Skeletoro's wolves WIP

[skeletoro]

Hi all, I've recently gotten back into the hobby and have decided to start a new Space Wolves army. So I've bought a bunch of models, stripped many of my old marines, and have got to sticking them together. Anyway, I was hoping to make this into a bit of a WIP blog, as I've never actually finished painting an army.

 

My problem comes down to: I'm a perfectionist, slow at painting, and give up kinda easy. So hopefully logging my accomplishments here will get me motivated to paint this whole thing. After all, I've got all these wolves sitting around and haven't actually played a game of 40k since about 3rd edition.

 

Anyway, I thought I'd start off with what's turned out to be a bit of a test mini.

 

 

Problem is, I'm not entirely happy with how he's turned out.

 

I followed our local GW manager's advice, and painted the armour the following way:

 

Chaos black spray -> 2 thinned layers The Fang -> Full wash with Nuln oil -> about 3 or so thinned coats Russ Grey -> some lined highlights with thinned Fenrisian Grey. Incidentally this is what the citadel miniatures card suggested also.

 

My observations:

1) The Fang + Nuln Oil strikes me as being FAR too dark a basecoat to get good coverage with Russ Grey.

2) I feel the whole model is too dark. I am wondering whether it might look better lightened up a step, with Fenrisian grey as the main armour colour, perhaps shaded with some Russ Grey and Agrax Earthshade and highlighted with something lighter (perhaps the light blue citadel dry?)

3) I'm thinking of experimenting with Army Painter Wolf Grey Primer and some of the Vallejo Game Colours - in particular Wolf Grey and Heavy BlueGrey. I've heard good things about both ranges. Would they be good additions or am I just buying additional paints that I'm not going to need?

4) I really want to speed up the process. I'm happy to do multiple thin coats, really I am. But this guy was 6, not including primer or highlights. I'd like to cut it down to 3 or 4 if I can. Otherwise I'm not going to ever get my army painted! :D

 

So, I'm thinking perhaps going with something like the following for a second test mini:

1) Wolf Grey spray - perhaps followed up with a quick preliminary drybrush for some initial highlights

2) Wash armour plates with Russ Grey (is this darker than wolf grey spray? If not, maybe darken it a bit, say 30/70 Fang/Russ)

3) Agrax earthshade focusing 90% on the joints (not slathered all over the mini) - I'm not sure why but Agrax earthshade seems to look a bit more natural than Nuln oil.

4) repaint armour plates with 1-2 thin coats of main armour colour (am considering Wolf Grey by Vallejo)

5) some line highlights, nothing fancy.

 

Any ideas? I'm sorta bummed at the moment. I have about 25 guys sitting there all basecoated with the Fang, but I just don't think the Fang works like it is suposed to!

[Captain Hwarang]

In my opinion, he is not too dark. But if you think he is and want to do something about it, I think your idea about using Fenris grey as the main color will work well to achieve that affect. I've never really been a fan of the "studio" wolves palette to be honest, and that's the reason I like how this one is slightly darker.

 

I just bought a variety of yellows, blues, and reds from Vallejo Model color range (which is not the same as game color; I think they just have different names.) The best thing about them so far is the eye-dropper-like applicator bottle. This helps you not waste paint, and also eases mixing because you don't have to keep washing your brush. However, I messed mine up by adding to much Vallejo drying retarder and water, and the coverage is therefore not too good at the moment. I'll try again and give you some better feedback.

 

I also used army painter crystal blue primer spray, on my praetors of orpheus and was honestly not very happy about anything except for the color. It fuzzed up on me regularly. It could have been user error, but I shook it a lot, and used within the suggested temperature and humidity range. The same color from the bottle, however, was awesome.

 

I wish I could give some more advice, but I am unfamiliar with the new colors, and probably will not even give them a try once I get my Vallejo problems sorted out. If you decide to go the vallejo route, check out this conversion chart.

 

Also, don't be bummed: you've got a great looking model here. Like I said before, in my opinion, it's not too dark. Happy painting.

 

-CH

[skeletoro]

Hey, thanks for the suggestions!

 

I decided to buy an airbrush to save myself some time. I've got a bit of a learning curve ahead of me but I'm contemplating using some or all of the following techniques:

 

Zenithal highlighting

Preshading

Washes

Juicing (maybe, not sure it'll be necessary)

 

I'm thinking something along the following lines:

 

1. Prime black.

2. Zenithal highlight with grey and then white through the airbrush as a preshade.

3. Dark (black or maybe brown, blue or purple) wash in any upper surface crevices that could use some more definition (e.g. between armour plates)

4. base coat (not sure on exact colour, I'll experiment with mixes of wolf and either sombre or ghost grey) with airbrush, so that preshading is just visible enough.

5. Potentially pick a lighter shade too and juice it up a little bit. But I can probably not and save some time :P

 

I'm thinking that should be very quick and deliver good results, and will try it out as soon as I my airbrush space is all set up! In the meanwhile... are steps 3 and 5 good ideas or bad ideas?

 

Another question - I have 20 marines already undercoated and base coated! Citadel black primer, a couple of thin coats of the Fang (just enough coats to fully obscure the black primer underneath), followed by some nuln oil all over. They're fairly dark anyway, so I'm wondering what everyone thinks about just skipping straight to step 2 of the above, rather than pulling out the Dettol and stripping them down. I'm just worried that that extra coat will result in obscured detail down the line. Some of them have green stuff which I'd have to remove and redo if I stripped them. Ugh, not worth it, I don't think!

[skeletoro]

I thought I'd share a pic of one of my basecoated grey hunter packs, mostly without their backpacks which I'll be adding later. As you can see, The Fang + Nuln Oil has left them pretty dark, so I feel somewhat confident I could just skip to step 2 of the process outlined above. What do you think? In any event, I'm going to put these guys aside and do a test mini first though :P

 

From left to right, this is what you're looking at:

Wolf guard pack leader in TDA /w combi plasma and wolf claw, both magnetized.

Two grey hunters with plasma guns, both plasma guns magnetized.

Power axe and bolter guy - axe is magnetized.

Wolf Standard.

5 regular grey hunters - two of them have a single magnetized arm.

 

This is the loadout I'm planning on using for the squad but I think I've magnetized enough arms to make them as customizable as they'll ever need to be (my friend is considering collecting an eldar army so that may change things a little.)

 

 

Ooops, I left one guy out. There's an additional model with mark of the wulfen - I'll share him a bit later!