Once again I have tried my hand at painting Space Wolves. And it seams that what ever I do they turn blue. I have been painting Space Wolves since before there were any chapter specific models. My first versions were really dark blue, dry brushed up  to something reminiscent of a blue gray using the "The Fang" and "Fernrisian Grey" or what ever they were named in the 90ths. Not surprisingly they turned up blue. Then later on I tried to paint a darker scheme, using black ink instead of the blue and adding in some "Dawn Stone" and "Administratum Grey", but still ended up with a blue grey color. So when I bought the prospero box I decided that I would paint the charters up as what they are instead of doing some home brewed paint scheme. The models are far to nice to do that. So this time I decided to skip out on the blue gray "Space Wolves" colors and just stick to, Dawn stone, Administratum, white scar and nuln oil. These are pure grays, in a black and white grey scale, so they should yield a slate grey pre heresy color. And it still looks blue grey. Butting the different models next to each other reveal almost no difference...  so what ever I try I end up with blue grey Space Wolves.

Armies of Agis

Today I decided that it was once again time to "base" the models I have painted so far. As you might have realised so far I am not a great fan of bases, they are a necessary evil to keep the models standing but nothing to spend to much time on. I do think the models look better with a finished base, but in my opinion, it should be as neutral as possible but still go with the flow of the army. That being said, I am no big fan of scenic bases where the base in it self is more intricate than the model, and the notion, of the model constantly dragging a ruined building around with it just do not make sense to me. So in the spirit of simplicity I decided to cover the basic black bases with some gravel just to hide the plastic but not to steal attention from the model. I realised that I probably had not done this in the last 3-4 years so there were quite a lot of models that needed this treatment, and I still have some flying bases left to do... . Once I had removed al the models that needed gravel around their feet, from the cabinets I realised that there where not that many models left on the shelves. So I decided to pull the rest of the models out and make a group shot of each army I am currently painting models for. I do have a Dark Angels, Space Wolves and Astra Militarum (Imperial guard) army also, but these are mostly leftovers from my gaming days and are armies I do not actively paint models for.
Instead I realised I had some new "armies" that I actually have not played at al or at least to a very limited extent and hence their unbound character, or complete disregard for FOC or other rules regulating composition and weapon combinations (It is al down to dynamic posing and cool individual models).
What I have is a Mechanicum force to go with my Knights and Titans (not in the shot). This "army" consists of two units of Scitarii, a combat robot (probably similar to a catellax) and some misc Mechanicum personel. These where conceived and built from other GW kits before Forge World released any Mechanicum troops. There are also a Myrmidon combat walker (the name Myrmidon is now used for some other Mechanicum troops, but they have always been myrmidons to me). There is also a two legged walker, very similar to some sort of dino raptor. This is a model I built just as a test. The idea was to build two more but I have abandoned that as I do not think it follows the aesthetics of the rest of the army. I think my next large investment into the hobby will be some proper Mechanicum troops from Forge World, I will just see when the funds become available and how much of what I already have is still unpainted at the time.
Then we have the Fallen/Pre Heresy Dark angels. These are basically the Dark vengeance box painted as all black canopy Dark Angels. I also attached a hell drake and a Forge/Mauler/Fiend that really did not have a solid attachment but looked good with the rest of the models, and they do share a shelf in the cabinet. This is an army that I am staring to like more and more, so there will defiantly be some more additions. I do have some more assault marines with jump packs to bring them up to a full 10 man squad. There is also another terminator with lightning claws that will eventually be brought up to a full 5 man unit. I think they also need some more tactical marines, as the ones from the Dark Vengeance box look a little bit to static. Then of course I would like some vehicles etc but we will have to see what happens. Fw might also release some nice 30k stuff for the Dark Angels.
Then there is also a Khorne force, consisting of a Lord of Skulls, a defiler and some berserker. I have recently added some demonic support in the from of Blood crushers and some Blood Letters. This army will get the rest of the Blood letters painted to fill the 10 man squad. Then I would like to make some Berserkers on blood crushers even though I do not believe that such troops are available in game any more (if they ever where). Then I will make a Daemon Prince on a hell drake and perhaps the Hell Lord also joins them in the future. This "army" will probably never be a self consistent army in its own right but it is fun to paint when I need another colour scheme or I wish to build some kit bash monster.
The Space Wolves are in principle part of my old Space Wolves army, but since their colour scheme is quite different I present them as a separate entry. I would not even say that they are an army that I am actively painting models for but since they represent both Wolf Guards in power and Terminator armour, some Grey hunters and Blood Claws and two ICs they are at least the embryo of something.

Last but not least we have the Desert Eagles, who are sort of the trash-bin of my painting, if I want to paint a model and I have no real army for it, or if I feel like building something that is not according to rules or I just want to relax with a very basic painting scheme the chance is that it will be a Desert Eagle. There are tonnes of stuff I would like to paint for this army and like their back story, there is no telling what they will find next in the large underground stash that they where set to guard.

Well, these are the main "armies" I am painting models for at the moment but there are other contributions as well that does not necessarily end up as Desert Eagles, such as the Grey Knights and some other models not portrayed here. My main interest are building, converting and painting... and sometimes dreaming about playing, so chances are that if some new cool mini (imperial or imperial derived) shows up it might get painted any way.

Space Wolves, again

Once again I feel the pull of the Space Wolves. It was the first army I painted some 20 years ago and I have always liked them due to their individuality and opportunities for making interesting models. Now with the release of the Space Wolves Codex I once again feel an urge to paint some Wolves. A few years ago I bought some Grey hunters/blood claws/ Wolf guards and some Wolfe Guard Terminators.

For some reason I did paint al but one Terminator all those years ago. I tried to go for a darker and more grim look  than your standard blue grey, but I was not really happy with them. I think I made them to dark and it is hard to see the details of the model. So I thought that I would have a go and test a new lighter scheme with the last remaining Terminator. I started with Fenrisian Grey as a base instead of The Fang, and it looked promising. During the dry brush stage I brought the colour almost up to white and I almost worried that they would look more white then Blue grey. But as I started to paint in al the details the model mysteriously turned darker and darker. In the end it ended up almost the same colour that I had before... ? I am still not happy with the recipe, I think that there is not enough contrast between the raised areas and the recesses. So I am still not sure that I would like to invest the time, money and effort of starting a new Space Wolves army until I have a killer colour scheme going. Might have to get me some more basic troop and practise on though.
Well, we will see. There are so many models I would like to paint and starting a new army is probably not the best idea.

Space Wolves

During the last week(s?) i have painted some more Space Wolves. I am starting to get a feeling for the color scheme. I kind of like the dark color that they turned out to have. In the beginning I thought that they might be to dark and that they looked kind of lat in the color. Some more high lights might have been good. Then I started to look at the painting process. After I have painted the base blue in its two stages of dry brushing they are very detailed with a loot of highlights, but as I start to ad the other colors I lose the contrast of the base armor as it is so dark compared to the yellow and bone. So it is a trick of the eye rather than a real lack of highlight. And, if you look closely at the model you still see the highlights. Strange, but that is how it is. And as I accumulate more and more of them they look better and better, strange. In a group they look much better, the highlights pop out and so on. I also tried to use some transfers to get the Company logo on, but I could not get them flat on the shoulder pads and the borders got wrinkled so I took them of again. This probably means that I will have to free hand the symbol...   which might be for the better since I have gone for a very heavily chipped shoulder paint. Well I will paint up the last of the models I have and we will see where it goes form there.
I am also on the verge of buying the thing I need for the next mechanicum project, so this will also take up a large part of my time.
So here are the latest of the Space Wolves, Wolf Guard, Grey Hunter and a Blood Claw.

Random minis

I have found that I have somewhat of a difficulty to maintain a strict focus on the blog now that I do not have a project running. It was much easier to remember to update the blog with the progress of the week. It was also a way for me to document the progress. Now however I only paint random miniatures without any greater context, not that I don't enjoy it the painting, but documenting painting a single marine and then posting about it becomes some what lame. During the last weeks I have painted some more Desert Eagles, Space Wolves and Scitarii as well as finishing up the Desert Eagles command rhino. But since I am not painting an army it is still random minis. So what I need is a new large project to keep me occupied for some mounts so that I can post about it. I have an idea about building two more knights to join my mechanicum force. I have also seen some Myrmidons based on the Defiler kit so I am tempted to build three of these. I have made a list of parts that are needed and it looks promising. I need 5 Defilers, 2 Sentinels, 1 Phirana, 2 Imperial strong points and 4 hammer head weapons sprues. The cost is about a war hound so It better last at lest 4 mounts. I only have to come up with the funds for this, and order the bits...

Space Wolves prt2 update

Just a quick update. I just finished a Blood Claw with a jump pack. Originally I used the old GW jumpacks for my blood claws, the ones that looked like they had two fans on the back. I like this look better than the current jump pack with the forward looking intakes. Well I did not have any of the old ones left (but I think FW is doing some no) so I found some jump packs from an independent company (maxmini) at the local hobby store. They are about twice the size of the original and look somewhat over dimnensioned. They are also mounted at an angel compared to the back plate putting them quite high and pointing backwards giving the model a strange balance. So I think I either will have to get some FW jumppacks if I am to do more of this or I will have to re-position the fans on the ones I got or even split them so that each marine only has one fan mounted centered on the back. Other wise I am a bit at a loss about how to get the red and yellow blodclaw pattern to look ok. They tend to be very bright and do not go well together with the dark color scheme of my Space Wolves. Well this is just some trials so I still can make changes to the look. This is it for now.

Space Wolves prt2

After last weeks attempt to paint a Space Wolf I just had to find out if the color scheme and painting technique was good enough to work on "standard miniatures". So I bought a Space Wolf pack and some Wolf Guard terminators. At this point I will just assemble them on an individual basis (disregarding the rules and any unit sizes) and paint them up as either, grey hunters, wolf guard, blood claws or any other space wolf I can think of. I am not building a new army, yet, I am just trying out the colors.

That being said, the models are very well suited for the painting style. There are lots of fine details making drybrushing a simple method of picking them out. And it also means that I don't have to use a blade on them to get some more contrast. The models shown are still work in progress but I thought that I would show them and hopefully get some feed back (not on their legality) but on the color scheme and painting.

Space Wolves

Once again I have been away for the week on work but I managed to get some solid painting time in this week end. This time I am focusing on the Space Wolves. They where my first wh40k army. And as I have said before my painting methods have evolved somewhat sine then. I have always had a lite bit of a problem with the blue withe gray color. In my first attempts I base painted them in shadow gray, then a coat of blue ink. Then some heavy drybrusing, which, sadly enough left a lot of dark blue showing. Well, it was my first attempt to paint an army. The problem is that the whole army is painted this way.

At some point in the past I decided to try another darker scheme. So I took two of the old models and and repained them (seen on the right in the pair pictures of the blood claw and the wolf guard). This time I used a washed out black ink insted of the blue. After some drybrushing and wet blending I got a better, darker color. However, I did keep the original palette of the space wolves as presented in the 90ths codex. Even if the models got a cleaner look they where not that different and still felt a little bit like happy vikings. Then a time back I saw Astorath the grim, I loved the model but could not bring my self to paint a Blood Angel, I am more of a Dark Angel guy (but in rality I am mostly afraid of starting a new army). Well, after reading Dan Abnetts "Prospero Burns" from the Horus Heresy series I got inspired. So I got a finecast version of Astrorath and started to slap on some green stuff to get him in to his wolf state. I then pained him in a dark grey using Shadow grey, badab black, codex grey, fortress grey and space wolves grey. I then pained the ribbed parts in a dark brown to resemble the plated leather mentioned in the novel. I also keep the color palette to the black, brown, yellow and earthy tones. This gave him a much darker look as befits the emperors executioner. I am quite happy with him and I am a bit curious about what a whole squad would look like, so I might have to paint up some more space wolves to see how it turns out, and they have just released some nice new models, so I will have think about this. The last picture is of an old space wolf and a possessed space wolf from my chaos army based on the old palette.