Space Wolf Commission V: Grey Hunter

With a delay, because I've been helping the Sentry close up, here's some more Space Wolves!

The Grey Hunters are supposed to be the slightly more veteran Space Wolves, no longer prone to rushing at the enemy headlong. For the most part with them, I decided to leave them with helmets on, meaning that any personality and character had to come through in the body. Some got converted poses, others got specific weaponry. Their pack symbol, in red and black, is something like a mountain range, or the lower teeth of a beast. I (foolishly) went with yellow guns on these, and it is doing this that made me desperate to not do it again...

The first four: One wielding both pistol and bolter, while striding forward, another similarly striding, and brandishing a blade. Third is a guy who's bare-headed, because I had to use that beard somehow. His blade is, to my mind, an iconic Space Wolf thing, used really only by them (among the faithful). The final is one of my first, incredibly simple conversions; having a guy with foot on rubble whilst aiming. Slight cut and reposition of his gun hand, and then a slight cut and reposition of his left leg.

I took the opportunity on the Grey Wolves to make their armour as ornate as possible, using the fanciest pieces I could find. The guy on the far Right you can see has a painted helmet-channel, bordered in gold, many have bright gold armour details, bearded-wolf has a pair of ceremonial daggers, etc.

Here, another, stoically with feet planted, alternating shots with pistol and bolter. In the middle is the pack leader, with his ornate blade, plasma pistol (in matching colour!) and wolf helmet. Finally, a wolf with his backpack equipped with some kind of scanning gear, and his bolter slung over his shoulder. I used modelling wire looped around itself for the bolter sling.

With all these, since they are armed with bolter and bolt pistol, I took every opportunity to make it look like they are wielding just them. Also, to contrast the Blood Claws, these guys aren't running, loping, or in any way displaying rash motion, except the leader with his blade. This was to really make it look like they're settling down, unlike their rasher, younger brethren.

Next time, the Blood Claws themselves will make an appearance. I'll try to not make it 9 days to the next one...

Space Wolf Commission IV: Lords

I was lucky enough to have a bitzed model of Logan Grimnar sitting in my bitz box which I decided to use as a test model early on in this project. This would be my way of figuring out the colours, doing a fun conversion, and getting used to such a different force from what I've done before.

Astute players will notice his axe is very different from what he typically wields. This is because I couldn't find the axe head, and went ahead with a conversion (made from pieces of Ork axes) knowing for certain I'd find them when I was finished. (Sure enough, maybe a month after he was painted and in the display case, I found the bloody pieces...)

I was lucky enough to get to work with the new cast of Njal Stormcaller. This model is well sculpted, and while it does suffer from the static pose syndrome, it feels appropriate for such a powerful psyker/wizard.

I went for non-glowing runes because with the armour so pale, it wouldn't seem glowing so much as badly highlighted. Otherwise, wolf pelt as accurate as I could make fur, as with his red hair. Delicately gave him fangs, and did attempt to make his eyes look like they were glowing. The staff is somewhat plainly painted, but he had so little metal elsewhere I wanted to do some to balance.

Here you can see the wolf pelt. Nothing does fur quite like drybrushing; it highlights the fur well, and makes the surface seem nice and furry as well. (By contrast, straight painting tends to make things look very smooth.) His raven was painted with a gloss black, and lightly drybrushed with grey, so the feathers seem very sheen.

The Space Wolves love their lords, and I figured between Canis, Njal, and Logan we were well placed. I would eventually have done a customized hero/lord to look like the store owner's son, who at the time had long-ish hair and a thick beard (Very Space Wolf-y), and perhaps one of him. I guess I may still, since I do still have the leftover bitz in my bin!

Space Wolf Commission III: Dreadnaught

Today I'll discuss one of the early creations I made for the force. I was determined to do a conversion on the Dreadnaught, and since the store had an early-make Space Wolf Dreadnaught (all in metal) that was unlikely to sell with the plastics being about the same price but far lighter and with tons more options, I offered to take the relic and work my magic.

A Space Wolf is already a little bit fly-away and prone to rushing forward, and I figure being locked in a tomb unable to enjoy the battle would make them even more grumpy/cantankerous/wild.

Mine, as a result, is wielding a large axe, which he is actively smashing into the ground, having either just missed his target, or equally likely, attempting to intimidate/vent frustration.

Lots of conversion work on this one, starting with my mantra for myself when starting any model, which is "What is the personality?" Whether it's a commander character, one of two dozen generic guardsmen, a technically mindless automaton Warjack, or this dreadnaught, the more I think of it as a real thing, the more likely I'll be able to convey that.

With tanks, (once I finish my PzIV I'll go into that one) and Dreadnaughts like this, you can't use expressions. I'm actually kind of blessed in that my Dread can be posed. To that end: Assault Cannon is slightly pushed to the Right, as though he's counter-balancing the axe coming down; either a hold-over affectation from when he lived, or a necessary move to balance. Next, the hand was converted to hold an axe, as opposed to just having the axe jut from where the fist is. He is appropriately covered in battle honours and banners, (Painted differently to represent either different campaigns or different lords he's fought with.) His legs are painted with 'pack' and 'great company' markings, even though technically his pack now is but one.

Here you can see the relic blade, made from two of the plastic banner tops from the box set, plasticard blade curves, and epoxy putty to fill in the rest and allow me to add runes. The fingers are from plasticard sheet, cut and glued in place, while all the banner tops have been drilled and pinned to ensure they don't break off. Some leftover scrap plasticard became the pieces of slate that is smashed in two by the force of the axe. He also bears the great company marking on his forearm, so that from any angle you know whom he serves.

From the back, another small company marking, as well as the guts and gears. I wanted to keep the metal clean and shiny, because even though the wolves are very superstitious, I know with their reverence towards their epics and legends, a dreadnaught (a living legend) would be well taken care of. Also something you can barely see: The ammo crate is painted in a bright turquoise. Something I decided early on (after attempting to make yellow guns on one pack) was that each pack would have different gun colours. This would help new players easily identify who belonged with whom. As a result, even single models like this dread got his own weapon colours. It also chromatically helps to balance out the large amount of turq. on the axe head.

Right, that's part 3! Next time some special figs.

Space Wolf Commission II: Wolf Cavalry

With the Sentry closing, and the commissioned Space Wolf force likely to go into hibernation, I figured I'd take a bunch of photos before it does, to document my creations and have some memory of it. I'll split the posts up, since they're pic-heavy.

First up, one of the more weird units the Space Wolves can field: Space Wolf cavalry.

We decided to focus the force on Canis Wolfborn, (who you can see in red) and so it was natural that we'd have wolf riders to go with them! I decided to go for a very bright, very classical look for the Space Wolves, as opposed to a darker, muddier look, in part because I like to torture myself it seems, and in part because they've always felt like the kind of force that needs to be done a bit over-the-top.

I sought to make them look as active as possible, and the wolves that are leaping/bounding are doing so over large boulders. The grass (to keep the theme of 'sample force' for the store) was from GW's grass tufts, and I have to say, I'm not entirely a fan. The base of them is a thick-ish piece of plastic, which means putting them down over sand can leave distinctive gaps.

 Here is the first of the wolves, the nominal leader. I am not necessarily a fan of NMM (Non-Metallic Metal) but I do like using metallic paint and highlighting as though it was. This way you still get the epic light-to-dark of NMM, but it still shines in the light!

The shoulderpad you can see is Canis Wolfborn's, and I didn't want to bother finding transfers, so they're done by hand.

With the space wolves especially, there's so much fur (or hair) and skin on most of them, that I really went to town experimenting with different ways to do it. Most of the wolves in this force got their initial light-to-dark by airbrush, later drybrushed to pick highlights.

The wolf itself is pinned right through the bark and into the base, so it shouldn't move. The pack shoulderpad for these guys was three diagonal slashes, to imitate the look of claws ripping across.

And now, for Canis himself. He is not plastic like the rest, and so I was much more careful pinning him in place and assembling him.

His flanks, and the armour of his wolf, received a lot of attention. (None of those are transfers, if I recall. I'd have to look again about the one on the Wolf's front armour plate, because I know that is the same design as one, and I can't recall if I just copied it or used it...)

His right-side, showing more custom details, like the pattern on his cape, and the honour markings on his legs. As I painted each squad, I fluctuated between methods of highlighting the armour. Here you can see a limited-blending technique as I learned how best to apply Space Wolf Grey, with the cape being a more standard blending.

More soon! I've got a lot of projects half-finished at the moment, so nothing too epic photo-wise of new stuff. I will soon remember to take out my Canadian Infantry and photograph 'em, I swear.. >.>

Kerrigan's Blades

So, somehow I failed to notice I hadn't actually written a Kerrigan post before. To rectify it, here's how I crafted the rest of her! She's about 50% painted so far, and once I'm done focusing on my Prussian fleet I'll finish her.

First, as always, I collected bitz that might be appropriate for the build. She's actually quite a long running idea in my head, and I've had pieces of her in some form or other for over a year now. I was always halted by trying to figure out how I'd do the back blades without them being an eternal nuisance, and on the head. The latter I solved by hacking the head off a Mordheim model that will likely never see the table, and when she does, it'd be in a setting where her having a creepy mask would be more appropriate than a bare head.

Second I did my image collection. When starting any project, I highly recommend scouring the internet for any photographs or illustrations you can find, to give you ideas, and in the case of historical models, to ensure what you want to do 'actually happened'. In this case, I managed to find a blog detailing the construction of the 1:1 model of Kerrigan made for Blizzcon a while back, which was fantastically useful, as it gave me detail I would never imagine being able to put on 28mm, but could now pick and choose. I'd link it here, but I don't recall specifically which blog, and it's pretty easy to google and find.

Next came most of the body: It was essentially an older-version Dark Eldar warrior, shaved down in all kinds of way (most extensively around the shoulders) to look more natural. The feet are putty, because Kerrigan has distinct 'high-heeled bare feet' that I wanted to emulate. The hips were heavily modified to match the leg crests she has, which also included her sculpted abdominal armour. The torso you can see in the picture above was heavily modified to make them narrower, which makes her shoulders look less man-ish, and gives her as much of the 'graceful curves' (and sharp edges) that make her model design so fascinating.

The arms are heavily modified Eldar biker arms, repositioned at the wrists, cut in at the shoulders, removed of all detail and most of the armour plating, and with extensive (and incredibly careful) finger thinning and separating. Her hands are still overlarge, but I am okay with this both because any more and they'd be too delicate for a play model, and her model design does often have large-ish talon hands.

In the picture above you can see what I eventually decided on for doing her back blades. I figured a couple strands of thin-gauge modelling wire, with liquid greenstuff (LGS) covering it should give me the look I desire, but with an ability to bend that would let me pose them, and resist full-on breaking.

Here you can see where they connected to her hips, just like in the full-size model. I also started to use her base as a dumping ground for putty left over from other projects (like the Panther build) to make up something that would look like "Creep". The wires were next twisted and bent to form the various joints and bony protrusions, and I intentionally made the wires too long so that I would end up with some I could clip to length after I figured their final shape.

Finally, with the LGS applied (and still drying) on this one you can also see the bony crests on her legs, a bit on her arms, and the start of her epic hair. The liquid greenstuff was built up over layers, first to thicken out the primary joints, and then by segment I forced a bead of LGS to dry and harden at each segment, to give the appearance of knuckles. After this each segment was thickened up gradually with more LGS until I got what felt like an appropriate thickness. The nice thing about LGS for this kind of work is that it dries roughly cylindrical on the wire, with perhaps a little bit of a need of sanding, and is pliable enough even when dry that you can fine-tweak the blade shape. It's also fantastic for projects like this where standard greenstuff would be too thick, or require far too much time to finish off properly.

Kerrigan's Hair

So the Panthers are done, and being painted. I am working on a bunch of Canadian stuff, as well as my Dystopian Wars fleet. In the meantime, I have finally finished my Kerrigan model's conversion!

That said, here's the pictures!

As you can see, at first I put on a lump of putty, which was grooved and sectioned. After that I rolled an incredibly thin piece of putty, which I tapered at one end and delicately sliced at lengths. I then carefully stuck them to the first wedge, starting at the bottom and overlaying them as I went.

Moving from bottom to top in this way allowed them to naturally overlap, and I did about 1mm worth per run of putty, letting that dry to ensure I didn't mess it up.

And here is her hair finished! I found out that before they start going really short and spiky, the hair bits are incredibly long, so the last couple were almost twice the length of the first I applied, and carefully teased out to give a wide look.

 

Her hands are very large, as are her forearms. This is an artifact of the arms' origin as the old Dark Eldar's arms. Her hands, at least, are big for good reason, with her talons meant to be an extra join long. I've thinned them as much as I dare, and will try to use paint to hide the issues.

You can see the teased look, as well as a pair of blades/fronds/dreads that hang over her shoulders. I don't think I'll make the final model eyes-closed, even though the head I used has them that way. Her glowing eyes are just too important to what helps make her creepy.

And finally here's the hair finished, from the back. I have teased a few fronds in various directions to make it seem as though they have a bit of life in them.You can also see the back of her hair neatly hides the join of the back blades, which on the 1:1 version had a weird tubular slot, and wouldn't transfer well to model-size.

She has since been sprayed black, and the painting for her will take some time because I will be trying to copy her look in-game as much as possible. I'm excited to finally have another 'nerd model' to add to the collection!

Evolution of a Paintscheme

I have had a Tyranid force lingering around for some time, and 'recently', got my fiancée into Warhammer as well. For the sake of not rolling over her with a force I'm a veteran with, and to motivate me finishing them, I started to research a paintscheme.

I decided rather than going especially fantasy, I would draw inspiration from real exo-skeletal creatures, and picked the Lobster. First, trying to find an image of an un-cooked lobster on Google is interesting. Second, even searching "marine lobster" engaged rule 34!

Finally I found a series of pictures I liked, and painted up a series of test models:

Primer coat black, base-coat light leather brown, highlighted to yellow, then over-washed with dark red and black, done in a splotchy pattern. While this looked fine for the Lictor (a lurking, camouflaging creature) on the rest it just served to limit the amount of detail that was visible, and lacked the contrast I felt it needed. I next painted a Ravenor, and decided to refine the scheme a bit more, making the hard shells still the same method, but stopping at the yellow, for the most part, highlighting the body:

On this one, to enhance the contrast, I also made the rib-seeming sections even brighter yellow, by highlighting with a bone colour, and extended the mottled pattern to the softer, snake like tail. I liked this style enough to then try it on the mother of all monsters in the Tyranid force (at the time), the Carnifex:

On this one I further enhanced the effect by painting gloss black for the plates, doing a pseudo-pointillist technique for the red and black, and trying to further brighten the yellows on the skin. I also dropped the black glazing for this, instead just painting on for the armour plates. The problem was, even here, the base colour was black, meaning it took many layers just to get it up to yellow, and didn't look as good as I figured it could be. I know we're straying from lobster, but then, so are the Tyranids!

Finally, I have refined the scheme with my Hive Tyrant, now about half finished:

The photograph does not quite do justice to the colours on this guy. Primered in white, and using an airbrush to over-layer both the bright yellow, and yellow-mixed-with-brown for shading, as well as for most of the red sections, this beast is bright enough to look like a poison dart frog. The black is entirely gloss black paint, and since it's painted over thin airbrush-based undercoats, it really makes the carapace glisten. To me, the best part of this final solution is it saves enough inspiration from the lobster to seem natural, but has a very heavy "how Nature says do not touch" aspect with the bright yellows and reds. I'll post how it looks on the baby bugs when I get them painted as well!

Commission Done!

I have finally finished the commission for a flgs! The last piece was a Space Wolf Rhino, which, thanks to my airbrush, went quite quickly.

I base-coated in white, airbrushed most of the large panels of colours, and went heavy on the weathering. Any vehicle this pale, spending more than 3 minutes on most battlefields would be all kinds of muddy. It's for a Blood Claws pack, whose symbol is on the Right flank.

I also added a bunch of Space Wolf leftover bits, to really sell the vehicle. Visible here are a combat shield and Leader's backpack icon cut down, the entire upper torso (minus arms) is from various Wolf kits, and on the Left side door is a wolf pelt taken from Logan Grimnar.

The back of the vehicle is of course heavily mudded, as well as the 'ends' of any door panel. Since these would hit the ground, they got a good dusting of mud. I also did a more faded weathering on the top hatches, figuring even with them not hitting the ground, being rubbed by marines that do would also work some grit into them.

The interior is relatively sparse, though less so than a vanilla-marine Rhino, because being blood claws I figure they've not earned the volume or variety of honours a more veteran squad would have. Were I to do a Grey Hunters or Long Fangs rhino, I'd intentionally make the interior look highly customized. Sadly, pictures of the comms array did not work out, but it too received some TLC.

I am working on a variety of projects at the moment, and will hopefully get around to photographing them in the next few days. Tyranids, US Paras, Malifaux troops, and a special version Tyranid Prime are all sat on my desk begging for more paint and work.