How to Paint Death Guard: Grime and Rot

The Death Guard are the poster children of decay, and painting them is a rare treat: the messier your brushwork, the better they look. Where a spotless army punishes every stray mark, a plague marine positively thrives on grime, rust, and streaks of unspeakable fluid. That forgiving nature makes them one of the most beginner-friendly forces in the hobby, and this guide walks you from bare plastic to a battle-ready bearer of Nurgle's gifts.

What You'll Need

You do not need a vast collection to get started. At minimum, gather a pale sickly green for the armour, a bone or off-white for horns and hair, a warm brown shade like Agrax Earthshade, a green shade such as Athonian Camoshade, a dark metal like Leadbelcher, and a rust tone like Ryza Rust. A pot of Typhus Corrosion is worth every penny for instant filth, and a bottle of Nurgle's Rot brings slime to life. Add a couple of brushes, an old brush for stippling, and a spray primer, and you are ready. If you paint with a different brand, drop the names into our paint converter to find your nearest equivalents.

Stage 1: Undercoat

Prime the model white or pale grey. Death Guard armour is a light, pallid green, and a bright undercoat keeps that colour looking sickly rather than dull. A quick spray from around thirty centimetres away, in thin passes, avoids clogging the wonderfully rotten detail these kits are famous for. Let it dry fully before you touch a brush to it.

Stage 2: Basecoat

Cover the armour plates in a thinned pale plague green, building up in two coats rather than one thick layer so the detail stays crisp. Block the exposed guts and sores in a pale flesh pink, the horns and hair in bone, and any trim in dark metal. Do not fuss over neatness here; the whole point of a Death Guard is that nothing about it is neat. Solid, even colour is all you are after.

Stage 3: Wash and Shade

This is where the rot appears. Wash the entire model with a brown shade, letting it pool in every crease, rivet, and rusted seam. Follow with a green shade over the armour recesses to push the sickly tone further. On the exposed flesh, a dab of purple or red wash in the deepest wounds sells the infection. Suddenly your flat model gains depth and looks properly diseased.

Stage 4: Layer

Bring the raised areas back up by layering the original pale green over the armour, leaving the shaded recesses dark. Re-apply bone to the tops of horns and the flesh tone to the swollen bellies. This contrast between grubby shadow and lighter surface is what gives the model form. Keep your paint thin and your coverage patchy on purpose; a little unevenness reads as texture, not as mistakes.

Stage 5: Edge Highlights

Take a lighter bone or off-white and catch the sharpest edges of the armour, the tips of horns, and the rims of the pockmarked trim. You are not highlighting everything, just the points where light would naturally strike. A fine brush and a steady hand help, but even loose highlights lift the whole figure.

Stage 6: Details and Base

Now comes the fun. Stipple Typhus Corrosion over boots, weapons, and lower legs for caked mud and rust, then dab Ryza Rust onto the raised metal. Glistening slime made from Nurgle's Rot looks superb dripping from mouths, wounds, and gun barrels. Pick out lenses in a bright green or yellow so they glow against the murk. Finish by texturing the base with mud and static tufts, then drybrush it with bone to tie everything together.

Final Tips

Death Guard reward experimentation far more than precision, so relax and let happy accidents happen. If a stipple looks too heavy, it probably looks perfect. Build your force one grubby champion at a time, and before long you will have a shambling tide of decay that looks like it crawled straight out of the garden of Nurgle.