Written by There I am minding my own business when Warbringer (my fellow author here) shows me the Inquisitor Martyr Cinematic Trailer. “What a cool conversion that would be” he says innocently enough. Right that’s that then, I decided on the spot I was making that Helbrute! I immediately re-watched it and tried to figure out what I was going to do. I’d at least need a Helbrute model…
The trailer is on Youtube if you haven’t seen it yet:
The Helbrute appears about 1:30 into it. I also got some photos off my telly to help me make the model.
He has features from both the boxed Helbrute and the Dark Vengeance one. So I had to pick my starting point. The main deciding factor was probably the Scourge close combat weapon, I wasn’t converting that!
Although I really liked the design he has a couple of odd (for Nurgle) features. He is ripped like the DV Helbrute. Luckily I had a spare Daemon Prince torso for that (as the boxed one has wires for a stomach). He also has quite a chiselled face for some reason. I picked a head from the easy to build Deathguard that was similar but had a bit of wattle around the neck area, slightly more Nurgley.
The DV Helbrute has better teeth framing the head and horns. So I had my work cut out for me doing these on the boxed helbrute. It was green stuffing time.
He needed a load of horns, I had lots of spares from a Maggoth Lord kit. He also needed a giant chaingun with loads of ammo hanging down! The chaingun I made from two Space Crusade (my bits box is ancient) Dreadnought Chainguns stuck together. The barrel end features are all made from plasticard pipes and two thicknesses of sheet.
While trying to figure out a weapon to go on the bottom of the Chaingun. Aiming for a Bayonet type weapon. Warbinger suggests turning the Lord of Contagion axe around to be a bayonet shape, I’d sent him a pic with it as an axe.
I really couldn’t find an ammo feed big enough in the GW line. I didn’t fancy doing a convincing job making one up at this scale either. So Zinge Industries was the answer. The feed is a bit like rubber but with a fantastically practical wire running through the length of it. I really fit nicely but it was also just hanging down far too long. Then I decided Nurglings should be carrying it. The one of the left is actually upside down (he’s normally doing a handstand).
A lot of Green stuff gap filling and pustules later the model making part was done…
The painting side started off looking like Radiation but deviated quite a lot as I went along.
Tried out some burnt muzzle effect.
Fot the base I tried my hand at water effects. I’d not done it before and refused very good advice to practice first.
Above is water effects with Flourescent yellow paint dropped in. Cool isn’t it? Unfortunately it doesn’t stay like that and keeps dispersing. I took this photo, removed the liquid and thought about how I could recreate it.
For this one I repeated the same as above, the initial dispersion really sells the glow effect. But I waited three hours for it to semi dry to a gel state and then I added more flourescent paint (a second wave). There are some clear beads in there for bubbles and some dark wash around the edges and far side of the Nurgling.
So then I just needed to finish painting him…
I’m really pleased with him. He was the result of basically a wave of inspiration from start to finish. There is a whole load of stuff in there I’d never done before. Rode my luck several times along the way.
He is also my Jewel of July painting challenge (emerald if your asking) for Azazel’s blog.
Painting In The Dark 
You know what i think about tgis model but ill say it again, its bloody AMAZING. Ive really enjoy watching the process of you working your way though all the details. Its pretty funny how despite buyng the boxed helbrute you almost end up with the same Dark Vengeance pose anyway. The gun is fantastic, thematically great and i havent seen one like it before. I think the nurglings are a great touch, i think maybe my favourite is the one hanging off his leg. The paint job is so cool as well, i know you hit some bumps in the road with the colours but its worked out so well and im glad you blindly stumbled into success with your water effects!
Such an immense addition to your army very excited for it to see play one day. Well done man, so good. I thinkyou have really raised the bar for yourself on this one.
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I do remember saying to you ‘why am I making a dark vengeance Helbrute?!’. The pose just seemed to go that way.
I love the Nurglings, I think they are becoming my favourite bit.
Trying to wrangle some credit for the water effects. I did accidently make an awesome thing but the hard part was recreating it permamently. That was the third attempt. As far as I’m concerned I invented glowing water effects. 🧐 😂
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You didnt practice but it did come out really well on the fly and you are better off for having tried. Looking forward to seeing you ace those water effects first time bext time you do them! Maybe for Technical August?…
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Yeah, I’m never doing water effects again after this…if I did I think I might even try to up the initial dose to increase glow effect (copyright). 🤓
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Great stuff here! It’s an excellent conversation and it is funny how you almost ended up with the DV Helbrute’s pose. I was like, but he didn’t use the DV one did he – scrolled up – and, no he didn’t.
The conversation is spot on and so is the paint job.
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Thank you Thomas I appreciate it. I often play around with the poses to try to get a dynamic look. All the tweaks took it into DV Helbrute territory. I was thinking ‘I hope I don’t have to convert a DV Helbrute in the future because what pose am I going to do?’ Ha!
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You need to convert a DV helbrute and give it a normal pose.
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Then play guess the Helbrute.
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😄
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That’s one awesome model. Great walk through the process as well. You have nailed the feel and insanity of helbrute perfectly.
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Cheers heresyofus, I appreciate the feedback. He looks pretty detached to me too and totally uninterested in the Nurglings.
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Very, very cool man
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Thank you dude! Appreciated.
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Awesome mate, I love all the convertions you guys do, but seeing this and Pandoras helbrute makes me want to convert my own.
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Do it! What would you do? World eaters?
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What a great job you did. I like many things about this model. I particularly like how you did the heat effects. My own attempts at heat effects have been ok, but suffer from the deficiency of not standing out enough. Yours certainly don’t have that issue.
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Thank you Ann! The barrel was borderline too long but it did make me think I could do rust one end, heat effects the other. I’ve got shiny metal in between so it stood out. I considered doing rust upto the heat effects but would lose at least the silver and brass colours at the start and thought it wouldn’t really sell the illusion. I often do things that don’t stand out enough due to lots of washes and general messiness.
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The heat effects and water effects are pretty sweet. Nice job on your massive conversion! 🙂
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Thank you Faust. I appreciate the commments. I tried on this one.
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Would’ve been a real nice entry for Azazel’s August Technical Challenge too. 😉
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Ha, I know! I was thinking that reading the August challenge. I’ll see if I can come up with something else.
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I think this is easily one of the best dreadnoughts I’ve ever seen! Fantastic!
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Thank you Raff! That’s one of the best compliments I’ve ever heard. 😉
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