A little painting help from fellow Wolves?

[Gaeus Marius]

I know there is a painting/converting thread allready, but I figured that the best place to ask this particular question would be here. I have almost an entire Great Company of "Vanilla" Wolves (the ones with Ragnars badge), but now that I'm attempting to convert a Wolflord, and bring some real individuality to my army, I was looking for converting/painting tips. So, here are my main concerns:

 

1) Freehand painting of Great Company badges? Any tips would be very welcome

 

2) What are some good paint schemes? mine are the standard Shadow Grey/ SW Grey. Do y'all use pack markings?

 

3) Any cool converting tips or ideas? I've seen some really awesome models on this site, so any input would be great.

 

Thanks for any help guys, and sorry if this is the wrong place for these questions.

[Growler67]

Customization is what appeals most to me about TTG's and modeling in general. I say go with what cranks your handle. Uniformity/consitancy within yout Army/Squads would be one thing to keep in mind. You want customization within the individual model, but within the Squad there would have to be enough standardization and consistency to identify each to the Squad. Same goes for each Squad or Unit withing the Army. Your choice of base or main colors (I prefer the pre-heresy grey to the newer-ish blue) overall. One way to go about this is by doing the right shoulder pads the same within each squad but the overall colors identifying it with the rest of the army. So on and so forth. Pick something do-able and not too complicated or difficult.

 

Just a little imagination and using things like the "Army Painter" feature of "Dawn of War" or the "SM Painter" available on this forum to get a basic idea of how it'll look before actually painting anything may help too. You'll be able to see what will and won't work (as far as you are concerned) and go from there.

[Gaeus Marius]

Yeah, I was thinking about re-painting them in the pre-heresy colors (which is, I think, more of a Codex Grey base). I like the darker Grey look, rather than the blue tint they have now. My main painting concern was the freehand company badges on the left shoulder pad. The idea of painting a wolfs head is a little daunting at my level of skill.......

[Growler67]

There is also the Space Wolves Decal sheets available for just said purpose if you want. Most people do as the level of detail is hard to achieve with a brush for most mortals :sick:

[Gaeus Marius]

Ha ha, so true! As a matter of fact, about half my models allready have the decals on them, and the other half have the metal shoulder pads. I was just thinking about going a different way, and had thought that maybe someone had come up with an uber-tricky way of painting a wolfs head, like Sven Bloodhowl or Kjarl Grimblood's Great Companies. I'll figure it out I guess, nothing works like trial and error (lots of error....).

Any converting tips? Where is a good place to get head-swaps? And are all those cool wolf pelts out there GS or are they coming off another range of models? I see a lot of different heads and pelt combos out there that definately don't appear on the GW range. I've checked the Knights of the White Wolf on the Fantasy side like somebody suggested, but that didn't pan out. That particular range must have changed or something.

[Growler67]

There are a couple of threads here with conversion and heads info. There are also threads in the WIP section for tips. WH Fantasy has some Chaos and Empire models that also have Wolf or Fur capes. Some putty on the smooth tabbards will also work for For or Wolf Pelt type dressing. Looking around at places like TheWarStore.com for the pictures of the sprues and bits may prove inspirational at the very least.

 

There are some people doing their own decals (custom as well as mass producing slelected specific iconography) and printing them up at home for use without having to buy the sheets from GW for $% or more per sheet for a few of the ones you want.