Painting Scabeiathrax, the Great Unclean One

Introduction

I received this model as a birthday gift from my lovely wife two and a half years ago, and it has been sitting on the shelf ever since. I had practiced painting Nurgle models in the meantime, but I did not have the confidence to start on this bad boy. Not until now!

I am very happy with how he turned out, and so was the judge at the December painting competition!

Note

Throughout this article, I will make references to how I painted these Plaguebearers. I also used some stuff I learned while painting the Poxbringer.

Prime

In white.

Skin

As for the Plaguebearers, but having such a large surface to work on meant that I abandoned edge highlighting. I applied the first highlight using a drybrush to define the raised areas, then glazed the remaining layers on.

Tears in the flesh

Basecoat Heavy Goldbrown.

Wash Carroburg Crimson (also basecoated the guts in Elf Skintone at this point).

Drybrush with Heavy Goldbrown mixed with Bonewhite, then Bonewhite.

The Bonewhite was done at a later stage, along with the horns and bones.

Horns and spine

Blend Heavy Brown with Bonewhite for the horns. Mix them 1:1 and basecoat the spine.

Then they get the horns treatment.

Intestines

We interrupt the flow to glaze Pale Flesh on the intestines.

Back to the skin

Heavily dilute Biel-Tan Green and wash the recesses and around pustules.

Mix Carroburg Crimson and Bloodletter (glaze), then dilute with Lahmian Medium and paint around the tears in the skin.

Large pustules

Going for a gem effect here. Basecoat Charred Brown.

Glaze Heavy Goldbrown over most of the surface. Highlight with Sun Yellow.

Superhighlight the bottom with a mix of Sun Yellow and White.

Add White spot highlights.

Finger- and toenails

Basecoat Charred Brown, then blend with Bonewhite towards the end. Wash in Carroburg Crimson for a sickly feeling.

I wasn't happy with how pinkish it looked, and fixed it with some Bonewhite line highlights.

Small tentacle

Blend from Royal Purple to Warlord Purple to Squid Pink. 3-brush wet blend, more or less.

Mouth

Originally I was thinking of something complex for the inside of the mouth, but then I remembered how I was going to cover it all up anyway, so I just went for a wet mix of Carroburg Crimson and Druchii Violet.

Nurgling

I realized that the little Nurgling holding up some loose intestines gets lost amid the other flesh. So I washed him Biel-Tan Green:

Then glazed on some highlights of Heavy Warmgrey. After all, he's not a goblin to be so green.

Bonewhite teeth, Bloody Red eyes.

Eyes

The eyes are small and beady, so I painted them Gory Red with a highlight of Bloody Red.

I then corrected with Heavy Warmgrey where I slopped over the flesh. That string of skin over the left eye gives a cataract-y look.

Tongue

I wanted a spot of color amid all the pale flesh tones. Basecoat Sick Green.

Wash Biel-Tan Green, then glaze highlight Sick Green.

Glaze highlight Scorpion Green.

Then edge highlight Scorpion Green for extra definition.

The same color scheme, but simplified, goes for the small hand in the stomach to pop it among all the fleshtones.

Lips

Basecoat Heavy Skintone. Wash Druchii Violet.

Highlight Elf Skintone.

Teeth

Simpler than bones, although I also used this somewhere before. Basecoat Heavy Brown, then layer Bonewhite.

Wash Agrax Earthshade, then highlight the tips in Bonewhite.

Sword hilt

Basecoat Tinny Tin, then edge highlight Hammered Copper.

Then continue as with corroded bronze.

Sword blade

Basecoat Gunmetal.

This was going to get messy. I masked off the rest of the miniature with a piece of paper.

Apply a heavy layer of medium, then pour some pigments over.

I used these 4, two Vallejo, two Revell.

Apply more drops of medium after so the pigments stay there.

Corroded leather straps

As for light leather, but use Athonian Camoshade instead of Agrax Earthshade.

Back to the blade

I was on the fence about the blade (with all the solidified medium along the upper edge having a rosy color), and my wife convinced me to fix it somehow. I drybrushed the upper blade with Orange Fire and Hot Orange.

Then imitated some scratches in the rust with Chainmail Silver.

Nurglings concept

Don't get me wrong, I liked how it all looked. However, I wanted this to be a masterpiece. It just lacked that extra oomph. I quickly unboxed some Nurglings and placed  the extras around the Great Unclean One. Something like this.

Painting Nurglings

Prime white.

I wanted them to match the little guy holding up the intestines, so I used the same palette. Baecoat Heavy Warmgrey, wash diluted Athonian Camoshade.

Heavy wash Biel-Tan Green, glaze Heavy Warmgrey highlights.

Horns.

Basecoat all the remaining details: Heavy Goldbrown pustules and vomit; Warlord Purple tongues; Bonewhite teeth; Gory Red eyes.

Wash the pustules, eyes and tongues in Carroburg Crimson. Wash the mouths in Agrax Earthshade.

Then for some highlights: Sun Yellow on the pustules, Bonewhite on the teeth, Bloody Red on the eyes. For the tongues, mix Warlord Purple with Reaper Breastcancer Pink (which is how I'm going to call it, since this paint doesn't have a name, only a breast cancer awareness message) for successive layers of edge highlights.

Wash the vomit in Agrax, then apply some spots of highlight using Heavy Goldbrown, Filthy Brown, Beasty Brown, Heavy Brown and Bonewhite.

Final touches

Get the Nurglings ready for pinning. Drill holes into the Great Unclean One's body and glue on the stand-alone Nurglings. Drill holes in the base. Notice that the pins are very visible for the pairs of Nurglings on the base. Stop and wonder what to do.

In the meantime, I applied the two shiny paints that had to wait until after varnishing: Blood for the Blood God! on the vomit, and Nurgle's Rot on the base and inside all the deeper wounds.

Oh and I painted the base: dark earth and toxic puddle.

I tried something novel for the toxic puddle: instead of shading the Nurgle's Rot, I painted two shades of green under. Suffice to say that the Nurgle's Rot did not cover it well.

So how should I mask the pins? Have the Nurglings sit on a pile of poo each, of course! Notice the transparent blobs of hot glue, which I created separately, then cut to size with the hobby knife.

Prime, then paint over with Typhus Corrosion for some quality brown texture.

Drybrush Heavy Brown. Then I realized how much it will blend into the dark earth base. So I washed it Lamenter's Yellow for an added shade of yellow. Not much of a difference after. Should have painted it a more yellowish brown.

While the hot glue dried, I applied UHU glue on the mouth for some transparent saliva. A second coat of Nurgle's Rot took care of the greens in the puddle.

The truly final touches: add more UHU to form strings of saliva over the mouth (which came out not transparent, for some reason I don't understand, but it still looks fine) and mount the Nurglings on their mounds of poo.

Finished!