Skeletoro's Great Company motivational thread

[skeletoro]

Hey guys,

So.. I started collecting space wolves about a year ago now. But, brothers: I have a problem. Perfectionism!

I have yet to actually finish painting a single model. I've basecoated a grey hunters pack (and then stripped and base coated it again, and then stripped it again!) but I keep deciding to change or add something. And I haven't yet fell in love with a particular colour scheme - I've flitted back and forth between several!

Anyway, I'm hoping that soon I'll be ready to start painting my first grey hunters unit in earnest. I plan to document my progress here.

Bear with me, as it may be somewhat slow-going...

___

So I've decided that the first batch of minis I'll paint will be 5 grey hunters, a PA- WGPL, and a Rune Priest in power armour. Following that, I'll paint up a razorback/rhino for the pack. Then I'll fill out the pack, along with a TDA-WGPL, another character, and a drop pod. Rinse and repeat for a second squad, then it will be on to Long Fang unit number one.

Here's my very WIP pics for the first 7 models. Note that many of the bits haven't been fully cleaned, and most of the models are currently merely blu-tacked together. It has taken me quite a while to settle more or less on the armament of the unit, etc.

I'm planning on building/painting space wolves from Bran Redmaw's great company, and there are a few stylistic decisions I've set for myself:

1) Every grey hunter needs a bolter, bolt pistol, and close combat weapon on them. To this end, I've bought a bunch of bolt pistol holsters from forge world, along with various close combat bits from bits stores. Not all grey hunters will have chain-weapons, but I do intend to have at least one unit with scabbarded chain weapons (axes as well as swords). I've played around with some plasticard but haven't yet nailed it, so have deferred modelling that pack till later. Pack 1 is just going to have a mix of swords, knives and axes for their CCW.

2) I'm going to go FW-heavy. I like the FW stuff and it's only slightly more expensive than wolf packs (NZ$90 vs NZ$73 for 10 models). I'm planning on using a mix of armour marks. Mostly 4, 6 and 7, but perhaps with a very light sprinkling of 3, 5 and 8 too. I plan on having more beakies than any other armour mark, to represent Bran Redmaw's focus on maneuverability and stealth.

3) Two of my future grey hunters packs will be modeled to look more stealthy. I'll be mixing some legion recon models into both packs and will give them a more sniper-ish look. These two packs will be my outflankers.

4) Each pack will have a consistent context/story behind the way I model it. The first pack I'm doing will be laying down suppressing fire with their bolters, while the second pack is going to be charging headlong into battle, chain-weapons drawn/hacking.

5) Magnets.

Anyway, looking at these pics I do have quite a bit of stuff to finalize before I put paint on them, but I'm getting there, and felt that comments BEFORE I start painting might potentially be more helpful (hey, maybe I won't find myself pulling out the dettol to strip my grey hunters a third time? )

EDIT: OK, finally figured out a decent way to get the images up here. Here goes.

First up, my first HQ. Nothing inspirational here... just thought I'd put him up for posterity He has an oldskool wolf-head backpack (of which I have a few sitting around) Oh, and ignore the bases... I'd redoing them with bark (didn't really like the results I got with cork )

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v333/skeletoro/DSCF6648.jpg

Here's my first wolf guard pack leader. His shoulder pad is from Kromlech and he wears mk vi. The bionics are from an old iron hands box set. The chainsword will be swapped with a power sword, and he'll be magnetized to also have wolf claw, power axe, and combi-melta options. More on my magnetizing below.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v333/skeletoro/DSCF6649.jpg

This is my first wolf standard battle brother. He is mostly FW mk iv, with some maxmini dangly bits and some GW plastic. The shoulder guard will be used for all my wolf standard models, because I plan to give them different objects as standard placeholders. My outflanking units won't have big garish standards. Instead, they'll be blowing horns. But all the wolf standard models will have those guards in common to make them easily identifiable.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v333/skeletoro/DSCF6650.jpg

This is the closest to finish model. Unlike all the other models, he doesn't have any blue tack on him (well, except under his feet) I'm pretty proud of the magnet system, which I spent quite a while developing as I wasn't at all happy with the standard method (I found that even with quite large N42 magnets, arms tended to droop down over time if they were fully extended). With this method, I can reuse a shoulder pad across all weapon options (which is good if I'm using 3rd party pads, like on the wolf guard, which I don't want to have to double or triple up on), and the arm doesn't move around very much because it slots into the cavity created by the shoulder pad like a peg. I tried to make the model look like he has hoisted his axe over his shoulder while he fires his bolter with his packmates.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v333/skeletoro/DSCF6651.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v333/skeletoro/DSCF6652.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v333/skeletoro/DSCF6653.jpg

This guy is my first MOTW dude, and he's chafing to get into melee. Hence, he is grudgingly firing his bolter, with his sword half drawn. Not much glue yet, and a fair bit of work to go on this guy with the sword. But hopefully you can get the idea of what I'm aiming at. I'm thinking I'll make the visible part of the blade quite jagged/cruel looking to emphasize the feral side of his nature.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v333/skeletoro/DSCF6654.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v333/skeletoro/DSCF6655.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v333/skeletoro/DSCF6656.jpg

This guy's in modified corvus armour. I figure that it's an older suit and has therefore seen more battlefield repairs. The chest plate (which I have to tidy a whole lot) is supposed to have started as a "three cable" corvus chest, but due to battle damage has been retrofitted with some reinforcing plates. The right greave/knee has been replaced by mk 7. From the back you can see he is fairly busy. I'm hoping that in general my grey hunters won't be much more cluttered than this.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v333/skeletoro/DSCF6657.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v333/skeletoro/DSCF6658.jpg

This last model will by my special weapons guy. Not much to say here. Eventually the blue tack will be replaced by glue and magnets :)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v333/skeletoro/DSCF6659.jpg

Lastly, here's a couple of experiments I've done with my colour scheme. I'll be painting with an airbrush, and have already started a few test minis (but my airbrush time is limited due to a sleeping toddler and a noisy compressor). I hope to get them posted up soon. For now, the images below will have to suffice. Basically, I want to compromise between the "pre-heresy" scheme and the very-blue GW scheme. That is to say, I want my greys to contain SOME blue whilst still remaining grey. The middle column in the second image below contains a blend of the colours to either side (so the top one is a mix of GW The Fang and Vallejo Model Air Base Grey. Unfortunately the colours in the image are a little off - that page I've painted on? It's actually white! But I'm currently leaning towards a dark-ish colour scheme something along the lines of that middle column (possible using a slightly darker grey palette than in the image... mixing the fang with Dark Bluegrey, Russ with Base Grey, Fenrisian with Light Grey).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v333/skeletoro/DSCF6660.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v333/skeletoro/DSCF6661.jpg

[irwit]

I have the same problem! I am on my second round of Wolves now and am much happier with the look. Personally What I have found to really help keep things moving is having models based and ready to paint. I was spending far too long modeling, posing, greenstuff etc and with nothing to paint it left me with hobby time but not actually producing any models. So I just drew a line, bought a pack of 10 GHs and glued them, sprayed them and started painting one at a time. Really enjoyed this and during painting these I started modeling my Lone wolf in TDA ( who is now the WL). This was a true scvale conversion so obviously a lot of time spent but I could easily put him down for a couple of weeks and come back to him. I think the secret is, get tthat model based and painted. Once you have one done, there far ore motivation to get the second done

Edit: Also looking forward to pics :)

[Blacksad]

if you keep jumping between colour scemes, you could use those colourscemes to difirentiate between blood claws, grey hunters, wolf guard and characters?

[MaveriK]

you're not only killing time but your productivity suffers also, everytime you end up stripping your models. There is nothing wrong with testing out a color scheme on a piece/model that you're not going to use. My suggestion is to plan ahead which you've already done and stick with the plan! Take your time... be patient and learn from each piece as you continue. Your progression will grow from there, along with the experience.

 

Get inspired and browse through other people's work and look on the internet and see which colors would work for you. But at the end of the day, how you view your wolves is your own interpretation of the wolves.

 

As for image hosting, B&C has it's own... So I suggest using that.

[skeletoro]

OK I finally managed to get pics up!

 

Thanks a lot for the replies, guys. Yeah, I've definitely learned from my mistakes so far and plan on doing a lot of test/practice minis before putting any more paint on these ones. I want to get the colour scheme just right, and I am a newbie with the airbrush, so I need at least a bit of practice before painting them. Obviously whatever I do my 5th grey hunter pack will look much nicer than my first, but yeah... I've put so much thought into this pack that I want to make sure I don't completely let myself down with my airbrush noobiness.

 

Oh, another thing... not all of the bits have even been trimmed/cleaned at all, yet (the worst offender is probably the maximini pelt on the wolf guard, which has HUGE quantities of excess resin on it that will need to be carefully carved away!

[skeletoro]

@Blacksad, what I was planning on doing to differentiate between troop types was to give them a different mix of armour marks. Something like:

 

Bloodclaws (actually, not sure I'll have any of these but I do intend to have swiftclaws): mark 6 and 7 only. High concentration of mk 6 due to mobility.

Grey hunters: As bloodclaws, but with a bit of mark 4 mixed in (the most celebrated grey hunters are deemed worthy of this honour)

Long fangs: Seasoned warriors, some are given mark 3, 4 or even 8 armour. Mark 6 is less common.

Wolf guard: a mix of all armour types, 2 and up. 4, 6 and 8 most common.

[MaveriK]

They look pretty good! I can't wait until they're painted up. My only thing is... The last pic with the special weapon. For some reason I'm not feeling it. Doesn't look right to me. Maybe it's the posing? But to be honest it's his other arm with the bolt pistol that throws it off. I would suggest keeping the pose but switching out the arm with different bits you have. You'll know it when it's right. The model will just speak to you.

[skeletoro]

Thanks for that. I'll have a play around (the beauty of blu-tack!!) I might try an empty hand... I think I have a few of those sitting around.

 

That said, it's possible it's just a bit fugly because of all that blu-tack/camera angle. I quite like the look of the model at the moment but with the various numerous bits all tacked together it's a bit hard to keep in the right pose!

[MaveriK]

When I pose and work on my wolves, I try to imagine how it would look, if it was real and I'm seeing it in front of me. As in how would you hold one thing, while doing another and looking at a certain direction. It's all about symmetry and fluidity... If the model doesn't speak to you then something isn't right. At the end of the day, it's all up to your own interpretation. Wolves have character and individualism. Good luck wolf brother!

[irwit]

Any chance of doing a GS tutorial videos for you tube? That fur looks awesome! Not just the usual GS with stab marks in it but actual fur!

[skeletoro]

Oh, hehe, I didn't do the fur, it just has a bit of a stain from highly watered down liquid green stuff on it... it's from maximini.eu. But man... needed a LOT of trimming down to fit!

[irwit]

Ah ok,   I was looking at those too  :)  Looks nice!  I'm really trying to get my GS fu to a better level though as that's what my skills are missing at the moment and I think space wolves are a great chapter to learn on as the fur can hide a lot of mistakes.  I had a god at a huge shoulder pelt the other day though and had big issues with getting it to stick.  I hadn't washed the model so maybe there was a lot of grease left on the plastic.  

 

Also going to ask what paint scheme you were going to use?    My first try with SWs was the blue grey route.  The route I have gone now is pure grey although I like both the grey route I think suits more my 35th millenium style army.  

[skeletoro]

I think at this stage I'm leaning towards the colour scheme used in IA11 (where Bran Redmaw's Company is detailed). I think that means blue-grey. Light. Less blue than the GW paints.

 

I think the main armour colour will be a mix of GW Fenrisian and Vallejo air Light grey. I want to pick up some "Blue horror" (citadel edge) for highlights, but it seems really hard to get a hold of. GW's site says "No Longer Available" even though it was only released a few months ago. D'oh!!!

For darker parts of the armour (I'm planning on using my airbrush to do zenithal highlighting) I think I'll go Russ & Vallejo Base Grey, and for the base coat/deepest recesses I may go The Fang/Dark Bluegrey. I was also thinking I'd use an oil wash (black) for a final shade over the model.

 

Not sure if all these steps will be necessary though!

[skeletoro]

Hmm, interesting. I'm playing around with hex codes and the army painter, using IA11 as a reference. It looks like the forgeworld art uses a much greener tint of grey than the GW formulation. Something like... Celestra Grey for the darker parts of the armour, and something similar but lighter for the lighter parts.... Ulthuan grey, perhaps. Dark reaper might be an appropriate shade.

The other thing I'm noticing is the honour markings specific to the Redmaw's company. Some but not all of the wolf guard have black helmets, and some of the marines (not only wolf guard) have red maws painted on their helms.

 

I'm guessing they're just "misc" honour markings without further explanation or meaning behind them... does anybody know of a specific meaning for the black helms?

[irwit]

You'll know it when it's right. The model will just speak to you.

This can also happen if you leave the lid off your super glue for too long ;)

[skeletoro]

OK, so here's some playing around with hex code colours I've done. The aim was to approximately match IA11's scheme, which is quite light.

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v333/skeletoro/painttests.png

 

Each column goes from the darkest base coat hue to the lightest highlight hue. I was imagining having the armour panels somewhere between the midpoint and the bottom (so quite light). Both columns go from:

 

Darkest point: Russ-Codex mix (I'll use vallejo grey base rather than codex, but it's not far off)

Mid point: Fenrisian-Fortress mix (vallejo light grey)

Lightest point: Ulthuan Grey

 

Ulthuan grey is more of a very light turquoise grey, rather than blue grey.

 

The two columns differ in that the left column has more codex/fortress mixed in.

 

Which do you like the look of, more? Of course, these hex codes are only an approximation and I'll have to test it using the actual paints... looking at my pot of ulthuan grey it looks a lot less blue and a lot lighter than the above.

 

Lastly, just to get an idea, my technique will be:

 

1) Base coat darkest shade (russ+base grey)

2) zenithal highlight with airbrush, 45 degrees, mid shade (fenrisian+light grey), covering all but the darkest shadows

3) zenithal highlight with airbrush, from straight above (ulthuan), to give highlight to upper parts of model

4) line highlight with ulthuan

5) toward the end of the painting process, gloss varnish and use black oil wash (turpentine and cotton buds to remove excess wash from all exposed plates and only leave blacks in deepest recesses)

6) seal with matt varnish

 

There'll be weathering in there too, ideally, but that's the basic process I'm going to aim for.

[irwit]

I'd get a burnt umber to mix with the black for shading. Will do a lot of your weathering on its own too. And if you do t like it. It washes off so easy. I love oil paints!

[skeletoro]

yeah, I was wondering whether plain black will be a tad stark. I'll see how it goes on the test minis and then reconsider.

[Rift Blade]

Like a lot of the poses. keep it up & hoping to see some with paint. Thanks for sharing.

[mactire]

Hey Skeletoro nice work so far just a question, how do you find the kromlech bits quality wise ?

[skeletoro]

Hey, thanks mac!

 

So far they've been pretty good. Quality-wise, I wouldn't really have any hesitation mixing them with GW/FW stuff. Perhaps slightly rougher than maximini, in terms of the casting and need to trim crap off of them. But... still very good.

 

In terms of the quality of the sculpts... plenty good enough. Personally I'd rate the fur textures on the maximini stuff I have slightly higher, but kromlech is good too.

 

In terms of design, one of the shoulder pad variants is a bit weird. It looks like it has been... carpeted? And that same shoulder pad has a wolf tail talisman hanging from it, but it's much more narrow than the GW ones and doesn't really match the aesthetic all that well. So I'm only going to use the other pads that came in that set (which all look good).

[mactire]

Thanks Skeletoro think i might get the backpacks and shoulder pads they look the part was just worried about the size comparison.

[skeletoro]

OK so this guy is almost done but I have a bit of an issue...

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v333/skeletoro/DSCF6694.jpg

 

I'm trying to model this whole squad to have a relatively consistent wind effect - that is, I want cloth/wolf tails, etc to be blowing in the same direction, more or less. (back and to their left).

 

So the wolf tail on the power axe has been put at quite a severe angle. I might tone it back a little, but I want it to be blowing in the wind somewhat.

 

Problem is, I just KNOW that this isn't going to last very long. It'll break. How can I toughen it up?

 

Similarly, I want to put straps on all the bolters. I know marines can mag-lock, but it just looks... weird, in my view. I had intended to craft bolter holsters for all models, but in the interests of saving time, sanity and waist real estate I've decided a strap is good enough. But... how to securely fasten the strap to the bolter?

 

Currently all I've done is laminate 2 0.25mm strips of plasticard together into a curved piece, and intend to attach it somewhere on the gun. Bottom of the handle and just under the barrel? Unfortunately, the joints will be tiny. My smallest drill bit is 1mm, so it's hard to pin. What can I do to make it tough enough for tabletop use?

 

I've considered making two "rings" out of very thin brass wire (I have some sitting around which is well under 0.5mm, can't remember exactly, might be 0.3) by winding it around a 1mm rod and then twisting, giving me a kind of anchor. I could completely reconstruct the connection between the wolftail and the axe this way (by joining two rings) and could probably do something similar to connect the strap (maybe anchor a ring into each connection point on the bolter, and thread it through a small hole at each end of the strap. I'd make sure the links were very snug and toughened up with super glue.

 

Sounds complicated, but I can't think of anything simpler that will achieve any level of toughness, and regular pinning just doesn't seem to be an option.

 

Frankly, I just don't know how people keep their wolftails in place? 

[Rift Blade]

Really like the pose Skeletoro. Keep it up. sorry I don't have any advice on your problems, have the same issues myself. Will be watching this thread with lots of interest.

[irwit]

Best you can do it drill into the link part on both sides and pin it.  You can get a pack of every micro drill bit size for a few quid off amazon.  Similar sized brass rod.   Then you sculpt over the visable parts.   Personally though I avoid those stick on wolf pelts as like you have said,  they just are not worth the hassle!