Khoron Avir, Champion of Nurgle

Day whatever of confinement. Though we're doing good given the circumstances, my mind usually goes faster and beyond recommendable standards. So beware. I'm trying an experiment [Spoiler: doesn't end well]. With all the bombardment from the news, the situation and all, I remembered I have all the Dark Imperium box inside... well, a box. And I remembered there's a Champion of Nurgle in the set. And then a (EU approved led) bulb lit over my head, I simply came with the name of Khoron Avir, Champion of Nurgle. And I knew I had to do something about it.

Oh, come on, don't put that face. The concept is pure Rogue Trader.

Here it all begins

First things first. I had to replace that absurd helmet. I can't stand it. If this is going to be a proper Terminator Champion it needs a proper Terminator head.

Hush. No discussion about it.

You can see I cut the belly out. This is some serious guy, not a soap opera villain. I'm taking the rotten flesh and tentacles and shit out; I can't bear seeing a putrid belly and pretending it has the same protection than the armour. I have some clear ideas in mind, I'll share as I unfold this conversion.

Next step. If this is going to fight my Space Sharks Force or whatever, it has to be tall enough! I mean, this is actually my first Realscale Terminator attempt ever! Wow, fingers crossed...

So the legs have to be slightly enlarged

Awkward pose at the moment, I hope I can solve that

Well, more or less this is going to be it

We are usd to see (even more in recent times) Nurgle guys with giant maws on the belly, tentacles and stuff, you know what I mean. It's nice (if that's the word), it's daemonic, it's scary, it's distinctive... But it doesn't work for me at some level.

Right, if  we are dealing with some possessed Marine I can see the claws, maws and paws. Whatever, dude. But if we are in front of a Chaos Space Marine, we have to make the right questions. What are they? What is their purpose, how do they wage war, what is the nature of the being I'm about to paint/convert? How does this armour work? How does this weapon shoot?

I'm not sold on the idea of rotten, rusty-to-death bolters or armours, and that's a thing we often see about Nurgle. Sorry, I'm not a fan of the This works because Chaos idea. This is not a daemon prince, not a vessel possesed by a Warp entity. This is a Space Marine. A Chaos Space Marine. He wears an armour, which has to be designed to protect its bearer. And he shoots a firearm, he doesn't fire bolts from his fingers, so the weapon cannot be ridiculously rusty.

Now that you see my train of thought (of course you may disagree!), let's move forward. The weapon. The model comes with this huge axe:

I think it would do great on an Ork. But not here

The huge two handed weapon seems odd to me on such a mini. The flexibility and agility you need to wield such a weapon is something I don't see on a Terminator. They are bulky, they are adamant, ready to resist whatever the enemy throw at them. I thought I could use a more traditional approach.

Storm bolter and chainfinst from the Space Hulk box

I wasn't convinced by this pose, and the banner pole was too tall

However, I'm happy with the size of this monster

I repositioned the chainfist and randomly added som texture paint on the model, so it could represent rust and decay to some extent.

Well, let's see how this works! Paint time!

I think I messed it to some point. I'll let you judge. I had a clear idea. I didn't want it painted green, and of course I wouldn't paint it white. I wanted to show decay and the concept of a really old armour with no paint, with tons of damage and signs of rust and stuff, yet functional.
Risky.

I followed the same steps that I used for my Underworlds Sigmarites, trying to get a bare metal effect. So first thing, dark metal:

Iron Warriors? Nope, never heard of them

Leather brown wash:

I'll never understand why they call it 'wash' if it looks dirtier

German camo + dark brown wash:

On a retrospective, I should have left it here

Orange wash:

Or even here

Maybe this was the no return point. I used a brown/reddish ink. And it suddenly looked awfully metallic:

Oooops. How do I solve this?

I went back to the bare metal and tried to add dirt and stuff, but I don't think I got it back to the point I had already achieved. Well. Whatever the case, sometimes you have to admit you kind of screwed the thing, but you cannot get obsessed. You must let it go. Lesson learned, next time I'll do better.
I made my best to solve it, and this is what I got:

Khoron Avir, Champion of Nurgle

At least you cannot say he looks clean

Oh, the size of the beast (remember, that Space Shark is a realscale guy)

Alongside an old Terminator

So, cousin, you are new in the neighbourhood...

I think I may explore other paths for future Plague Marines. Though keeping the same way, I'd like to try an all-brown palette, for rusty metals and so. Well, we'll see. For now I'll let the Champion of Father Nurgle spread his blessings at a planetary scale.
Stay safe!