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Nurgle Mantis Pattern Daemon Prince – Conversion

By Rob Baer | December 18th, 2013 | Categories: Airbrushing, Chaos Daemons, Chaos Space Marines, Conversion Corner, Conversions, How To Tutorial, Warhammer 40k

I’ll be honest the idea for this little guy just happened to come from just dumb luck.

Not that I’m upset, heck that’s how we got nice things like Penicillin and Nura Sweet! However while those discoveries went on to change our world, I’m just playing with toy soldiers and trying to inspire others with all this.

Way back in the spring, I happened to be working on a Daemon prince model, and put it away one night in a lid from a random GW kit. When I pulled out the box the next day, I noticed the model was resting over a pair of Tervigon arms that were in the box already. The rest, was history. I had to make this conversion!


So I added a few more parts, and some green stuff to tie it all together then hit the spray booth with it.  The color scheme is from Kenny Boucher’s Nurgle army, and I think it turned out quite well IMHO.

Parts List 
Green Stuff
Plastic Daemon Prince Model
Orge Kingdoms “Black” Mace
Apocalypse Command Sprue “Melta Head”
Helbrute arm, and right foot.
Tervigon Hive Arm set

The Conversion

You can pretty much see what I did with this model in the picture above.  I added the helbrute arm and foot, as well as the new “wings” and then puttied around them.  I gave him a little extra putty work on his back from Papa Nurgle too just to fill some space I couldn’t seem to cover with anything substantial.
After that I just went to work painting him. 
The Paintjob
To start out I painted the whole model using an airbrush first. Then I went back in with a brush and hit up all the details like trim, eyes, claws etc.

The recipe I used was a new one that I got from Next Level Painting‘s Kenny Boucher (you may have seen this on his awesome looking Heldrakes from earlier in the year).  
So to paint the skin I used p3 Iosan Green for a basecoart. Then I blended Necorite Green over that, and did highlights with Citadel Flash Gitz yellow.   All of this was done over a neutral Gray base (Army Painter Uniform Grey Primer). 
Then I went back and highlighted every edge with more of the same highlight paint where applicable. It’s a very time consuming process, but produces great work! 
While the colors may have changed a bit, I used basically the same process from my “How to Paint Plaguebearers” videos from earlier in the year to apply the paint to the model.

That’s pretty much it. It seems quicker than it really was, the brush work took up most of the time. Honestly if I hadn’t saved time airbrushing the basecoat, I would have never been able to spend so much time detailing him in the end.
If you missed those How to Paint Plaguebearers videos I was talking about, check them out here. Checkout more of this Daemon Prince, click play below!  

So what do you think of using both a Brush and an Airbrush to paint your models? -MBG

About the Author: Rob Baer

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Rob Baer

Job Title: Managing Editor

Founded Spikey Bits in 2009

Socials: Rob Baer on Facebook and @catdaddymbg on X

About Rob Baer: Founder, Publisher, & Managing Editor of Spikey Bits, the leading tabletop gaming news website focused on the hobby side of wargaming and miniatures.

Rob also co-founded and currently hosts the Long War Podcast, which has over 350 episodes and focuses on tabletop miniatures gaming, specializing in Warhammer 40k. and spent six years writing for Bell of Lost Souls. 

Every year, along with his co-hosts, he helps host the Long War 40k Doubles Tournament at Adepticon and the Long War 40k Doubles at Las Vegas Open, which attracts over 350 players from around the world.

Rob has won many Warhammer 40k Tournaments over the years, including multiple first-place finishes in Warhammer 40k Grand Tournaments over the years and even winning 1st place at the Adepticon 40k Team Tournament.

With over 30 years of experience in retail and distribution, Rob knows all the products and exactly which ones are the best. As a member of GAMA (Game Manufacturers Association), he advocates for gaming stores and manufacturers in these difficult times, always looking for the next big thing to feature for the miniatures hobby, helping everyone to provide the value consumers want.

While he’s played every edition of Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Fantasy (since 5th Edition) and has been hobbying on miniatures since the 1980s, Titans of all sizes will always be his favorite! It’s even rumored that his hobby vault rivals the Solemnance Galleries, containing rulebooks filled with lore from editions long past, ancient packs of black-bordered Magic Cards, and models made of both pewter and resin.

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