Oh hello there! Been a while. Life is fun. And interesting. And takes twists and turns. But one thing that is always constant is my love of Warhammer 40,000! Still building the ol army, still mostly Death Guard (like 99% other than about 5k of Slaanesh/Emperor's Children) and around April last year I was looking at this torso I made for a Lucius pattern warlord titan I made long ago (I think I actually made a thread here about how I was going to start making multiples of these and maybe selling them, ha! aspirations..) and a couple skulls I had lying around, 1 a full goat skull and the other the skull cap and horns of a small deer and thought...
IT IS TIME! Time to build that epic massive warlord titan I've always wanted to build. I had no idea what a journey I was in for. I've been posting the build process about this over on facebook in a couple groups, but figured it was time to add it to the book of DakkaDakka. Anyway, enough preamble!
'ERE WE GO!!!
So here we have the bits of a Canon lens that I cannibalized and would eventually be 1 of 3 eyes.
And the skullcap that would eventually be well.. a skullcap.
This is the face that says "Papa.. Will I one day be a massive death machine robot the size of a mountain?"
Yes little one. Yes you will.
Then after the first of MANY trips to the plumbing isle of the hardware store, we have a happy little pipe skeleton.
Yeah, that checks out.
But wait! This is a Nurgle titan. Yeah, that's better. Oh man, the 8th ed
CSM codex. That really shows how long I've been working on this. Jk, I actually had just got it cuz I stopped playing in 7th ed and came back to the game around the beginning of 2022 so had to get the latest dex. And then they promptly came out with
CSM 9th ed. As is tradition.
Then came the task of mounting it to a base and I knew it was gonna be big so wanted the base to be very sturdy. I secured it to some 1/4"
MDF with wood screws and PVC pipe flanges. Fun fact, I couldn't find a 45° angle flange so I ended up using a vacuum cleaner attachment.
Some actual
GW bits for what eventually became the waist platform.
Starting to take shape eh? Got the internal shins on and starting to plan out the feet. I wanted to use a defense cannon from Dropzone Commander for the feet and they took SO long to ship from
UK that I couldn't glue the bottoms of the legs to the base flanges until I got them.
*HAPPY PLASMA NOISES!*
LEDs make everything better.
Here we have a pile of random junk that believe it or not would eventually be a volcano cannon.
Finally! The feet arrived.
Volcano cannon starting to take shape. There were so many pieces I grabbed from the plumbing section I had no idea the official purpose for.
FEET!
Right then! Fast forward a bit. Now that I was able to finally glue the legs down, I could glue the rest of the skeleton in place (PVC glue not unlike herpes is permanent) and really get started on the build!
You may also notice I started to give him some dangly pipes for mouth tentacles. There are SO many more tentacle pipes to come!
Gave the inner lower legs a bit of a trim for a cooler shape than just rectangular METAL BOXES!!!
Starting to work on the cannons a bit more here. Volcano on the right, quake cannon on the left and some laser blasters up top. Also, the last shot of the beast outside.
And here we moved inside for the rest of the build and my titan annexed my dining room table for about 6 months. Filled out the cannons a bit more with some plumbing bits and camera bits and random junk. I think the fins near the base the stabilizer rods were actually the rubber liner for a compressor gauge. If it works, it works! Oh yeah, and DJs may notice that the end of the quake cannon is a Shure turntable stylus.
Also, some bits of crafting wood for the flat toes for the feet.
Also also Lord of Contagion for scale.
Next! Some garden irrigation fittings for the laser blaster barrel ends, oh yeah I added some Forgefiend reaper cannons for the ardex defense mauler cannons, more gribblies around the volcano and quake cannons, including some details on the muzzle of the quake cannon made from official
GW materials (box cardboard
) and McDonalds straws for the pits in the barrel of the volcano cannon (which was one of the most nerve-racking things that I put off for very last cuz I didn't want to F it up and in the end, they were covered by so much other stuff you can barely see them), some greenstuff around the bloat drone heads I used to cover up the eyes to flesh them out.. literally, and starting to plan out and apply the additional layer of armor and some antenna bits up top.
Additional armor panels! GO!
Triple Nurgle pustules courtesy of a pong ball from a kids toy I got at the dollar store, a nerf ball, and a bouncy ball "donated" by my nephew (he won't miss them)
Oh yeah, and I added the spires on the left & right shoulders from an aegis defense line that would eventually be for the missile launcher pods to swap out for the laser blasters.
YES! Now we're starting to look like a mountain of a death machine! Added some metal grating on the underneath of the torso from an old CRT monitor and some cables for the cannons (which are magnetized for removal for transport
btw) from a shower head.
Oh, and I added an eye with another pong ball from the dollar store.
Also added a Nurgle face on the tummy that some oldskool players may recognize from rogue trader era artwork.
Finished up the additional armor on the top spires and added some more bits (I think they're for electrical conduit boxes? more window shopping at the hardware store
)
Oh, did I mention there's a dick cannon?
And a spine?
No animals were harmed in the making of this titan. This was a coyote spine my aunt found in the woods and gave me cuz she knows I like gross dead things like that. ... I get a lot of dead things like that for xmas actually...
Here you can also see the back armor panels and some vents I made from more electrical conduit boxes, the rear lascannon defense cannons, and yes, that is a CPU fan on the back of the volcano cannon.
Added some details to the waist platform.
The back of the inner legs were a mashup of
GW terrain bits, a cannibalized valkyrie, dollar store toys and more hardware store bits.
The spine connects to the cannon from a Necron doomsday ark which I actually kinda worked into the fluff for this thing. You see the warlord had to be a Lucius pattern from the hollow forgeworld to use the solar metals in conjunction with blackstone obtained through the secret Chaos cult on Stygies VIII for the daemonhost to... we'll get into that later.
Sorry the spine is gross here. I cleaned it up more later.
One more shot o that sexy backside, yeah!
The back was starting to look a little boring compared to the rest so I added platforms and ladders. And a cultist.
Then I guess I watched District 9 cuz I decided the face just didn't look.. prawn enough, ya know?
Added more tube tentacles and some pedipalps in case some poor Tyranid gargoyles get too close.
Oh we're gettin close! ... to halfway! Almost done with the physical construction here. If you look close you can see the beginnings of the doom I brought upon myself that is RIVETS.
More extra armor bits, thank you once again valkyrie for your stolen bits, oh and yes.. a daemonhost.
More bits, more rivets, yet another layer of armor in the form of small panels on top of the other panels, Oh! And Nurgle pipes! which I made using a heat gun on some large gauge irrigation tubing. It was at this point that I started to get weird looks at the hardware store.
Then I added some Chaos style to the lower legs. Man, lemme tell you! That matte board was SO much fun to cut with an exacto with those angles and tiny details. ... It was not fun.
More rivets.
And armor panels. And more Nurgle tubes.
And what do you think went around the base of the Nurgle tubes???
That's right! Greenstuff Nurgle ick!
Then I wanted to add some faces to the knees like the Chaos reaver titan and oh hey! I DO have some extra great unclean one faces don't I?
Then I FINALLY got around to adding the pits for the volcano cannons with greenstuff. Still not really happy with how they came out, but again, they are covered in so much other stuff it doesn't matter.
BWAAAAAAHHHHHRRRRRRNGHGNNHHNNN!!!!!!!
"Excuse me sir! Do you have a moment to talk about the efficiency of installing solar panels in your home!"
Then I added these things on the sides of the quake cannon. Whatever tf they are. And yes, I know they have rivets on them on the official model, but NO MORE RIVETS! We're DONE with rivets!
Some extra armor on the quake cannon.
And the volcano cannon.
AND NOW!...
FINALLY!!...
THE PAINTING PHASE.
Queue the
AC/
DC, Rolling Stones, whatever black song you prefer.
This is where it starts getting good.
Why yes, that is a fallen telemon dreadnought.
Why yes, that IS a footprint template.
THIS is your trigger warning. It's gonna get a lot more graphic here on out and may or may not include a smashed telemon, squished Custodes, squished Sisters, perforated Custodes and Sisters, dead and mutilated guard, a vindicate dingleberry on a hook, some Krieg childhood trauma, Sisters swamp tentacles, oh and some guy with a big crab claw who died and everyone is making a big deal about.... Well half of him.
Rusty time!
I swear I did all this in gunmetal then rust over that. I just got a little carried away with the rust and it's all underneath it. I mean it is a Nurgle titan.
After expanding the base.
It was time to add some clay.
And destroy some more old classic models. (I eventually swapped him out for a commissar)
FOOTPRINT!
GRAY! It was supposed to be greenish gray.
So I added another coat and made it greenish gray.
Remember kids, all you need is 2 thin coats!
Okay, last warning. This is like Ernest Scared Stupid level. Later on, we're gonna get to Terrifier 2 levels of violent and triggering.
With just a dash of Hellraiser/Hot Fuzz.
He is going to need some "ithe cweeeeaaaaam!"
Gotta hang them Yule decorations early ya know.
And I did promise a vindicare dingleberry.
Even in death, I won't let go of my bolter!
Yeah, I got no words for this one, there are things wrong with me. It isn't even painted yet and this is the stuff of guardsmen nightmares.
These lightning arcs snapped off SO many times and I hated every nanosecond of gluing them back on, but it was SO worth it.
Here I painted the gold Chaos stars black so that I could then paint them gold again when the matte board I cut them out of was already gold.. because reasons.
Hey, did I mention I used a real spine?
Is cleaner here. Less gross.
Then I realized that if I planned on making muzzle burn marks, I would need to
de-rust the barrel ends and while I was doing that, did some more painting on the volcano cannon to make it look pretty.. and rusty.. and gross. ... and pretty.
This guardsman is not having a good day. I eventually added blood splatter using cat whiskers (they fell out. I love my cat. And anyone who does anything cruel to a cat's whiskers can eat a hot fireplace poker with their south mouth) and glue cuz his head exploded like the end of a toothpaste tube from the pressure of being slowly stepped on by the toe of a robot the size of an amazon warehouse.
More paint detail on the Nurgle pipes and the armor and
de-rusting the laser blaster barrels.
Then I tried my hand at some
OSL for red lights on the back of the interior of the torso. Also, some skull sconces that I later added amber LED's to and drilled holes through the mouths of the Forgefiend cannon skulls so the light shines through them... yeah. I did that. And you can barely see it. Also this is upside down
btw.
I think they came out okay.
Then my Mechanicus techpriest finally came in the mail. Didn't attach him here yet cuz I wasn't done painting him, but he is now a permanent fixture on the titan.
Another cool shot of the underside of the torso. So many greebles. A lot of these are from toys from the dollar store.
Hey! Where'd you come from???
Spine was looking a lil too clean so I re-dirtied it up with some yellow paint.
Peener cannon!
tis also magnetic so... detachable.
More painting of the Nurgle pipe base. Oh, and remember how I said I was going to make it so you could swap out the laser blasters for apocalypse missile launchers? Well, while the missile launchers aren't on these platforms, they will have these Chaos stars that are teleportation portals because I plan on making this thing a playable terrain piece. I mean, it's big enough so.. why not?
I make
OSL better. Dis look gooder.
Then made the eyes more fleshier with like veins n junk. Cuz Nurgle.
Then I added 7 special lil guys all over the titan. I cleaned up the paintjob later. Dude, the contrast paint hype is real! That gak is gold!
More Nurgle pipe paint detail. I think at this point it was black, then yellow, then brown, then yellow, then green on the base, yellow on the base, more green on the base and finally some orange. The best part about Nurgle models is they look better the messier they get
lol.
Muzzle burn marks.
And now... for a bit of carnage.
What, that horse head doodle? Nah, don't worry about that. That's nothin. Totally not that childhood trauma I mentioned earlier. ... totes.
And now... ze flora! Yeah, I added a lot of plants. Like way more than I initially intended. Kinda wanted to go with a swamps of sadness so I needed drooping trees with hanging mucky moss and just got carried away.
Trees need birbs.
I started using greenstuff to make a ramp to cover up the height difference between the main platform of the base and the extension, but that stuff ain't cheap and I realized at this point that would be like $30 in greenstuff so... tinfoil.
More base expansion
More carnage.
More carnage.
Why didn't I paint this guy before gluing him on?
Added a loin cloth to cover his shame and booty.
Teeth for the swamp beast sneaking up behind one of the Custodes. Very very tiny teeth made out of greenstuff. Apparently I hate my eyeballs.
Worth it.
Then I started finishing up the clay on the base.
And now, a preview of horrible things to come.
Yeah, I know the face is finecast awfulness. I swapped it out later.
Head goes POP!
Yeah nah. Nah yeah. Yeah.. yeah nah.
Planning out where the Sisters and Custodes will go.
Mondays amIright?
My attempt at cloning the Death Rider horse head with greenstuff.
Horrible grainy shot, but lookit! I made fangerz!
Trauma coming along nicely.
More clay basing. I thought about adding some smushed guard bits dangling from the underside of the toe, but skipped it cuz I thought I had enough carnage. I would later prove myself wrong. Didn't add the dangly bits, but I did add more carnage.
Painted the pond a nice Nurgle green before pouring the goop.
Here we have quite possibly the messiest part of the whole build process. The clay was a little too.. well, clay-looking so to give the ground some more texture I used a mixture of wood glue and slow flock. I am still finding snow flock in places.
Smushed golden boi and planning out where I was going to put the plaguebearers on the base.
So messy. But it really did help.
Cleaned all the flock away (or so I thought, there was still a LOT of it in between the toes) and painted the base black.
Sisters almost ready for battle. ... and death.
Hehehe. Yeah. He gonna eat it.
Dead custard bois.
Added some trophies to the kneecaps.
More planning and placement before gluing everyone down. Measure twice, cut once ya know?
Hehe... tentacles.
More knee trophies.
Hey buddy, there's a..
There's a thing behind y-..
Ther..
You know what, nevermind.
Artaaaaaax!!!!
Nothin but good ol elmer's glue and florescent green paint!
Behind you brother!
And now!... More flora! At this point, I started gathering various weeds that looked Nurgly from my yard. I also added some branch coral I found on the beach later. That stuff is basing gold for dead trees!
Gonna make these acorn husks into carnivorous plants. So greenstuff tongues and yep. More teeth. At least not so tiny this time.
Then I finally started painting the base so I could finally glue all the victi- I mean uh imperial forces
in place. Oh yeah, I also started adding some moss on the trees using halloween webbing and glue.
Also cut away the extra base so it looks more natural and less square.
I never get tired of looking at this. I'm sorry. ... No I'm not.
or this.
So if it's any consolation, I don't actually have any dead shovel boys on the base.
Definitely some dead telemons though.
I took a lot of pictures of this shot. I really like it.
Shoo! Go on git!
There's the better not misaligned finecast garbage head!
At this point, I realized that having a single space marine librarian being crushed under the foot made no sense so I decided to swap it out. So commissar or this weird inquisitorial.. something?
I of course went with the commissar.
Right! So now, with the base nearing completion, I started working on the body again.
Eyeball!
Nurgle balls!
Oh yeah, also the missile launchers.
Here's that branch coral I mentioned. It really does make the best dead trees!
Another shot of this glorious bastard.
I made this one a downed dead tree and added some of these berry husks that totally look like plague bell fungus if you ask me. I then added them everywhere
lol! Like seriously there may be upwards of 80 of these little bell fungi.
Carnivorous plants!
Skulls! Cuz skulls. Right?
And now!... More carnage!
And you know I had to add the sassy boi.
Okay...
So I've done a lot of petty dead imperial bit here that I'm sure are hurtful and for that I truly am sorry. And I may have gone a bit too far here. But I had an idea in light of recent events and just couldn't help myself. I am a terrible person.
FWIW it is magnetic so can be removed.
I'm also not sorry.
Lightning dude getting a base coat before getting a healthy dose of
OSL so he shines like a giant human lightbulb.
Tummy Nurgle face.
A lil lumberjack Nurgling. Idn't he adorable with his lil axe?
Oh we're gettin close people! Next, I finished the 7 Nurglings on the titan.
WEEEEEEE!!
Fans of the show Adventure Time may see where I'm going with this here.
With the project nearing completion, it was time to tackle one of the other things I had been putting off for fear of screwing it up.
OSL on the lightning daemonhost without an airbrush.
And as I predicted, it looked awful at first and I thought I ruined it by making him look like he got a money shot with a fire extinguisher.
But I fixed it by adding a gradient into bright green. I think it worked.
Also took care of the
OSL on the flames while I was up there.
Still sorry, but not really.
AND WITH THAT!
WE ARE DONE, PEOPLE!
DONE! ... maybe.
So I celebrated my completion by dragging out my green screen and professional camera and making some fancy photos.
Thank you and enjoy!
EYND!
Thank you everyone! It's been a journey!
666
P.S. I'm also working on a back story for this monster involving a Lucius pattern warlord being stolen by Typhus while in transit in the Warp to be secretly delivered to Stygies VIII to be modified by a secret Chaos cult, the Cult of the Rotting Stag so my Chaos lord Pestiferus Ichor can summon Offalrott into a daemonhost to then be bound to this titan so Offalrott can pilot it and he and Pestiferus can enact revenge on the Grey Knight Feydor Ankhalas. So I made him a banner. Also he is Legio Mortis now. Cuz he can't very well be Legio Astorum now can he?
