Chaos Decimator, Part 2

I've gone through a lot of tentative designs for a Chaos decimator. Most of them didn't get to the scribbling-on-a-napkin phase; others were originally slated for my hellforged contemptor (which is a whole 'nother can of beans); and a few were earnestly explored and dropped for a variety of (mostly petty) reasons.

Things I knew I wanted:

• Gross Nurgle messes. This one's a bit of a given, I guess.
• Some kind of receptacle for foul, disease-ridden liquids. (Think Mamon or the infamous Very Manly Baneblade.)
• Ridiculous, otherworldly guns that look nothing like an Imperial weapon. (I have many inappropriate feelings about the soulburner petard, which the Imperium doesn't get — the weapon clearly relies on Chaos to function, so I felt it shouldn't look like a regular Space Marine gun.)
• A disgusting daemon head.

So, I had my base — a massive Primaris Redemptor Dreadnought. I had a list of must-haves. Off to the laboratory!
The head, though I listed it last, is actually the most important part of the process. (It got listed last because it's almost an assumed — it was so central to what I wanted that I forgot that "what I want" lives entirely in my head. I only listed it after recalling that very few people can read minds over the Internet.) Everything swung on whether I could make that head come to life. Thankfully, though, I'd seen a friend's redemptor. I knew what it could become, given some bits and a few hours with molding putty.

A portion of GW's Primaris Redemptor Dreadnought kit.

That spoke to me. I immediately spun a story out of it — the yawning black of the uncovered sarcophagus, the greedily opened covers. I knew that I wanted a hungry, soulless machine, and this basic blueprint offered me exactly that.

But in case you don't see it, here's the current state:

GW's Primaris Redemptor Dreadnought kit with extensive green stuff sculpting
and bits from Privateer Press's Cage Rager, an armor plate from the (discontinued)
Forge World Nurgle dreadnought, several Tyranid spikes, a torso from GW's Putrid Blightkings,
an arm-connector bit from a Chaos helbrute, parts from GW's Plaguebringer kit, and a
portion of an ancient plastic GW skeleton. Whew! The sharp-eyed may have also noticed the
length of chain from the Michael's jewelry aisle.

That's the first pass. Honestly, my second pass will only smooth some parts out and add some body and heft, rather than be real improvement; I'm no sculptor, so what you see is more-or-less what you're gonna get. Still, I think the two halves of the sarcophagus really do recall greedy jaws, and that was the image I couldn't unsee the moment I'd laid eyes on the opened model.

The first custom part I assembled was the right-hand gun. I settled on using Eldar bits for a couple reasons — First, I wanted a finished product that didn't feel Imperial; second, I had a bunch of random Eldar bits lying around. (Apologies on photo quality; this is a small part of a larger photo. I sharpened up some portions, with, uh, mixed results.)

Unknown portion of an Eldar kit along with the Primaris Redemptor Dreadnought kit.

This is a nice conversion, but it's not quite Nurgley enough — it doesn't make me feel oily all over, for one thing, and it doesn't look like it's spent a thousand years in the festering pus-floods of a plagued daemon world. I began dolling it up a touch; I'd estimate it's about 30% done.

Unknown portion of an Eldar kit along with the Primaris Redemptor Dreadnought kit
and a portion of a monstrous Tyranid bioweapon.

By the time I'm done, there will be wire drilled into the ammo casing that will connect to the gun proper; that cabling will receive the unsettling fleshy sheathing that shows up so often on Death Guard vehicles and Mortarion.

Next time: Making faces and the case of Larva v. Vat.