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Well my old Ork blog is long dead, and thanks of the wonder of photobucket all the images are gone so I'll make a fresh start with

The Deathguard.....

While I'm not a huge fan of power armour (heresy you cry) the new Deathguard from the 8th edition Dark Imperium box set really appealed to me so a grabbed a set and swiftly built them, but I needed more

so I got a second set, but now the problems start

It's all very well for all Ultramarines to look the same, duplicate sculpts don't matter, all the marines look the same, and I bet they even walk the same

but not those that have received Grandfather Nurgle's blessing, each will have a unique set of diseases, their own collection of parasites, of wounds and scars, they must look different

so I set about converting the second set mainly using parts from the other deathguard in the box

so I present my results, the original on the left, my conversion on the right


The steampunk brothers, reactor packs spewing clouds of radiation into the air around them, making the ever present flies even more infectious

headswap, remove blight grenade, chain bayonet and one of the backpack vents


Marines on the run, occasionally even the Deathguard have to pick up the pace or miss the fight

reactor pack swap, plague knife swapped for blight grenade, bolter ammo feed swap


Know what really ruins your day, having a blight grenade explode in your face courtesy of this pair

headswap, remove bolter strap and add over sized muzzle, alter bolter arm angle, swap out reactor pack vents with blight grenade for bell, trim shoulderpad spike rack, damage crotchguard


I'm going to cut you!

headswap, powerpack swap, bolter ammo feed swap, alter bolter arm angle



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I've got the remaining 3 marines done and should post them soon, and i'm working on the Blightbringer

stay tuned for updates


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next up is one of the 'almost duplicates' GW provides in the box set, with identical body and reactor pack only differing in belly plate and weapon options,


Plasma Gunners (and in this edition plasma is required shooting)

both versions are conversions, on the right is a modified helmet and reactor pack from the bits box, on the left is a headswap

and here is the other pair of duplicate bodied marines


swap the arm spikes for some greenstuff tentacles, and replace a shoulderpad with a forgeworld Deathguard one

and finally our glorious unit champions



In this case my converted unit champion is based on the malignant plaguecaster body with and arm, hand and headswap (head made with one of the shoulderpad from the set), and with the spike and plaguefly removed

So with the Plague Marine unit finished next comes the special characters

The malignant plaguecaster is my least favourite of the set, the 'spell' effects don't look great, and are pointing off center, and I hate the face so



Using the unit champion body (which looking at this is near pose identical anyway) the face looks much better, and I've cut down the spell effect and used the large plague fly as it's terminus and have done a backpack swap too

really pleased with it, a big improvement on the original

the bells, the bells, the dolorous bells

looking at one of the old chaos marine heads there was a pretty big gap .... I wonder if I could get a bell in there?



add a few rot holes with a drill, a bit of respirator cabling instead of the standard face grill and a prefect new head for my noxious blight bringer appears



I cut the bell frame and reversed it to get the bell swinging the other way and ran the frame fully round, and added some spare thuribles to it

Fear not loyal viewers (or am I babbling to myself?) I have not abandoned you

now some ebay purchases have arrived I am working on my Lord of Contagion

Belguur the Infested has been truly blessed by Nurgle, his flesh is bloated and festering, boils and pustules cover his skin, corrosion dulls his mighty terminator armour,

but his infestation is the true sign of the Grandfather's favour, and shows the final path planned for him if he proves worthy....

(have you guessed? a little bit more greenstuff work and I can show you)

still working on the Lord of Contagion, but I'm also tossing around ideas for the Bloat Drone, the lore has them as bound demons stuffed into a mechanical shell, and they look very similar in form to the AoS Plague Drones



so how about we combine the two, this is a very rough idea, I want the fly wings,

I may add a second set or possibly a couple of halters (little club like things flys have instead of a second set of wings, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halteres)

I want to crack/split the armour plate on the front as if the wings have broken free, and is letting some of the demon body is breaking out,

I've got the legs starting to escape from the vents on the sides

and I want to get the plague drone head in around where the cabling is coming out of the body, a bit lower than on the image above

I feel you deserve more comments than you're getting. Great conversion work! Can't wait to see them painted

Thanks (an thanks for being the first comment in my new thread too)

I'm pleased with how they're going so far, and they're so fun to do

Nice conversions so far! Curious to see how the Bloat Drone conversion evolves

Belguur the Infested has been gifted with his own flock of Nurglings and has even begun to birth small deformed ones from his rotting bowels. He is truly favoured by Grandfather Nurgle.


the head of the noxious blightbringer fits well if you trim off the back of the helmet, but those spikes are really fragile so if you want to try this fit it LAST, I can't count the number of times I've broken them off while greenstuffing), I used the nurglings from the pile the original Lord of Contagion is stepping in to decorate my conversion, but had to buy some to get the 3 on the back mount although you could try sculpting them. I also think trimming off the cloakat the junction of the chainmail really changes the look of the figure

It's taken a while but I've got my bloat drone conversion going, the cursed armour that contains the demon within (a plague drone) is failing and splitting apart.

step one add wings, cut the armour plate so it looks fractured, make a greenstuff cast of the blight drone head and figure out how to attach them all

Bloat Drone conversion, the bound plague drone within is beginning to break free, cracking the blight iron armour, the head still trailing the cables and tubes of it's imprisonment

By all that is unholy, that is awesome!

Keep up the good work! Can't wait to see that beast painted

Well I've finally put paintbrush to mini and have worked out my colour scheme



a normal foetid bloat drone in deathguard green with (old GW) snot green accents,

there's a lot of texture on it from a faulty primer can (I sobbed, then brushed off the worst of the loose gritty stuff then re-primed with a fresh working can so it didn't keep flaking off) but I think that works well with the Deathguard model

the spikes on the crest turn out to be crazy fragile and snapped off when painting so I just left them off

lots of great stuff going on here - love what you are doing!

What part was it that gave the three nurglings banner/back mount on your Belguur the Infested conversion?

petrov27 wrote:
lots of great stuff going on here - love what you are doing!

What part was it that gave the three nurglings banner/back mount on your Belguur the Infested conversion?

They're three nuglings cut off one of the standard nurgling clusters from the 3 piece stacks, I've photographed (terribly) the remains in case you want to identify which specifc one since I chose what looked to be the easiest to remove a trio from with the least repair work needed afterwards,

the 3 were taken off the right hand side, the base removed and greenstuff used to replace missing bits and fit the feet to the existing back bar the symbols were removed from




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I;ve made a start on painting the converted bloat drone,



and unusually for me have completed the base first which I'm pleased with (the greenstuff maggots really work well)

Your converted blight drone is awesome, will be checking in on your blog to see how it turns out.

finished at last, I wonder how long it will be before the demon is fully free and has it's revenge on it's captors

Next on the paint bench Belguur the Lord of Contagion and his bellringer

hey orlando, i really love what you've done here.
have you given any thought on how you'd add some additional plasma guns to these guys?

i plan on trying to mash up some plasma pistols with the boltguns on these guys but i'd love to see what you come up with.

I since I don't have any appropriate bits in my collection I think I'd probably go for the Kromlech plasma gun,



or maybe the Puppets War acid blaster (less sure of the size as but they're very big as a pistol for their own range they look like they'd be large enough)



and mash them up with the boltguns as you say

Awesome work here, Orlando. Very impressive kitbashing and converting.

Cheers Mate, these Deathguard are just providing loads of fun and I'm actually keen to paint them too which is often where I fall down

Belgurr the Infested with his band of merry Nurglings is finished

Very sexy and impressive work. He looks outstanding!

thanks for the tips on the plasma Orlando.
i really like belgurr.
theres something really neat about the stoic nature of the plague marine having the happy go lucky nurglings hanging out with him. i also like seeing the nurglings painted a different color than the usual green.

something about them reminds me of the cheap easter caandy i used to get as a kid... lol

Great stuff, just what they needed.

Since nothing else is finished I thought I'd show a WIP series



I first begin by slapping on a base colour in this case Deathguard Green

than I block in the other main base colours, Black (Vallejo, metal/silver), Tuskgor Fur (GW, for intestine cables), Red Gore (GW, metal brass/bronze), Snot Green (GW, armour accents), Brains Pink (Reaper, Tentacles), Deck Tan (Vallejo, Cloth and 'slime'),

add metallic paint Brass (Vallejo), Bronze (Vallejo), Boltgun Metal (GW), Mithril Silver (GW)

finally tidy up the edges and run over some washes, Sepia (GW, armour & metal/silver), Druchii Violet (GW, intestine cables and tentacles), Nihlakh Oxide (Brass/bronze), Snakebite Leather (GW, cloth) and add Rust Effect spots (Model Mates) and Nurgles Rot (GW, slime)

and there at the end is the mini ready for highlighting

the base is Blackfire Earth technical paint (GW) washed with Thraka Green (GW) which I'll drybrush up and add greenstuff maggots and other bits to later

not sure why Smokey McStack here is in 'soft focus' but you get the idea, I really like the way the colours come together, and the skull shoulder pad works well

I love the Bloat Drone with its armor peeling off. What a great way to get some mileage out of the starter set model. Any plans for converting the push fit trio?