Nozgrot Gitstompa – Deathskulls Warboss

It was over the deathwartch had been defeated and the fighting was done. It was time for what all good death skulls do and loot the corpses MekBoss Grimgob sent his grots to look through the bodies and wreckage to see what was worth looting. Alot of his biggest nobs met their demise today. Only Nozgrot stood firm and won the day, it cost him his life but he cut down the blight drone before being blown in two by the resultant explosion.

The grot searched and found little of worth and then all of a sudden he noticed the top half of Nozgrot was crawling around in the dust he had survived the blast.

MekBoss Grimgob had Nozgrot brought back to the Rok and was then grafted into a looted ambot and made whole.

Soon Nozgrot Gitstompa realised he was da biggest and ‘ardest and therefore was da Boss.

I’ve waited a long time to come up with a warboss for my deathskulls, I have the deffkilla wartrike but he isn’t a real boss.

With COVID and the GW closures the boss that was meant to be here was Ghaz but with him destined not to arrive I was looking for some inspiration and saw a few ambot conversions to dreadnoughts and big mess and thought I would try something similar

The Start

I put the model together in its basic form found all the bits I liked the look of and cut to form to suit in total I used claws from the stomp kit, dread arm as the gun, a flash git barrel, dread horns, nob head, green stuff then lots of little bits from the bikers, boys stomp and dread kits throughout and I think the cloak is part of abbadons cloak too.

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Then I further refined the shape and look that I knew I wanted. It takes a lot longer to get this right and working the horns in meant I ended up sanding and filing the top part away and creating an angel to get the to sit right. I knew I wanted to use the attack squig in game and I started to play with how I would have one.

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I then thought why not an attack “grot” and at that it could be the lucky grot how found Nozgrot and in turn got him his body. I wanted the Grot to have real personality. I use the biker kit nob pole grot, changed the head to a stomp head, changed the pole to something more suitable for a death skull and then added in a grot arm with pistol added some green stuff and filed until the arm look like It was always there. (2 barrels for the 2 close combat attacks)

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Then I made the base, my standard cork, sand, ballast mix that I made a tutorial here on how to do.

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Then I split the model down, added pins to allow me to mount of corks. I then primed the models and pre shaded with a little brown. I find it just helps with the variation on the skin tones and gives me something to work with when painting in the face and details afterwards.

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Working through with the blue and skin down and started blocking out the metals and the skin. I’m actually really lazy so the grot is mainly contrast like 90% and then highlights where needed.

The work face is contrast and then worked up with highlights.

The metal I’m pretty proud of how I achieved it, so I sprayed everything blue bar the face. Then I used contrast black over everything I wanted to be metal. Then using a makeup brush a small one I dry brushed the metal on, let it dry and repeated. Then I wash the metal with a nun oil and contrast mix

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Face work here and blocked out some more white and started the checks, they’re like my thing on deathskulls.

I Paint in an odd way, but it seems to work. Basically making it up to the brightest levels and then weathering and washing the model back down to the colour it will actually end up. This means I don’t highlight 90% of the model and it speeds everything up.

I really tried to push the face detail and I’m really proud of what I’ve managed here.

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Some Rust and Weathering Details, my absolute favourite part of painting Orks.

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Here he is done.
As I said I’m really proud of my warboss I’m considering changing my avatar to suit.

I’ve made him a rules entry in battle scribe and I might try and write up some rules to make him a little more suitable for narrative.

I had some advice from Gadgetwargaming/Marc on twitter about photography and I’ve tried to put them into practise here, I’ve taken the photographs as I used to in the Lightbox and then I’ve changed the curve to remove some of the green and make the pictures true to my eye.

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I really enjoyed this model and working on the face.

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Warbringer out until next time.