Mutant Sump Stalker

 "The fate of the twist, the mutant, is an unfortunate and pitiful one... It is not through pure cruelty and malice that they are hounded so, but mere necessity.

Some, like those with psychic potential or minor physical anomalies are tested and sanctioned and put to greater use for the benefit of the whole Imperium.

Those wretches that show greater deviation from the physical purity of mankind, may still be offered the grace of lesser sanctioning, sterilised and put to use in mass work-gangs, paying for the mercy they have been granted with lifelong toil...

But then there are the others...

Creatures vile, corrupt and dangerous. They have evolved from the same gene-pool of humanity, but are no longer part of it. Powerful, predatory, animalistic... Sometimes they stabilise, breed true...

And we cannot allow that blasphemy to go unpunished..."

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There are some absolutely amazing and friendly people in our hobby community and I've had the utmost pleasure in getting into contact with many and striking up friendships all over the world, an amazing feat for me and my unsocial tendencies.

A while back the awesome Brothers Wier sent me a package with a few things to play with, for which I was most grateful. One of the items was one of the extra casts of Adam Wiers Invisible Dreg, created for their participation in the Mordheim 2019 invitational.

The image below is Adams original, but I would like to urge you to go check out the brothers' blog and read the original article to read all about it and how it was made and give them a follow if you haven't already to see more inspiring hobby work, thoughts and ideas:

Between the Bolter and Me - Mordheim Dreg conversion

I really love Adams work on the Dreg. The blood spatter is understated and subtle, the hand made cobbled base is very nice, with a lovely weathered paint job; a little dust/dirt around the feet and just a few leaves as accents. It really has a creepy gothic horror tone that feels right at home in the haunting moonlit streets of the City of the Damned.

I wanted to make my version similar, but not just a straight up copy. So the first thing I wanted to do was change the universe and narrative a little. And so we left behind The streets of Mordheim and made a home in the bowels of the Necromundan Underhive/Sump.

Subtlety went right out of the window too, I wanted my murderous cannibal mutant covered in arterial spray splashed across his chest and face, dripping with the gore of its recent victim.

It was the same idea with the base really. Where the original struck a nice balance with it's subtlety, I wanted to contrast the simplicity of the figure against the complexity of the base, which also gave me the opportunity to add striking colour.

The base is one of the Citadel pre-modelled necromunda bases with the addition of some industrial looking parts from my bits box and other assorted bits of refuse from steel plates, cogs, pipes, chain; skulls and texture paint to blend it together.

Painting it was quite simple. Mostly metal, various rust washes, a touch of weathering powder, graphite pencil to bring the edges back out and a bit of slime for another spot colour to contrast the orange rust.

To bring it all together as one coherent piece, I added rust and grime dust to the feet of the figure. The trails of gore connect to the bar sticking out of the pile as if the creature used it as a hand-hold before standing to look for fresh prey and a few spots of blood have dripped from the other hand to the skull and base below.

I had been in a bit of a hobby slump at the time and wanted to work on something quick and fun to give me that sense of hobby achievement and satisfaction. This figure fit the bill nicely and I am really pleased with how it turned out in the end.

Many thanks to the brothers Wier for surprising me with this awesome conversion to begin with.

I hope you all like it too, take care.