Painting My Great Unclean One

(Reported June 2, 2013, for work done mid-April, 2013.)

One of the great things I like about Warhammer 40,000 6^th Edition is the ability to include allies with a primary detachment of your army.  Now, I know that a lot of people view this as just GW’s way of squeezing more money out of us, as it’s often the case that allied choices can fill “gaps” in our main army’s lists, which sometimes leads to expanding an allied force into a full-fledged army on its own, thus, spending more money on the hobby when we really hadn’t intended to get started on that other, new army in the first place.  To this I say, “So what?”  GW is in business to make money, and I have no problem with that.  I do get annoyed with folks who seem to like to bitch about GW just for the sake of hating them (yet they’re still in the hobby), but what are you gonna do?  I’m all for Free Speech, but I’m also all for capitalism, and that means that a company that’s in business to make money will/should continue to evolve its business practices so that it can continue to grow its revenue stream, and 6^th Edition and its subsequent codices have, in my humble opinion, been doing that for Games Workshop.  We’ll see when the annual report comes out.

But, I digress.  The point of this post is to tell you what I did what an important component of my allies to my Death Guard Chaos Space Marines, the HQ of my allied detachment:  A Great Unclean One.

Personally, I don’t like the GW Great Unclean One (GUO) model very much.  I’m also not a big fan of the Forge World GUO model, and at GBP104.00, it’s hefty both in price and actual size, as well. 

However, I did discover an alternative GUO while perusing the Forge World website:  The Greater Daemon of Nurgle.  The blurb on the FW page about this model even states that it’s a great alternative GUO choice, and I really liked the looks of it.  Plus, for GBP44.00 you not only get the Daemon Prince (which I will refer to as “my GUO” from here on out), but you also get a very different and characterful Herald of Nurgle model included in the price.  This model looks a bit like a slug with a hood, and has an augmetic left arm.  I plan on running 4 Heralds of Nurgle in my Daemon armies (yes, my allies grew into their own army, all according to GW’s evil plans!), and with this little fellow – whom I’ve nicknamed “Emo” – I will have four different Heralds to run in each of the four squads of Plaguebearers that will be my troops choices in my Daemons army.

But back to the GUO.  I had made a Forge World order back in late March, which included the Nurgle Daemon Prince (GUO), and received it in less than 2 weeks, which I think is pretty good considering it came all the way from Nottingham to Phoenix.  After getting him washed up (you should always do this with Forge World models, as the release agent inhibits primer or any other paint from sticking to the model), on Saturday, April 6^th, I was able to get the GUO assembled and primed, and then over the course of the following Thursday, Friday and Saturday, April 11^th, 12^th and 13^th, I got him completely painted and based.

Here are the steps I followed to get him ready for the tabletop:

·         Soaked GUO pieces in warm, soapy (dishwashing soap) water for about 30 minutes, and then set out to dry.

·         Assembled and primed GUO.

-          Top Tip:  If you’re going to build this model, be sure to attach the “pipes” leading from the barrel on his back to his left arm at the same time you glue the left arm into place!

·         Base coated GUO with Bugman's Glow in the open sores, Yellow on the “pustules”, etc., prior to shading (washing) (1 hour).

·         Washed GUO with appropriate washes (4 X 1/2 hours = ~2 hours).

-          Actual Total = Thursday 4.5 hours, Friday = 3 hours.

·         Finished washing GUO with appropriate washes (1 hour on Saturday).

·         Painted GUO's barrel of goo on his back & tubes on left arm to look heavily rusted (about 1.5 hours).

·         Painted & washed goo & Nurglings in GUO's barrel on his back (about 1.5 hours).

·         Finished painting details of GUO (1 hour).

·         Based GUO (2 hours).

·         Matt varnished entire GUO.

·         Gloss varnished certain areas of GUO.

·         Flocked GUO.

I used the same basing technique that I described for the Plaguebearers in an earlier post.

So over the course of three consecutive days and a total of 16.5 hours, I was able to complete my GUO.

Please let me know what you think of him, and leave any comments that you’d like to below.