Slapchopping Nurglings

Before it became trendy, I wanted to field a sea of Nurglings. Now all over the Internet people are doing the math to figure out how many stands you can field in a Death Guard army. The answer may be twenty seven, but before you can do that you need to buy and paint all those little beady eyeballs yellow.

I’d already tried Contrast Paints on some Nurglings and of course I tried dry brushing or painting Contrast Paints over a black primed model pre-highlighted with grey, but now drybrushing and shading quickly is called #Slapchop or the slapchop method. People have tried to improve on it, so of course I did too, basically I painted on quick highlights and then threw a wash overtop of the Nurgling skin.

I already posted a finished Nurgling stand to Instagram because it is #MiniatureMonday, but it is also the Thanksgiving holiday Monday here in Canada so I had extra time to paint, go to the gym, and yes blog. My test Nurgling came out well enough especially since I used more than just Contrast Paints. I used Army Painter Speed Paint 2.0 too which some like better, but some don’t, but I also used my lifetime collection of random paints and I stuck to colours I have experience painting such as green and purple.

Of course I used the incredibly difficult to spell Aethermatic Blue, but for the next three Nurgling stands I switched from Dark Angels Green to Ork Flesh, so I can get some Orktober practice in I guess. I painted pretty quickly but besides actual highlights and washes other things I did that may not be pure slapchop was paint pure Wraithbone on parts of the models. I also painted metallics, a steel color made by Army Painter, on weapons. I didn’t leave them grey. I even painted some things Greyseer and Wraithbone that I wanted to look different like a zombie head or some guts on my second batch of three Nurgling stands.

The guts were painted Fleshtearer red which is one of my go to painting techniques. I didn’t give them a wash or anything on the test model, but the metallics got some thinned Army Painter Strong Tone, then some highlights with the new GW silver, whatever they are calling it now, “Stormhost”. My new mixer finally made it useable, so I gotta say get yourself a paint mixer, it will save you time and frustration. I tried the Dirty Down again but was not satisfied so I got out the poisonous bottle of mineral spirits I’ve had for years but never used and my AwesomePaintJobDotCome rust pigments and probably went a little overboard.

Then I was reminded that if you spray matte sealant over your rusted pigments they can reactivate and you end up with a different rust effect than you posted to Instagram. I don’t think Dirty Down reactivates with Citadel Matte spray sealant but it might. This is probably why I moved away from pigments, I want to seal and be done with a model.

Besides Nurglings I spent a lot of time cleaning and trying to fill in gaps on a Forgeworld Nurgle Plague Toad which I plan to use as a Chaos Spawn. You must field spawn in packs of two, because they are sold in boxes of two. But besides one lone Nurgling, I painted one lone Chaos Spawn for the Bolter and Chainsword painting challenge. Tenth edition has been out a while and I hunted down one of these models to be my fourth and likely final Chaos Spawn.

I probably spent too much time with gap filler and liquid greenstuff. I never used to use either. I also pinned the model as one of his legs didn’t fit very well, hence the extra large gap to fill. I also planned to pin him to a resin base, as that is what I like to do for basing models. I think this base is Polish. Hopefully I can get these Nurglings and Chaos Spawn done quickly as I plan to paint more strategically valuable models. I may even rebase some more old models and last of all I plan to paint a greenskin if I can find time this month, but we remain busy at work.

If you have thoughts on slapchop, or hashtags, or Contrast Paints or Speed Paints or Nurglings or excessive use of conjunctions you can leave a comment below.