"You are my unbroken blades. You are the Death Guard. By your hand shall justice be delivered, and doom shall stalk a thousand worlds" — Mortarion, on accepting the leadership of the XIV Legion.
Nurgle, the Chaos God of disease and despair, was already shaping Mortarion's mind years before he was found by the Emperor and given command of the XIV Legion, then called the Dusk Raiders. Thwarted in his efforts to kill his adoptive father on the poisonous world of Barbarus by the Emperor himself, Mortarion renamed the Legion and led it on its part in the Great Crusade.
Manipulated by Horus Lupercal, Warmaster in the Emperor's absence and Primarch of the XVI Legion "Sons of Horus", Mortarion was a fairly easy target in Horus' search for Legion allies to turn on the Imperium. Unknown to Mortarion, his First Captain, Calas Typhon, was already a follower of Nurgle and was plotting to turn the entire Legion over to the Plague God. Stranding the XIV Legion's fleet in the Warp, Typhon introduced the Destroyer Hive to the ships, turning every Astartes into a bloated, pustule-riddled corpse barely contained within rusting, cracked armour. Mortarion himself was elevated to Daemon Prince of Nurgle as a reward for turning an entire Legion to Chaos.
After the traitors' defeat on Terra, the Death Guard fled into the Warp. Mortarion spent the best part of ten millennia mulling over things in the huge fortress he'd built on the Plague Planet while his former Legion disintegrated into smaller warbands. Unfortunately for the Imperium, Mortarion has finally got off his backside, reunited the XIV Legion, and is currently infecting his way across Ultramar, the region of space housing the Ultramarines.
Anyway, on with the painting. And this obviously isn't the official Mortarion model, which sells for $140, but a 3D-printed proxy that I got on Etsy for $35.
I wanted Mortarion to have lighter armour, more the original Death Guard livery of off-white and green, than the post-Heresy muted green. After priming him with light grey spray paint, I gave him a couple of coats of Pallid Wych Flesh as the basecoat.
I washed the crap out of it with Agrax Earthshade to make it look dirty and then started on all the details.
As always, the bronze areas were basecoated with Chocolate Brown before getting a once-over with Warplock Bronze and some highlighting with Brass. That's really all the non-white bits done, so I went back to the main areas of the armour, using my homemade rust wash mixed 50-50 with water to give him an even dirtier look.
His ragged cloak was painted with Loren Forest and Castellan Green.
His wings were separate pieces, so I painted them before gluing them on. They were also primed light grey and then drybrushed with Off-White to add highlights. I hit the top halves of the wings with Aethermatic Blue contrast and the bottoms with Reikland Fleshshade. The boils are Nazdreg Yellow and I painted over the veins with Volupus Pink.
I used more Nazdreg Yellow on various bits of Morty's armour, and also used Fresh Rust to add some decay.
When it came to basing him I wanted to do something similar to my other Nurgle minis, but different; instead of yellow-green liquid I wanted a kind of swampier look. I used bits of cork tile to build up a rocky platform and painted it with various greys and a generous wash of Athonian Camoshade.
As this left a decent gap in front of Mortarion, I thought it would look a bit crap to just have a big pool of resin. So a dead Ultramarine was obviously the way to go.
.jpg)
I dug up enough bits to make a Primaris marine and just left off his backpack. I cut off his right leg below the knee so I could reglue it in a more twisted position, and once happy I glued him to the base. He was quickly painted with Flat Blue and a mix of Flat Blue and Deep Sky Blue for the highlights, with green trim to make him a member of the 4th Company, and was then given a couple of washes with the very apt Mortarion Grime to dirty him up a bit.
After sticking some tufts to the base, I mixed some Athonian Camoshade with UV resin and scooped it over the base, using Alicia's UV nail dryer to harden it as I went. I made sure to push it up against the Marine's legs to make it look deeper.
As Mortarion is basically on tiptoe I had to pin his left foot in place so he would stay upright after being superglued to the base. Finally, I painted up a Nurgling and stuck him on too.
And that's my second Primarch painted! I have one more I've finished and four more to come, so stay tuned!
No comments:
Post a Comment