I tore off with my clippers. I gradually added bits of greenstuff to build up the contagion. Most of it was just blobs of greenstuff spread out with my sculpting tool.

On the left side of the large back plate I tore a hole in the armour. I dropped several tiny balls of greenstuff loosely in the hole and once complete poured superglue in there to hold things in place and add a crusty texture.

On the left shoulder plate I drilled two holes. I created two large balls of greenstuff and left them to cure overnight. Once rock hard I glued them into the holes, drilled small holes into them in a '+' pattern. I then added greenstuff 'skin around the protruding globes.

Another technique I used was to drill several shallow holes with two different sized bits on the head of the beast. The depths varied a lot and the positioning was quite random. This gave a corroded effect on the metal plates which looks great.

I also added pustules in several places on the model. This was done by rolling a tiny ball of greenstuff, adding to the surface and then pushing out the edges with my sculpting tool.

The icon of Nurgle appears in several places and this was done by roughly spreading out greenstuff  on the armour surface then using the flat end of a drill bit or file to push three circles into the greenstuff in a triangular formation.

In addition to extensive use of greenstuff and a drill I used lashing of PVA glue. I wanted to give the look of unidentified goo seeping out from various parts of the machine – final colour to be decided at a later date. I filled the exhaust pipes with glue and allowed it to flow over the top so it naturally ran down the sides. I did the same on his back, running glue down his spine from under armour plates.

A death machine of Chaos wouldn't be complete without a victim somewhere on the base. I used a random collection of marine bits and filled in the gaps with greenstuff rot growing over the corpse. I'm still deciding whether to paint him up as a Dark Angel marine.

I managed to slap some paint on the finished model prior to the game against Bull. It was just a quick basecoat of English Uniform, with some Scorched and Bestial Brown on the metal bits, then lashings of Devlan Mud. Now I get to go back in and paint up some details.

See the Forgefiend painted up!


The next project is the Heldrake – he's in serious need of rot and contagion. I will post my 'How to destroy a £40 Heldrake with a drill' experiences soon!