Concept
So I got the ‘Naked Experiment of Death’ from Kingdom Death a few months ago, which comes with two plastic Twilight Knights and two plastic Wet Nurses. I love the Wet Nurses. They’re creepy and well-detailed, but I’ve never been sure what I wanted to do with them. Just painting them up by themselves didn’t seem like it would do them justice. I felt like they needed a cool base or scene to be a part of.
After reading the excellent manga Blame!, I had some ideas I wanted to use that I thought would work, so I started thinking about a diorama. Starting off, I had to do some research on the very interesting (but scant) lore in Kingdom Death to make sure the environment I made was correct.
Research
The flavor text for the Wet Nurse goes like so:
“The Wet Nurse is a single minded monster that serves the Entity of the Holy Lands. It’s only purpose is to nourish the creatures born in the Holy Lands with the molten milk it produces. This is the nutrition that carries within it the imperatives and instincts to serve the Entity of the Holy Lands. The monsters birthed by the Mothers and Grand Mothers of the Holy Lands are taken by the Wet Nurses who’s milk is the very will of the Entity. Humans taken from their mothers at birth are nursed by the Wet Nurses to create the mindless shambling masses of Holy Landers that live in the Entity’s fiefdom.”
So we know the Wet Nurse lives in the Holy Lands, with the Mothers and the Grand Mothers, and whatever “the Entity” is. Also it makes creepy monsters. Awesome. Since this isn’t the “Plain of Faces” that’s the environment of the base game (Kingdom Death: Monster), it won’t look exactly the same, but it may be close by, so I could add some faces to denote that.
Looking up the Holy Lands, I find the blurb about The Chosen:
“The apotheosis of the Entity’s bottomless narcissism, the Chosen are created in the Entity’s self-image. Its glory made flesh. Imbued with savage beauty matched by their intense vanity. The grinding machinery of the Holy Lands freezes wherever they pass. Through their eyes, the Entity casts its self-loving gaze upon the vastness of its creation. Although they walk the land unchallenged their impetuous rage leave swaths of smoldering ruin in their wake.”
I figure the ‘grinding machinery’ that were mentioned weren’t necessarily entirely mechanical, so I came up with the idea of some great ‘body’ made of bones / organic parts, with a face and pipes and tubing everywhere. I’d like to credit Blame! for that inspiration, but I think it fits Kingdom Death as well.
Starting Out
So my concept involves a great spinal column coming out of the earth, swarming with pipes and veins and tubing, topped off by a creepy face. I carved a basic spine shape out of foam, then spraypainted them.
Typically, spraypainting foam is bad. Very bad. It semi-melts it. But, having made that mistake before, I noticed that it melts in a very interesting, pock-marked fashion. The texture is actually pretty close to bone..
What’s a spinal chord without a good face? Shortcut! I made a mold of a Game of Thrones statue of Daenerys that translates quite well into the ‘creepy doll’ look I wanted. Filled it with Milliput and let dry.
When it was nice and hard I drilled out her mouth and put some different sized brass rod into it (PVC would be fine, too), then made a little tube of Milliput to serve as the new lower lip. Took some time to smooth it into the shape I wanted. Hopefully it’ll still look good when I get paint on it!
With the spinal chord together and the face done, I decided to add a little more in between each spine section as connective tissue. Enter: the all-powerful glue gun! (Be careful, it will melt the foam very quickly if you actually touch it.
I also put a piece of foam behind the face so it was more filled out.
Time to structure the base a bit more! I carved out a big circle in the base. This is going to be a pool of blood / gross fluid that the spinal chord will be coming out of / feeding into. Then I cut a section of a plastic cup to line it, with a section cut out to make room for the spinal chord. I glued all this down with the glue gun.
Cut out some thick PVC pipe to serve as columns to hold up the second layer.
I also chopped up a little bottle to serve as a ‘delivery chute’ for the upper layer. The last PVC pipe didn’t quite fit into the end of the bottle, so I glued a plasticard tube to the bottom.
And for the final part of this update, I cut some long pieces of PVC pipe, softened parts of them with a lighter (no heat gun), and gently bent them to fit into the hollow place of the spinal chord. I’ll be adding a lot more later.
