Great Unclean One, my completed model, construction and inspiration.

So I completed this miniature quite recently as part of my Maggotkin of Nurgle army that is currently in progress (well and 40k too). And it's been shared in various places already I was just waiting until I'd cleaned up the blog before sharing him here.

I got the miniature when it was released and was just completely blown away by it. Just an absolutely wonderful kit to work with.

It just so happened that as I was starting to work on him that Helge Wilhelm Dahl decided to host a Great Unclean One competition over on his awesome blog, so this gave me much impetus to get the project finished with a deadline.

There were a lot of amazing entries, some of which I followed during their construction in various places across the web, take a gander at the gallery of entrants and while you're at it give Helge a follow if you don't already:  GUO Competition Gallery.

As you can see that was a beautiful bunch of miniatures and art showcased there, the winners were announced shortly afterward: GUO Competition Winners.

I didn't place, but it was a wonderful thing to be a part of and two of my favourites did place and very well deserved. 

But I'll stop the ramble, here is my rendition of the Greater Daemon of Nurgle in all his glory, I'll be going into my inspirations and construction after the images:

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As I stated above when I first got my grubby mitts on this kit I was overjoyed. There are a ton of bits to play with as well as there being multiple variations of items to equip him with and the option of building him as the special character Rotigus.

I was honestly spoiled for choice, there were so many nice parts that I didn't want to leave any out so I decided straight away he was going to be getting converted and not built as stock.

The first thing that grabbed my attention was the detail in the sword and flail pieces it reminded me a lot of this classic piece of art by the late great Wayne England (which I believe is no accident, nicely done GW):

(art by Wayne England for Games Workshop)

And I thought it would be nice to emulate that pose, not exactly copy it, but a bit of a nod to the artist. Mainly the sword arm and the horns sprouting out of his back.

I already had some other pieces in my inspiration folder from the fantastic Clint Langley of 2000AD fame and renderer of some of my favourite Slaine, 40k RPG and Black Library covers:

(art by Clint Langley for Fantasy Flight Games/Games Workshop)

(art by Clint Langley for Fantasy Flight Games/Games Workshop)

You can see the spikey ball in the first image that made itself an inspiration to the conversion too,as well as more sprouting black horny growths all over the place. I love the dark moody colours in those pieces and I'd already had some success with them as previous inspiration in my first ever test models painted by airbrush. My Plaguebearers of Nurgle from some way back, so that was my colour scheme sorted as I began to work on my army and Greater Daemon together.

(I'm still a little tempted to possibly use the eye-glow from the second image)

The conversion work began in a flurry, much cutting and sawing was to be had as I swapped and dry fitted parts with abandon. And as the figure started to come together a little bit of narrative began to form in the back of my mind:

“Once two Great Unclean Ones had a wager, the prize of which would be to subsume the other and take their power. The winner didn't completely subsume the other, leaving him fully aware, they jovially converse all the time and neither is unhappy with the situation.”

I loved this idea of a two headed Great Unclean One that chatters to itself. So more bits were cut and dry-fitted. and when I believed I had all the pieces I needed, the sculpting work commenced to blend all these parts together:

Probably the largest area to blend in was where the second head was attached to the back.

The sword pommel was made from various bits around the kit and you can see where parts of Rotigus' staff connect to the original horns.

The second head with one of those wild horny growths bursting right from it's throat.

I saw all the tentacles maybe as a manifestation of the incomplete absorption of the second Greater Daemon.

A lot of this third arm had to be sculpted as it was basically a big empty cavity.

This is actually one of my favourite parts and you can only see it when you tip the model up.

Well I had a lot of fun sculpting all those Nurgley skin textures all over. I used my favourite mix of 50/50 Ave's Apoxie Sculpt and Green Stuff throughout.

I went to town adding all sorts of little details to the figure. Nurglings running all over the place, little bells and jewellery hanging from the horns. the base was multiple layers of cork carved into a little hillock and covered in stones and roots.

After that it was onto adding more texture. I did this with a combination of Vallejo Oxid Paste for all the rough areas and water filter balls for all the patches of spores/sores all over the figure.

The censer was given to me by a friend a while back from his bits box. It was perfect for this conversion and will tie my Nurgle and Skaven Clan Pestilens forces together on the tabletop too.

You can see some of the roots poking out from under his huge butt.

And the Nurgling swarm running around Grandpappy's feet.

Here's a good close up of the oxid paste and filter balls. and also one of my favourite additions to this miniature that you can barely see, I gave him a Nurgle fly nipple ring.

That was basically it... My inspiration and construction of this awesome model kit. I'm not going to go into the painting, I covered that process during the work on Instagram.

I absolutely loved working with this kit, I really can't say that enough. I really want to get another to play with, maybe one to make my own version of Rotigus sometime...

That little snippet of narrative that I came up with mid build is going to be expanded upon. When I get the rest of the army finished I'll be taking some nice army shots and probably writing a longer narrative piece in that article.

I hope you enjoyed coming along for the ride behind the scenes on this miniature.

Until next time, take care.