Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Greetings all. As an arborist I love tree biology and forestry in general. I am naturally drawn to nurgle because rot and decay are a huge part of a healthy ecosystem. Also nurgle is lord of rebirth and growth and it is a natural end to decay. I had a nifty idea to have some models have small tree saplings or plant material sprouting from the pockets of rotting flesh on the models! I have never seen this executed and was looking to you all for some help doing it right. I don't want to go overboard and have it dominate the model but as an interesting take on the overall feel of a rotting stagnant horde.

I thought about greenstuff. I'm not the best greenstuff worker but it would be rewarding. Time consuming but rewarding. Maybe I could mix in some train set type small model trees.. but I'm worried about it looking to much like I just glued some model trees on my models lol.

Is this a dumb idea? If not, any thoughts on how I would beat execute this? I will be playing an aos mortal nurgle list with some demons in there as well. But as it stands it will be a blight king heavy list, with some plaguebearers and possibly drones to start. Sprinkle in some
Mortal nurgle heros and that's where I'm heading right off the bat in terms of models I would be doing this to...I don't think this tree idea would work on the plaguebearers as I see them as conjugations of magic and warp energy but more on the rot bringers as stagnant whorshippers of nurgle who have organic material necessary for plants/trees to take rooot.

Maybe some thick wire for the branches and greenstuff the leaves?

Also maybe use dryads and mix parts of them with the daemons?

Being so interested in trees it's kind of funny it's not Sylvaneth, the tree people.

I just had a dude this weekend give me a quick tutorial on making nurgle things. Just flatten a disc of greenstuff onto the model, use a wet toothpick or dentist tool to blend the border down with grooves and then use a ball point pen shaft to dot on pustules and zits.

Also, having just made some Age of Sigmar terrain, working with model train scenery and foliage is frustrating at best. It takes a lot of Aleane's glue and time. Incredibly hard to be detailed or neat with it.

Yeah.. I can see that. Although I am an arborist and work on individual trees, I'm fascinated by entropy and biological cycles. Plus there were a burst of slyvaneth players in my local area.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 n0t_u wrote:
Maybe some thick wire for the branches and greenstuff the leaves?

Also maybe use dryads and mix parts of them with the daemons

Yeah I'm thinking this. I don't want a full tree growing off of them. I'm thinking more sapling. A stem and some leaves but not full crowns. Thanks for narrowing my focus because now that I think about it the scales would be way way off.

Are mushrooms also your cup of tea? They are quite easy to make with greenstuff. Simply put a cylinder of greenstuff on your model and at the base use a sculpt tool to make a 'root' structure, then let it harden. Finally make a greenstuff disk and put it on the cylinder and shape it into a mushroom cap by applying pressure on the outside of the disk. You can easily vary the shapes. For saplings, the dryad 'backpacks' are your best bet, as well as some bits from the treeman. If you want bark as skin, use some sylvaneth forests (the bases of the forests are really nice basing material!)

If you must have trees, I'd try a combo of greenstuff and railroad scenery. Railroad scenery looks very plastic so would need to be painted, but the premade armatures might work nicely once attached to the unit with greenstuff roots, etc. Then you can apply foliage last so it stays on well.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/W-AOS-Sylvaneth-Dryads-Back-Branch-Bits-8-Bitz-/381821209953?hash=item58e6514d61:g:qasAAOSwMtxXrOPn

http://www.ebay.com/itm/W-AOS-Sylvaneth-Kurnoth-Hunters-Head-Branches-Bits-6-Bitz-/381911353826?hash=item58ebb0c9e2:g:668AAOSw44BYbXW0

These two sets of bits seem PERFECT. I add some leaves to the bare bits, maybe add a few green stuff details and the "rooting tissue/attachment" to blend the bit to the model.

Now I just have to find out if this will look goofy or cool. I will post up some test models when I get my hands on some bits!

Any thoughts?? If not thanks for letting me use you guys as a sounding board and for all the ideas that came through. I plan on trying a multitude of options, unless one presents itself as a clear cut perfect way to go!

Railroaders have often used wire to form the shape of trees they want, and then you add some flock to the idea.

There's a site I found the other day, that has a multitude of forms and colours of flock, including one that's extremely quick to work with, called Bonding Flock - it's self-adhesive, all you do is put water where you want it, shake some on, and let it sit for a while.

https://www.craftflocking.com/Home_Page.php

If it has to be trees I have no idea where to start or what to recommend. But mushrooms however...
Mushrooms would be simple and effective on nurgle units!

Hey, great idea, would love to see pics when you've made some. When I first collected, a friend of mine used to use a pale green spongy/stringy lichen, usually on scenery. It might be called Deerfoot moss or similar? Perhaps small pieces of something like that could help?

Or another would be to use wire, perhaps a plastic coated garden wire, maybe the thinnest they sell at the gardening store?

+1 on mushrooms, that would look awesome and rancid at the same time.

hmm...maybe some small grass tufts?...I know that's not exactly going with the tree angle, but could work for some kind of sprouting vegetation?...although, I imagine if you were to say, stick one on a model's head, it would probably look like the frontman of a hairmetal band ...and now I kinda want to try that myself

Could be awesome, but does sound hard. I wanted to do Tyranids with natural camo growing on them, but never got very far with it.

https://m.imgur.com/a/3yvkf

Ok here is a test run. I decided to try a couple sylvaneth bits. . These are the dryad "back branches" and the kirnoth hunter"head branches". The last two photos are off a rot bringer sorcerer I made from the gutrot spume model (he wasn't to careful with his magic


Since taking these photos I have since added more greenstuff around the plants growing "off" or out of the shoulder pads. As well as a better connection to the tree sapling growing off the front of the open sores on belly blightking. Thoughts? Very WIP. Will post more pictures soon.

I also plan to put some static grass around the base of the plant materials to make the transition look better and further nail home the point of germinating surface.

One final note. I decided to try to model these as pockets of decay where a passing seed was able to germinate so the base of the plants is rather..bulbous on purpose to model the Root mass...but I'm going to drill some holes through parts of the armor and have it so the tree is growing through it.. without a greenstuff attachment.

Been going full steam ahead. I have about 12 blightkings with tree or plant material growing off of them. Here are a few of newest ones. Trying to not have them all be on the backs. Some of the blightkings with the trees growing out of the armor are going to need chunks taken out of the armor and battle damage. As if battle damaged opened up a chunk in the armor and the tree germinated in that hole. Comments welcome!

http://m.imgur.com/a/TkRun
http://m.imgur.com/a/nms60

^^^ I'm also starting to ..branch out

looking good

...now I'm picturing a big centrepiece model for the army...either a glottkin or a forgeworld great unclean one, kitbashed with the citadel wood scenery kit...that could be sweet

I do have a glotkin. But I'm not quite sure how to do anything with this theme for a model so big. I want to avoid just gluing basing material on him. I thinkit would look out of place. Maybe go along the same lines as the blightkings.. but like 4 or 5 small saplings as opposed to a big tree. Probably a handful of basing tufts here and there for sure! Thanks for the feedback!

Try this stuff out, it's what I used for saplings and shrubs with my 40k terrain http://woodlandscenics.woodlandscenics.com/show/category/TRFine-LeafFoliage

It looks like this outof the box, and you just snip off what you need and afix it to the area that needs shrubbery

I was thinking, because the glottkin's so big, maybe you could use this kit https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Citadel-Wood-AoS# ...and have one of those full trees growing out of his back or something, blended in with greenstuff of course ...also, doing that will still leave you with a decent terrain piece, or a bunch of tree bits to include in your other conversions

Wow you guys are on point! That woodland scenics stuff looks great!! I never knew it had lots of branches..I just assumed It was more like just a bubble of green on a "trunk" More lillipop-ish and not as lifelike as that is!! I kinda feel dumb for using sylvaneth bits not.. lol I could have just snipped off branches from this kit haha

Zobo.. great idea as well! I really like the shape of the crown on those.. and I could DEFinitley use the excess in conversions or creative basings!

Thanks for all the suggestions guys.. I will keep updating this thread as more progress happens.

 Sal4m4nd3r wrote:
Wow you guys are on point! That woodland scenics stuff looks great!! I never knew it had lots of branches..I just assumed It was more like just a bubble of green on a "trunk" More lillipop-ish and not as lifelike as that is!! I kinda feel dumb for using sylvaneth bits not.. lol I could have just snipped off branches from this kit haha

Zobo.. great idea as well! I really like the shape of the crown on those.. and I could DEFinitley use the excess in conversions or creative basings!

Thanks for all the suggestions guys.. I will keep updating this thread as more progress happens.

Well they do sell a bunch of different stuff, foliage is basically ground (grass) foam on green polymer fiber that can make great small scale branches or 40k scale vines, clump foliage does that fluffy lollipop thing and ground foam is just good for simulating grass.

I model 1/87th scale trains as well as Warhammer, and use the smallest fineleaf foliage for shrubs at that scale, and the larger ones for 40k terrain, when a sapling is needed

Continuing with this project, I made some mushrooms for my rotters! What organism better symbolizes the idea of rot begat growth then fungi?!



Planning on doing my "fleshy infestations on the armor, as I dont like the armored look of some of the blightkings. Will add mushrooms to these fleshy patches. Super easy to make and good visual effect I think. Going to add the texture to all the caps as well because I think it increases the "mushroom look"

Also thought of adding some vines growing out of the blightkings holding the giant bells and icons and wrapping around their items. Thoughts on the mushrooms and vine idea?

Mushrooms are looking epic mate! I'm loving your progress on this, some really unique minis.

I agree, vines could work really nicely.

That's cool! Actually, it's funny you should mention the tree-like growths for Nurgle. There's a real-life condition called Epidermodysplasia verruciformis. Also known as Tree Man syndrome. Not pleasant. I could certainly see Nurgle rewarding one of his followers that way.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidermodysplasia_verruciformis

Holy cow! If that isn't nurgles gift I don't know what is!!

Plodmarine: Thanks for the kind words!! I love the blight king models and didn't want to hide their sculpts to much.. but I love having unique armies. Will post some pictures wine vines are done

Been away for a while, but got some SIGNIFCANT progress done on this! I painted up a full squad..that I have codenamed "Forsythia" with oak, cherry and Beech being worked on. Pictures of the vines growing up the icons and bells coming.

The bases I have got them to a point where I am ok fielding them, but I have a grand vision of lots of static grass, tall grass, a few fallen logs, flower patches...really teeming with life. They are in the Realm of life after all!!

Superb!
Can't wait to see more.

These look great! Keep it going, Would love to see more and how far you can take this. Have you seen how some of "The Walking Dead"s zombies have become platforms for plant growth? Another good one was the series "Hannibal", where someone was using comatose bodies to grow mushrooms, like living compost bags. Might be worth a look for more inspiration. It's gross but as a Nurgle fan I'm sure you can stomach it

hey, haven't stuck my head in here in a while...things are looking good

...I also stumbled upon a real quick, easy, cheap way of making appropriate-scale, realistic mushrooms too, mostly flat-top varieties, although with a bit of fine-tuning I'm sure the more rounded/conical varieties could be achieved...all you need is some 1mm-2mm styrene rod (sprue can work too, though will result in bigger, chunkier mushrooms), and a cigarette lighter...just heat the end ~5mm of the rod until it starts melting, and quickly press it straight down onto a flat surface and hold it for a few seconds until it cools and hardens, then just cut it off at the desired stalk length - easy!

you can adjust the size of the cap by how much of the rod you melt before pressing it down...I've got a nice little variety of ~2.5mm - ~5mm caps, with various stalk lengths...oh, and the edges of the cap naturally curl in on the stalk slightly as part of the process too, so they look quite realistic

here's a couple of pics, they're not painted, just stuck down in some texture paint on a diorama base I'm working on...the tree branches are just some roughed up choice bits of sprue too

Zobo.. that is an amazing idea!! Thanks for the tip. Up until now I have just been cutting half circles of greenstuff and shaping onto a spruce stalk. But it's time consuming and tedious! I will try this for sure, as I will like to have lots of shrooms on bases!

Almost done with the my second squad of blightkings. Will post pictures soon!

But I have been working on a count as harbinger of decay. I hate the starving horse model. If anything I see nurgle as bloated and swollen..not starving and emaciated. So I set out to work and started with a plague drone pulling a corpse cart with a nurgle mortal hero in the cart bit it looked as silly as it sounds.

So instead of a mount and rider, I converted orghotss demonspew's torso and a plague drone body into a nurgle/plague drone Ventura monstrosity! THe first picture shows the posture and stance. Where the fly's head was I had put a long toungue from the maggoth lords kit, but later replaced it with I replaced the the maggoth lords mouth and a part of the other variant's toungue. Think I'm going to model the rotsword (an ability on his warscroll) being wielded by the toungue..

Thoughts? Note sure if I will integrate the tree theme on here. I don't see demons being a surface plants would grow because they are only in reality for a short while. But possibly work the weirdo talon/antler? ...thing coming out of orghots head into a tree...? I actually like that a lot!

Anywhere here are he pictures. Torso is taking a lot of work to shape. I was heading towards a slim and trim body. But I absolutely need to trend towards a bulbous bloated gut. Maybe I could get an extra "naked" blightking torso and use that with some greenstuff to integrate it. More to come.....

i love you blightkings its creative and a cool concept, but would it be cool if you made the skin around the erupting branches a bit more bruised/irritated like the branches forcefully grow out of the skin?