Pre-Knight Errant Nathaniel Garro (Pre-Heresy Death Guard) conversion and paint guide

Ladies, Gentlemen and Bunnies. 

Here is my Guide on how to create a Pre-Heresy Nathaniel Garro in MKIV power / Artificier armour. 

Love Israel's work so NEEDED to do a Knight Errant edition first. 

Here are the legs on the right I was going to use . . .

Here is the problem. So different in size!

That would look silly!

So I cut and filed off all the insignia for a closer look, then decided to just adapt the actual legs to MKIV standard. 

Here shows where I clipped his left leg down to. 

I then clipped the knee caps off of the spare legs, filed the inside down to circa 1.5mm then just bent them out to work with the slightly bigger shin guards on Garro's legs. I used the MKIV Apothecary for reference of how the knee pad would sit, so I am happy with how it lays. 

I clipped out the mechanisms behind his right knee then smoothed Green Stuff around it to reshape the shin pad to match the other one (easy to trim the green stuff to the correct shape later at the top of the rear of the calf where it would meet the ribbing). 

I then did his right knee.

I also clipped the sword off carefully at this point and attached the arm with Super glue to where I want it to sit.

I then extended the armour plate under his left arm pit to make it look more realistic with the pose I wanted, then left to dry before adding ribbing. I clipped the ribbing back under his right arm pit and glued it closer to the model. I filled in the Knight Errant iconography at this point too and reattached the sword in a heroic "count the seven" pose. This required a small amount of the back of the sword-butts skull getting sanded back. Then positioned his head facing along the sword. 

Back of the thigh was done. 

I carefully separated the backpack (too good looking to destroy) from the cape with a scalple then thinned the left inside of the cape down and bent it out a bit more. 

A small green stuff square was put on in the middle back then a standard back pack was added. 

I then clipped the cloak down to this arrangement. 

More cloak clippage. You can see where I cleaned the resin off of the inside of the Cloak where it hits the scabbard. 

Then using a piping bag (for cakes) I set to work creating a greenstuff cape. Now bare in mind this is my first cape. I made it circa 2mm thick. 

Using sculpting tools I created a heroic billowing cape. 

Keep playing with it until you are happy throughout the night / 2-3 hours it takes to dry. 

From above. 

From behind. Now as long as you work to tie the bottom of the greenstuff cape into the bottom of the resin one and bend it round, you shouldn't have too much of a problem trying to get it to fit. Make sure you have lots of putty tools to hand which you can use to bend and manipulate the greenstuff from underneath and on top. Thin latex gloves (wet with saliva or water) help prevent finger prints. 

If you struggle you can always add more creases later the next day. 

Spray white!

Ink with 50:50 Seraphim sepia and Lahmian Medium. 

I painted the cape Steel Legion Drab as a base 

Then, I layered up many coats of 1:3 White scar and Lahmian Medium. Shoulder pads are painted Castellan Green and blended to 50:50 Castellan green to Elysian green at the top (natural highlighting). Just remember to add Lahmian to thins so it makes the blend gradual.

I then washed the cape with Agrax earth shade and began to sponge various different Browns to beiges over the whole cape. This gives it a Hessian / sackcloth look. Trim was done as greens above with slight sponging too. 

PURITY SEAL NOW. 

Tamiya old gold was painted on. 

Now ready for oil paints. 

NOTE: this stage is semi advanced. Practice it on an off cut or spare door etc first. Please, Please, please heed me!

This is the point I dabbed small spots of raw umber and Burnt umber oil paints at certain points on the model (where we want streaks to come down from), and leave for 20-30 mins. You then flood the model with white spirits (well ventilated area) by dabbing a standard brush loaded with the WS on each armour panel (which have the oil paint on) without touching the brush onto the spots of oil paints but letting the white spirits, give it another 10 minutes as it beds the oil paints in. A blast of a hot air drier can help. Then load 2 egg cups with a small amount of white spirits in each (I will call one clean one and one dirty). Load a standard brush with a small amount of white spirits and drag the spot down in a streak. Then keep following this technique to create the streaks. Clean the brush every now again in the dirty cup after cleaning the brush on a bit of kitchen roll. Keep thinning and extending the streak until you are happy. 

[alternatively many repeatedly thinned layers of seraphim sepia/Agrax Earthshade and lots of Lahmian medium can get the same effect]

AK Interactive streaking paints are great too. See my Death Guard Medusa post for mor guides to streaking. 

Then lots of edge chipping with thinned Stormvermin fur. This can be done with blister pack sponge, 5x0 paint brushes and the makeup sponge on sticks you can buy from any beauty place. 

Sword was painted with Boltgun metal then Grey Knight Steel (Forge world paint which gives a blue flip to a surface). 

Rear

Libertas was then drybrushed at the most zenithal tip of the blade to show a reflection from a light source :) it was then washed with Nuln oil to pronounce the writing (but don't let it pool too much around the writing). 

Bolger was painted Retributor Gold. Inked with Agrax and highlighted with Runefang steel. 

Bolts were done Retributor gold. The vents were Warplock Bronze layered up with Runelord Brass. 

The Golds were washed with thinned Druchi Violet under the darkest recesses and Agrax Earthshade to add definition. They gold was then highlighted with Mithril Silver. 

Then transfers and the head. See bottom of post. 

Finished!

 

The head was done with Tallarn flesh. It then went through various inks such as Agrax all over, a mix of Druchi and Casandora around the eyes. Layers of Cadian flesh tone and Other flesh colours were used  to complete it. The scars were painted by fine paint brush using thinned scab red/ Khorne red. 

Hope you have a bash!

 

Also we will be creating Character sheets for each of our Contributors and lesser known (or Great Crusade Era) characters. See our Unofficial Special Characters Here.

Drake Seta