Dirty Frank

I always like to have a big model as a centrepiece in my warbands, if at all possible, and for the growing Choleric Order of the Yellow Bile, my recent Plaguetouched just weren't cutting it in the size stakes, so I went looking for a big, pestilential model...

The existing Nurgle options from GW aren't my cup of tea, not to mention being more than a little pricey! They were also a little too big and over-the-top – I needed a troll or ogre, rather than an immense demon. I discounted all the not-Nurgle options from various companies for similar reasons.

Having decided to include some Hobbit Goblintown goblins in the warband, I took another look at the Goblin King model. Turns out, what made me hate him in the movie (alongside oh-so-many other issues) was what made it work for me in this context – he's big, deformed, and liberally covered in pustules without being too excessive (I wanted something a little less plague-ridden to act as a halfway house between the demonic troops and the forthcoming human cultists).

First thing to go was the excessively pointy crown – I don't see this guy as a leader as much as a tank (more along the lines of the cave troll in the Moria sequence in Fellowship of the Ring, before they started throwing trolls at everything...). This has left him with a rather odd circlet, but... meh. I'll cobble together some rationale at some point or another...

The real work, such as it was, lay in clipping away the big old staff/mace the model was originally holding. This necessitated a minor resculpt on his hand, to add in a couple of knuckles that were previously covered.

Painting, as with all the recent Nurgle stuff, was swift and simple – flesh, green/purple wash, drybrush with more flesh, paint loincloth, pick out pustules and warts, wash the lot. He's come out much darker than I expected, not that I dislike it, but it's definitely not what I originally had in my head. It does set it apart from the usual paintjobs I see on the model, which lean much more towards the pale. Still, minor niggles aside, I think he fits in well with the gang so far:

The four-day Easter break was productive – I got this guy finished, and ten of his goblin minions (to be reskinned as ghoulish troglodytes) painted. More on those when the basing is done and dusted.