GG 2026 A rather disgusting renegade plague marine

This thread is part of the Golden Goblin painting competition 2026. Please see the entry thread for full details.
I had a few choices under consideration for entering GG, a Space Crusade Dreadnought (the long-legged one with 4 weapons) and the original Captain Tycho (repurposed for my own Marine Chapter).

But ultimately I plumped for a simple renegade plague marine. I have some plague marines already, all RT and 2nd Edition era models, mainly converted freaks and body horrors based on loyal marine models. But I'm working on more so this felt like a good opportunity to push myself to get another one done! I have a couple more in progress, but for this I wanted to start from scratch.

Here are my current Pus-filled Boil-brothers so far:

PLAGUE MARINES.jpg

And this is the distinctly unpromising starting point for a new one (a Marine from the RT era Space Marine Strike Force box):

PLAGUE PROCESS START.jpg

Now I could just more or less follow the pattern I've used so far for the others, but seeing as this is a friendly competition, I'll be pushing myself to go further with this one. I'll be digging deeper in my bits box than I've ever dared before and messing about with Milliput. I'm not a sculptor, nor am I good at making shapes with Milliput, Green Stuff or whatever, but maybe I'll be able to surprise myself.
 
There was a lovely elegance to those Strike Force Marines, enough detail for interest but not so much it got in the way of seeing the figure. Perfect painters minis.
I like your colourful take on Plague Marines, the high contrast style works really well.
Thanks, I wanted to go a different direction with my plague marines to what has apparently become the go-to: a sort of dinge green.

And I agree on the Strike Force marines, I always really liked them even since seeing them in an old Citadel painting guide. Interestingly, the 2nd plague marine from the left in the group shot is a second edition plastic marine, though clearly based on the metal Strike Force marine I'll be using here.
 
Bravo!

I like the individuality of the squad. Every member has its own thing going on.

I think there was an Epic scale Death Guard scheme with white armour & a red right arm.
Thanks! My inspiration for these has been the models shown in the RoC books and the 2nd edition Codex Chaos, especially the double page Blanche spread (and his miniatures). They should all look like individuals with their own unique hygiene and health problems, haha...

Not sure I've seen the Epic scale Death Guard scheme you mention. My original idea with these had been "fleshy coloured" contrasting shoulder pads etc. But after washing the flesh colour with red ink I really liked the grimy red look.
 
Here's where I've got to today. This is the result of bits box rummagings. Initially I had some spare legs and bones from the old "Skeleton Horde" models I thought of using. I was even planning on giving him two pairs of legs, but the Skeleton Horde models are very slim and made the marine look like a Diddy Man. So instead I opted for some complicated cutting and regluing of tiny pieces of a HeroQuest skeleton instead.

The feel I'm going for is very much the wild and mad conversions I used to love in White Dwarf etc back in the day. The "half-Dalek, half Space Marine" was an old favourite of mine, haha.

Anyway, a long way to go yet. I'll be adding decaying flesh, armour boils, weird hairy bits and so on. Still unsure on the scythe handle, it may end up as a "Nurgle Rod of Office".

plagueboner.jpg
 
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