Zombtober: Fecalus, Greater Daemon of Nurgle

I wanted to do something different for this year's Zombtober instead of the usual basic zombies. After having a bit of a think, I decided on something Nurgle because a bag of pus and vomit held together by rotting skin, diseased tendons and some unearthly power qualifies, right?

Despite being ordered from Etsy in mid-September, Fecalus didn't show up until two weeks ago. He took a while to paint partly because of work and partly because I basically made up the colour scheme as I went. I didn't want the usual Death Guard Green look as I think it's too dry; I wanted Fecalus to look swampy, damp and slimy. More to the point, I wanted him to look disgusting.

After priming him with dark brown spray paint he got a very heavy overbrush with Black Green, which was frankly plastered on with a large brush. Black Green has the look of rotting vegetation and it works perfectly as a base colour. With that dry, I mixed in some Yellow Green and gave him another once-over as a first highlight.

I added some more Yellow Green and a touch of Dorn Yellow and drybrushed him again, then added more Dorn Yellow and gave him a third highlight. At this point he was getting a bit too yellow so I washed the whole model with thinned Biel Tan Green to green him Fecalus up a bit.

I painted the inside of his mouths, his gums and his tongue Black and then gave them a few drybrushes with German Grey, Neutral Grey and Ghost Grey before washing them with more thinned Biel Tan to add a nice manky greenish tint. I did the gaping wounds in his arms and back the same way, as if Fecalus is rotting from the inside out. Which, let's face it, he probably is.

To add to the general disgustingness I dug out some 3D printed maggots that I've had for a while:

I painted a few Off-White and then dipped them into a mix of Biel Tan and Seraphim Sepia. Once dry, I stuck them into wounds on Fecalus' back, arm and shoulder. Nice! 

When it came to his teeth (which, along with horns, I hate painting) I decided to eschew the usual bone colours. Each one was painted with Dryad Bark and then has layers of Japanese Uniform, Green Ochre, Tan and Beige to make them look like their owner is someone to whom toothpaste doesn't exist. A final wash with a very thin mix of the Biel Tan/ Sepia wash gave them the appearance I was after.

All of Fecalus' many boils, of which I'm sure he's proud, were first painted Off-White before getting a few layers of Dorn Yellow mixed with White and then a dab with more Biel-Tan. His horns/spiny bits are Rhinox Hide drybrushed with Burnt Umber, and then I mixed some Japanese Uniform into the umber for the final highlights.

A couple of the spines looked more like worms growing out of his body, so I used Hexed Lichen to basecoat them and then added some Off-White to layer on the highlights, and at this point I managed to snap off his tongue. Bugger.

His sword was way too smooth for a weapon wielded by a daemon that can rust metal just by looking at it, so I added some rough patches using DAS clay. The whole sword was basecoated with Eshin Grey and I stippled on Iron Warriors with a makeup brush for the metallic sheen. The patches were painted much the same way as his skin as if Nurgle's Rot was infecting the very metal. 

The hilt is Bronze over Chocolate Brown. Both metallics looked way too shiny so I mixed more Biel Tan with some Agrax Earthshade to get a nasty greenish-brown wash and liberally slapped it all over the metals, which toned down the shininess and added to the rotting effect.

The straps are just Off-White with several coats of the green-brown wash mix plastered on, as is the rope holding up his loincloth thing. The cloth itself is a similar combination of colours as his teeth.

By this point you might have noticed that Fecalus isn't on a base. This isn't down to laziness on my part, honest. He didn't fit on a 60mm base so I asked Alicia to order some 80mm ones off Amazon Prime, and they were here within two days. Unfortunately he didn't fit on those either, so Alicia ordered some 100mm bases on October 21 which were supposed to be here within three days. I'm still waiting for them.

Rest assured that I have some disgusting ideas for how to base Fecalus and once it's done I'll post some pics.