Hi, Hive!

How about some art? It has been a good long minute or two since I painted and I'm busy with something new again (massive art block, ugh). But in the interim, I wanted to show you all a piece of humour art. It's punny, but needs some explaining for those who aren't in the know of the universe of Warhammer 40 000.

The painting is called Pugling, which is a pun on "Nurgling" and "pug". A Nurgling is an adorable blob of decay and pus and teeth, a sort of pet/parasite of a deity named Nurgle in the Warhammer 40k (W40k) universe. So take a pug, make it a harbinger of death, and you get a...

PUGLING

Nurgle in the Warhammer universes (40k and Fantasy) is the god of death, disease, and decay. It's his shtick. And he's part of the Ruinous Powers, the great 4 gods of what is referred to as Chaos that permeat every aspect of the W40k games and lore. Grandpappa Nurgle, because he loves us all. He's my favourite and I find his creatures absolutely adorkable.

» SKETCH

It always starts with an idea. Usually, the ideas are serious or fantastic. But I couldn't resist making a painting of this idea, I thought it extremely dry but humorous. My husband thought so as well, and so it fated. The Pugling must be birthed! He thinks pugs are cute. I think they're absolutely horrendous. And now we have ambivalence.

» COLOURS

As is true to Nurgle, dirty greens and browns are a must. So it was written, so I had done. I used brown for the accents, to break up some of the green. Swapping the colours wouldn't have had so great an effect, disease-looking wise. Oh, and red bulging and squint eyes. Because, gosh, pugs are ugly.

» SHADING

I didn't want to subtract from the Pugling subject so I settled on a simple background using more browns to bring out the green while staying true to Nurgle. And then it was fun-time with getting out the definition of the beast, all his fat rolls and furs and nailing down some soft lighting to make the mood more... innocent.

» DETAILS

Then the real fun began! Detailing was crucial to getting this monstrosity from a diseased-looking pug to an genuine Pugling. That called for sores, boils, and mucous and drool, as you do. Where there is decay, there are flies. But I wasn't going to spend hours painting in individual flies. I made one fly, turned the quick little painting into a custom brush, adjusted some brush settings, then swept my pen over the Pugling canvas.

So now he's both a Pugling and a BeelzePug. I don't know which is worse, to be honest...