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After moving to a new home week ago, and building furniture for a week - I finally had some time for the hobby!

Squad is moving along nicely, just finished applying the yellows.

Advancing slowly. Last 9 days have been awful to be honest... 8 out of 9 been at work. :(

Should I try to aim for more contrast on the blue armors by going one step lighter blue?

Decided to go for it, and paint lighter blue to the armor. Fenrisian Grey 80:20 Ulthuan Grey. Also worked up the bases. Couple of remaining touches, eyes and so on, and the squad is complete.

The lighter blue looks great. Has an old Space Wolf feel to it. I never thought about purple on Space Wolves, but the little you've used works well. Are you drybrushing or smooth line highlighting? Going for a rough look?

 CaptainWaffle wrote:
The lighter blue looks great. Has an old Space Wolf feel to it. I never thought about purple on Space Wolves, but the little you've used works well. Are you drybrushing or smooth line highlighting? Going for a rough look?

Thanks Cpt Waffle I actually use the right shoulder pad color to indicate the unit. Grey Hunters get that purple. Blood Claws will be red and Wolf Guard black. Terminators get yellows. Helps identifying the troop for the opponents as well. But I really enjoy the purple myself as well, compliments the armor and the yellow.

I am definately leaving them rough. I am trying to highlight through the means of gradients on the armor, and then offer some edge highlights. The furs always get the drybrush. Kind of trying to learn and evolve the style of Contrast Miniatures, I really like the sketching way of painting. For example purples are only two thin glazes over the black&white basecoat.

I try to be good boy and take pictures today of the finished squad.

And here is the squad finished but during taking pictures noticed one mistake I need to fix. I feel they came out pretty good, I am happy with them. Last picture is my next project for the army - not Thunderwolves but Thunderbears.

Sadly my photographing skills are still pretty weak. :(

Excellent wolves. I've never heard of the sketching style of painting. Seems to be somewhat like using white and black to preshade, but definitely different. I don't think it would work on my elves, but it looks great on your wolves.

Armored war bears! Space wolves need more of those as cannon. This is going to be good. Where'd you get the bears from?

I think your lighting is a good start, but you need more lights. Two more, one on the right and one on the left, both at a low angle pointing towards your focus. That would illuminate those shades more.

 CaptainWaffle wrote:
Excellent wolves. I've never heard of the sketching style of painting. Seems to be somewhat like using white and black to preshade, but definitely different. I don't think it would work on my elves, but it looks great on your wolves.

Thanks!
Here is a link to the tutorial I read and learnt it from: http://www.contrastminiatures.com/learn/sketching/learning-to-sketch-in-value/

 CaptainWaffle wrote:
Armored war bears! Space wolves need more of those as cannon. This is going to be good. Where'd you get the bears from?

Bear is from Scibor Miniatures - their fantasy dwarf line. Normal cost is like 40euros per piece, but recently they had huge discount and I got it around 17euros. Bought three, so can make normal 3x TWC unit. The cast quality is good enough, one paw was seperate from the body and it didnt really line-up without some work... Riders also need some re-fitting of their legs (slightly wider posture) to make them sit good.

I've been planning on buying two new lamps so I would have two light sources for the lightbox. At the moment only one makes the shots quite hard to make.

Thanks for the links. I need to work on my use of value. I only realized this after I started my hobby log here and took photos. The articles help.

Very interested in how your bear cavalry turn out!

Very nice Wolves!

your space puppies are top notch, and I love the ork nob you did in orange

Thank you Kurnost and Girthquake.

Been preparing the thunderbear squadron and I think I am ready to paint. Only bases missing at this point. All three riders will be armed with storm shields and thunder hammers. The detail bits are from multiple boxes; SW Pack, SW Thunderwolf Cavalry and SW Terminators. I liked the idea of using terminator pendants as kind of ear rings for the bear heads. Knives, extra bits and holstered weapons fit the bear sculpts in my opinion. I also plan to put down banners on all of them, but I think that requires making my own stands for them (no proper spot to clue them but I think they will be located behind the riders).

I am in the process of pre-color painting the thunderbears, but I also received a supply drop. 10x bodies for characters/terminators, and 10x bodies for grunts that will become 2x Wolf Guard squads. Also some custom bits for Björn.

Ready for paint once I add two more layers of bright highlights! Liking it so far, I like the contrast going on here.

Aaand some more shots. Onto coloring!

Finally figured what kind of bases I wanted for the bears, here is the work so far. Next is finer gravel and overall texturing.

Longtime no see, eh? Been busy with all other stuff, but last week got back into our hobby.

Been still painting those bears, here's a quick WIP shot on the most worked one. Sorry for somewhat crappy photo, but here in Finland we are lacking the natural light this time of year. Hard to get a good shot without setting up lightbox.

Still lot to be done with bronze details on armor. Some error fixing, and then all the details.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ive had basic idea of my collection in my head all the time,but finally got it set with "official fluff" as well. From the 13 companies that are given to us, I decided to go with The Grimbloods.

"In Fenrisian myth, the Fire Wolf burns hot without being consumed. Some whisper Kjarl Grimblood bears a gift from his sigil; that he can reas the futures in the fires of war. True or not, his his company uses many flamer weapons, exulting in the smell of cooked flesh."

I will enforce this in my weapon choices to some extent, already can be seen in my two grey hunter squads that pack a flamer in them. I wont be doing the shoulderpads though, will see if I bring up company mark to the miniatures somehow! Once I got more guys done, will be painting squad markings in.

Sadly the bodies I used for grey hunters has been taken off the market, so I am stuck with ones I have. I still have 10 unused, and all of them reserved for future ones. Meaning my collection will have total 20 grey hunters that look the same. Should be doable, game wise I mean.

Cant wait until I get to kitbash and figure out Kjarl Grimblood's mini, since he doesn't have official one.

Looking great. The paint style really gives it a... realistic artsy look? I don't know how to describe it as I'm not used to seeing it. It's not the harsh constrasts of GW 'Eavy Metal/heroic cartoon style that is somewhat standard, but it's not as simple as basic blocking in paints and washing. The values are there and I can tell the details are there without all the harsh highlighting, but it still looks otherworldly. Keep up the amazing work there Ilgoth. That bear and rider are coming out great.

The bronze is looking nice as well. Definitely needs a bit more, as you stated, but the color is spot on for what you're trying to do.

This time of year the lighting goes for me as well. Being in the central-far-northern reaches of the United States I'm not quite as far north as you are in Finland, but the weather gets close as does the lighting. Daylight bulbs or something similar are my friends here. I just don't rely on natural lighting. When I go to work or arrive home from it it's dark already.

 CaptainWaffle wrote:
Looking great. The paint style really gives it a... realistic artsy look? I don't know how to describe it as I'm not used to seeing it. It's not the harsh constrasts of GW 'Eavy Metal/heroic cartoon style that is somewhat standard, but it's not as simple as basic blocking in paints and washing. The values are there and I can tell the details are there without all the harsh highlighting, but it still looks otherworldly. Keep up the amazing work there Ilgoth. That bear and rider are coming out great.

The bronze is looking nice as well. Definitely needs a bit more, as you stated, but the color is spot on for what you're trying to do.

This time of year the lighting goes for me as well. Being in the central-far-northern reaches of the United States I'm not quite as far north as you are in Finland, but the weather gets close as does the lighting. Daylight bulbs or something similar are my friends here. I just don't rely on natural lighting. When I go to work or arrive home from it it's dark already.

Thanks Waffle! I know it is different from the usual what you see. For me so far this feels like natural way of painting, although at times I feel I should be doing harsh highlights. I think I could try doing some, and use them to direct eyes into the focal point of the miniature. Dont know if that might end up looking fun and imbalanced.

Getting two new lights for my painting has been on my list-to-buy too long to be fair. I really need to execute it! Two on both sides of the table to really have it good, both for painting and lightbox.

I did a fast dry fit of my idea for banners! I like the idea of raising your company flags high as you charge in. Fellow marines following you see where their bloodlusted cavalry charged in all the mayhem. Also the idea of expedition force, I think something like this fits in well.

Some detail work done. First time ever did freehand, to mark the right shoulder pad with wolf guard black base, then yellow markings to indicate shock attack units. Not official marking, tried to come up with my own.

Also been working on the banner for the first thunderbear cavalry model. Still WIP but coming out nicely.

I am seeing the endline with this unit... Bases pretty much painted, give them bit of wash to tone down some parts and then it is about flocking.

Minis themselves got couple of things to do, then I call it finished.

Bases are finished. I will post a photo of the unit tomorrow, as they are finished.

Turns out my DIY lightbox was too small for these... I will return to photoshoot these more once I create a new one.

Here's the group shot of the finished Thunderbear Cavalry. While shooting I spotted to mistakes that still needs fixing. I think I could still improve their paint, but yet happy I did finish them. I think that fur worked out great, glad I went for polar bear kind of approach instead of brown cubs.

Next add to the collection will be two wolf guard units, which pack storm bolters, couple of combi-plasma, storm shields and jump packs.

Amazing and inspiring work. Those thunderbear cavalry are top notch. Gonna field them anytime soon? Or, is this project for display? I'm looking forward to the wolf guard and what the entire army will look like down the line.

Do you have an inspiration for your bases? They look somewhat high fantasy, old school style. I mean that in a good way. I tend to do the same thing.

 CaptainWaffle wrote:

Amazing and inspiring work. Those thunderbear cavalry are top notch. Gonna field them anytime soon? Or, is this project for display? I'm looking forward to the wolf guard and what the entire army will look like down the line.

Thanks! I first and foremost focus on making them as good as I can. It started as pure display army, but I am returning to gaming side of things! Taking part in a tourney in January, so that is sort of a deadline to get 2000 points made. Gonna be a busy bee. Also have to come up with some good way of transporting the models.

 CaptainWaffle wrote:

Do you have an inspiration for your bases? They look somewhat high fantasy, old school style. I mean that in a good way. I tend to do the same thing.

I plan to make a display cabinet where I store the models at home. The concept for that is an abandoned factory that is rusted out, and nature is overflowing it. I tried to keep the models' bases viable for such idea. Should be workable the way I have done them so far.

Below is the planned setup for the cabinet. Ikea shelf, and then cabinet on top of it. Gaming accessories (books), and large tanks are fine items to the ikea shelf. Cabinet itself will have doors too.

With the help of DakkaDakka, been forming my 2000 points list. The thread where the talk happens, with the list of course, is here:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/766927.page

But also inside the spoiler.



Still having 89 points in use, will see how it changes.

Been painting these guys, slowly but every day! Can I finally keep good pace of working throughout the unit?

Somewhat tedious to work on 10 same guys, and always taking them all to same level before moving on to another layer. But I believe this to be the most effective way to keep production steady. Feel days go by fast...

A quick update on their status! Jump Packs arrived, so finally get to work on those as well. Unit should be done soon!

Both of the squads finally finished! Except noticed couple of missed details.

Enjoyed making them, and actually made these in record time of four weeks. One day I get faster with it. Last picture is a quick family shot I took!

Next on my table: customised Björn the Fell-Handed, and 2x scout units!