Nurgle Rhino

3rd Place (Bronze) Warhammer 40k Vehicle LA Golden Demons

This is my "main" entry - the big one. The one that took me freakin' months to do (although not working on it every day).  The conversion alone was backbreakingly paintstaking. I had to plan out and implement some parts before assembling the tank, such as the holes in the sides where captured souls are peering or reaching out.  I love nurgle and had to do at least one nurgle entry this year. I started out with this being a much simpler conversion and it sorta ballooned.  This entry is inpired completely by an article in White Dwarf (Adeptus or whatever) about Chaos Tanks. In it, it describes nurgle tanks as such: "...will appear as a horrific mass of slime-encrused, rust caked armor, the top of the vehicle piled high with the bloated corpses of the plague god victims.  Foul smog bleches from unholy censers...." I love that imagery, and envisioned doing a tank with corpses piled on top. This idea grew into having "POWs" inside the tank, trying to escape. The censers were added using beads (you can see one on the back in the picture above. There are 2 in the back). There is a dead Ultramarine on the top (tiny tribute to Bobby Wong...wink wink), a Crimson Fist reaching out from one side of the top, a Space Wolf looking/reaching out of the other side of the top (you can just barely see it in the picture above), an Imperial Fist "head" in the corpse pile, and best of all (imo) a Blood Angel (still alive) desperately trying to escape the "Meat Wagon" (seen below).  A rusted chain holds the rear door closed.

Regarding the putty-built "fleshy" bits. At first this tank was done with none of them added to it. But I was unsatisfied with the result - it was too clean. So I started adding pitted, pustule-filled fleshy growths to the tank. If I could do it again, I would use the experience I gained building this thing and other conversions to do a better job of making the growths look like part of the tank. The growths are the number one thing people don't care for when commenting on the tank, and I don't blame them really.

Front shot. Here you can clearly see how a mix of matte and gloss varnish was used so that some spots would appear slimy or wet (example, the guts on the guy in the porthole, or the tongue on the head up front).  "Meat Wagon" is supposed to be carved into the tank as bloody lacerations. Sorta worked.  Sorta didn't.  There is a Forgeworld plate behind the visor in the picture above, which has decayed, sick looking eyes on it. It's fully painted but the visor is closed in this picture. Also, here you can clearly see my lousy attempts to do chipped paint. I really, REALLY need practice on that. One frustrating thing that is particularly evident on the yellow-ish front plate: Despite several (MANY) layers of blends, it looks like I did about two (lol). Not sure what happened. Either my DullCoat (Testor) did it or ...I dunno. I can't figure it out actually. I did some "unifying" thin paint washes that might have also contributed to this problem.  Luckily, some shading was retained.

Shot of the other side.  You can see a small nurgling puking some goop up on the top of the tank.  If I could go back, I would *ease up* on the goop - it's too much lol.  The Crimson Fist who is reaching out for help is visible on this side (top of tank).  Those of you who follow the site might recall me freaking out about a similar model I ran across on CMON.  Despite being 85% complete on this tank in February, in March I stumled across this Heart Stopper It's not entirely the same, but the use of "meat wagon" in the description, and the concept of people trying to escape, is uncomfortably similar.  I was really crushed to see this. Partly because I thought I had come up with something vaguely original, and partly because I didn't want people thinking I got the idea from that model.  I didn't.  "Meat Wagon" is a term I borrowed from Warcraft 3 (great game btw). So this is my big entry - for 40k Vehicle. Honestly, this was so much work I might never do another vehicle entry lol. By the way, the tank has a complete wooden display base with terrain, slime pools and a name plate but I stupidly took the pictures without it.  It's designed to attach to the base with a big magnet, so that it can be removed to be used in an army!