Modeling the Rot

Volero's rusting power armor creaked and sighed as he shifted his weight. He gazed out over the workshop as hooded, stooped figures welded and cut sheets of adamantine.

"How many of these," he asked, stopping as his throat filled with something wet. He choked it back with a smacking sound. "Can you produce ... before Tartella?"

The creature's form cast a shadow across Volero as it reached for a data-slate. It carefully traced two figures onto the device's face with a long claw.

Volero coughed as he took the data-slate. "Yes, six should be ... sufficient."

Below, the cowled workers led a scabbed and diseased thing — a nightmare of a human, with a single eye and a crooked horn — to a half-built machine. One positioned its arms and legs against the plasteel, and four others raised heavy rivet guns.

"One," the thing spoke as the first hot rivet was driven into its arm. "Two. Three. Four. ..."


Welcome to Lux Larvalis, my modeling blog!

Lux Larvalis is the name of my vectorium, a band of corrupted warriors bound by their shared pledges of loyalty to the traitor legion of the Death Guard and its patron, Nurgle, the god of disease, decay, and the cycle of life.

Kitbashed miniature of Volero Scalpondus,
the Chaos Lord who leads Lux Larvalis.

Here, I'll be posting pictures of the work I've done, works-in-progress (or WIPs) that I'm developing, and short stories or histories of Lux Larvalis and its allies.

Lux Larvalis is a warband in Games Workshop's Warhammer 40,000 universe. As such, I'll end up using trademarked, copyrighted or otherwise protected terms on this blog, as well as ideas and terms that spring from that setting's rich lore. Because my ideas and GW's will be so deeply intertwined, I'm not going to bother noting GW's copyrights separately; however, when I add pictures of miniatures or artwork that's not my own, I will note the owner or originator.

Case in point: To the left is a kitbashed model of Volero Scalpondus, the leader of Lux Larvalis and an ancient Chaos Lord. While Volero is my creation (both the character and the model), the model uses pieces from Epidemius, Tallyman of Nurgle (GW), Chaos Space Marine (GW), the Forge World Plague Marine upgrade kit (GW), Nurglings (GW), and a Death Marshal (Wyrd), as well as a plasma gun from an unknown kit (GW), and a small amount of sculpting work I did with kneadatite (an epoxy sculpting material also known as green stuff).

When I show painted models, I'll try to also let readers know what paints I used; however, that's far more likely to happen in WIP posts. For finished models, I'll likely just note what paint brands and processes I used. (This is partly because I simply won't recall every single color or technique that went into a given model.)

Plague marine with a blight launcher. This figure is a combination
of two easy-build plague marines,one from the Plague Marine kit
and one from the Dark Imperium boxed set.

To the right is a very slightly modified plague marine, one of 14 I painted as the core of my Death Guard forces. I used a combination of GW, Privateer Press, and Golden High Flow acrylics, as well as Secret Weapon Realistic Water. While most of the work was achieved with simple brushwork, the base color (ivory) and some shading effects were laid down first with an airbrush.

My goal is to have a fully painted force this year. As of this post, my fully painted forces include 14 plague marines, including 6 with plasma and 4 with blight launchers; 20 poxwalkers; 10 plaguebearers; and Mortarion (which I'd rushed to complete for an Apocalypse game.) My definition of a "fully painted" force is somewhat nebulous at the moment, but I think a fair working definition is one "that allows me to field several army configurations at the size of a standard game." Since I'm working from four different army lists, I'll probably need quite a bit more models painted than I'd ever actually use in a standard game. I'm also planning to have the major named characters from my force — Volero, Pestilitas, Fecundus, and the Triglav — painted, even if they end up not being used all that often. (Poor Fecundus has already been second-guessed into bencher status in my last several games, for example.)