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Alright so here's my question.

I am looking to field a variant of Space Wolves that are based more off of old Gaelic mythology than the obvious (and still very awesome) Norse mythology. Over all appearance wise there isn't a lot of difference in general look -- spears instead of hammers, red and black/brown hair more prominent than dirty blonde, lots of woad and celtic knots and trispiral designs (all way easier said then done) etc. But I am having a hard time picking a color scheme for armor.

Mind you I am very new to painting, but think I have the talent if I can get some tips and tricks from some of you paint gurus. I am leaning toward a darker green/black combo with golds and perhaps some deeper reds too.

Any thoughts or advice? I am down with feedback.

Oh, and there is no way in Hell I am calling them Space Celts...so any help with naming convention would be great too.


Thanks guys!!

Hmm, do a weathered green, with silver trim.

battle Brother Lucifer wrote:Hmm, do a weathered green, with silver trim.

+1

Will try and look up weathered green, never seen it before. Should I do like a darker color/wash then dry brush lighter and lighter? Washing and drybrushing and all the finer things are greek to me.

Will there be tatoos? Or am I thinking of another group of people?

Woad is their war paint but if I can find a place for some tattoos.

Plaid. Plaid everywhere.

LOL Crash! Dude, if I am doing ANYTHING in plaid, it will in fact be a lumberjack army...I am not finding a way to put kilts on Space Wolves LOL

TheDoherty wrote:LOL Crash! Dude, if I am doing ANYTHING in plaid, it will in fact be a lumberjack army...I am not finding a way to put kilts on Space Wolves LOL

why not? they look pretty awesome to me! the guy who did this has a blog here too. search for ravenborn in the gallery to find more.

damn...those look fuggin' sweet, too. I am still aiming a bit more green...but for the long fangs I could see scottish highlander types in kilts I 'spose...that's pretty sweet...I need to search for this fine artists contact or other work?

if you search the gallery for ravenborn, he should be the guy who posted the pics there. you can ask questions or just chat in his thread then.

Over on B&C I've made quiet a few differant themed chapters (Maori, Native American etc) and the last one I made was called the Head Takers. If you want I could post a link (probably tommorow) showing my fluff for them and such. They are based off of the time period around the fall of the Roman Empire and a few others (such as Claymore weilding Terminators, claymores wern't around during the fall of the Roman Empire) when the Saxons and Woads both inhabited Britian with a few sprigs of celtic (head hunting practices) and norse (mainly dwarfs and an affinity for technology) mythology thrown in here and there.

As far as color schemes go I painted mine to mimic the warpaint used by the Woads and the iron used by the vikings so they have a variation of the quartered marine paint scheme with an iron looking color and woad blue. Most people would say green for celts but blues are good and I personally think silver is a good color.

Name wise you can look into Celtic mythology, the Celts had associate many animals with certain aspects of life. For the warrior it's the boar, I was going to call my chapter the Iron Boars but then came up with the Head Takers. In Celtic mythology the head contains the soul, so I had it be that in my fluff the clans of my chapters homeworld believe the same thing. They also believe that if you take your enemies head you controle their soul and that by offering those souls to the Emperor you will gain his blessing. Another facet of celtic mythology are Hounds and many of the celtic chapter I've seen have been the Hounds of ______ or ben the Sons of ______ with the blank usually being filled in by a hero or place from celtic mythology.

I also included Eldar Banshees in my fluff as the most hated enemy of my chapter. There is actually alot you can do in 40k for celtic themes, I would suggest researching celtic mythology.

I think your should name your HQ's John Havlicek and Bird

Warboss Imbad Ironskull wrote:Over on B&C I've made quiet a few differant themed chapters (Maori, Native American etc) and the last one I made was called the Head Takers. If you want I could post a link (probably tommorow) showing my fluff for them and such. They are based off of the time period around the fall of the Roman Empire and a few others (such as Claymore weilding Terminators, claymores wern't around during the fall of the Roman Empire) when the Saxons and Woads both inhabited Britian with a few sprigs of celtic (head hunting practices) and norse (mainly dwarfs and an affinity for technology) mythology thrown in here and there.

As far as color schemes go I painted mine to mimic the warpaint used by the Woads and the iron used by the vikings so they have a variation of the quartered marine paint scheme with an iron looking color and woad blue. Most people would say green for celts but blues are good and I personally think silver is a good color.

Name wise you can look into Celtic mythology, the Celts had associate many animals with certain aspects of life. For the warrior it's the boar, I was going to call my chapter the Iron Boars but then came up with the Head Takers. In Celtic mythology the head contains the soul, so I had it be that in my fluff the clans of my chapters homeworld believe the same thing. They also believe that if you take your enemies head you controle their soul and that by offering those souls to the Emperor you will gain his blessing. Another facet of celtic mythology are Hounds and many of the celtic chapter I've seen have been the Hounds of ______ or ben the Sons of ______ with the blank usually being filled in by a hero or place from celtic mythology.

I also included Eldar Banshees in my fluff as the most hated enemy of my chapter. There is actually alot you can do in 40k for celtic themes, I would suggest researching celtic mythology.

I have researched Celtic history some out of fascination with my own ancestry, which is where I get my motivation for this. I was leaning toward having them be flavored with the deities of the Tuatha De Danann, and since old Irish folktales draw on heros of epic sagas
I find the design of heros for the SW and their Sagas full of win.

The heros and Wolf Lords (a.k.a: Righ) would be stylized like those of the Fenian Cycle and to keep with much of the "wolf theme" something akin to the Hounds of Cuchulainn. I just don't want to directly replicate or really take names too directly from Celtic/Irish folklore, so I won't look to name them the "Fianna", but I might refer to them as The Sons/Wolves of Tara.

I agree that blue is also an appropriate color, and blending it in somewhere sounds solid. Silver seems to be a very popular suggestion, so I will definitely lean toward that. Piking Eldar or Ork heads does sound delightful for some of the forces. Man this is going to be a major modelling undertaking!

Thanks for the solid feedback, bro. A link to your works would be awesome to get to look over if you have time to share.

You could call them ''Manaman's deciples'' if you were going for a blue theme as the celtic God of the sea was MacMannaman. and you Rí (pronounced ''ree'') could be bades off another figure from celtic mythology, say Fionn Mac Mumhaill for a Lone wolf.

warsmith pyrus wrote:You could call them ''Manaman's deciples'' if you were going for a blue theme as the celtic God of the sea was MacMannaman. and you Rí (pronounced ''ree'') could be bades off another figure from celtic mythology, say Fionn Mac Mumhaill for a Lone wolf.

+1

And why not just call the Chapter, the Tuatha de Dana? (sons of Dana)

Finn had a band of brothers so personally wouldn't have him as a lone wolf

Also depends what you mean by Celtic.
I have some Welsh ancestry so would look to the Mabinigion for inspiration.

Bit rusty on me British Mythology these days though
Can't think of the sky god's name which would be appropriate to Space Wollf terminology.

Rune Priest Gwydion or Taliesin or Myriddin?

Dark wrote:

warsmith pyrus wrote:You could call them ''Manaman's deciples'' if you were going for a blue theme as the celtic God of the sea was MacMannaman. and you Rí (pronounced ''ree'') could be bades off another figure from celtic mythology, say Fionn Mac Mumhaill for a Lone wolf.

+1

And why not just call the Chapter, the Tuatha de Dana? (sons of Dana)

I greatly approve of either of these ideas.

Perhaps, the Lone Wolf can be Tuan?

ah ah ah ah ah!




Sorry. Just had to. . . .

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:Finn had a band of brothers so personally wouldn't have him as a lone wolf

Also depends what you mean by Celtic.
I have some Welsh ancestry so would look to the Mabinigion for inspiration.

Bit rusty on me British Mythology these days though
Can't think of the sky god's name which would be appropriate to Space Wollf terminology.

Rune Priest Gwydion or Taliesin or Myriddin?

Good calls for sure. Was gonna turn Njal into a Disciple of Lugh, shave the staff he has into a spear (Spear of Lugh), and add two more big fuggin' ravens as a nod to the Morrigu.

I didn't want to copy the names exactly...it seems like even GW showed some restraint in naming the planet Fenris...but the trickster is Lukas instead of Loki, etc. Etc. Just trying not to be tacky or anything.

Agree totally about tweeking the names but it gives something to kick around

Can't have too many ravens

Was thinking of a Tyr theme to my truescale SW's but might go Saxon themed rather than Norse inspired by this thread.

Only problem is that Wyrd might be to close to the Warp and SW's no likee

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:Agree totally about tweeking the names but it gives something to kick around

Can't have too many ravens

Was thinking of a Tyr theme to my truescale SW's but might go Saxon themed rather than Norse inspired by this thread.

Only problem is that Wyrd might be to close to the Warp and SW's no likee

Might be nice, as SW are allready pretty norse (though I want to know why on the SW box, all of them are painted like redheads on the back).

Ok here is that link to my celtic marines I made

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.php?showtopic=204316&hl=Head+Takers

Hope it gives you some inspiration

You could use tir na nog as the name for the home world or fortress monastary, in Gaelic it is the land of eternal youth
and the great Irish hero Finn mccool as your chapter master or captain or something of the sort

Celtic mythology already found its way into 40K and, for reasons I will never comprehend, got slapped onto the spehss elfs. So don't be afraid to tap resources for Eldar, too, and see what you can reasonably re-purpose (or what to avoid, if you don't want any fluff-conflicts).

oadie wrote:Celtic mythology already found its way into 40K and, for reasons I will never comprehend, got slapped onto the spehss elfs. [...]

Refference to the Sidhe perhaps?

Warboss Imbad Ironskull wrote:Over on B&C I've made quiet a few differant themed chapters (Maori, Native American etc) and the last one I made was called the Head Takers. If you want I could post a link (probably tommorow) showing my fluff for them and such. They are based off of the time period around the fall of the Roman Empire and a few others (such as Claymore weilding Terminators, claymores wern't around during the fall of the Roman Empire) when the Saxons and Woads both inhabited Britian with a few sprigs of celtic (head hunting practices) and norse (mainly dwarfs and an affinity for technology) mythology thrown in here and there.

As far as color schemes go I painted mine to mimic the warpaint used by the Woads and the iron used by the vikings so they have a variation of the quartered marine paint scheme with an iron looking color and woad blue. Most people would say green for celts but blues are good and I personally think silver is a good color.

Name wise you can look into Celtic mythology, the Celts had associate many animals with certain aspects of life. For the warrior it's the boar, I was going to call my chapter the Iron Boars but then came up with the Head Takers. In Celtic mythology the head contains the soul, so I had it be that in my fluff the clans of my chapters homeworld believe the same thing. They also believe that if you take your enemies head you controle their soul and that by offering those souls to the Emperor you will gain his blessing. Another facet of celtic mythology are Hounds and many of the celtic chapter I've seen have been the Hounds of ______ or ben the Sons of ______ with the blank usually being filled in by a hero or place from celtic mythology.

I also included Eldar Banshees in my fluff as the most hated enemy of my chapter. There is actually alot you can do in 40k for celtic themes, I would suggest researching celtic mythology.

Dude, could you please link me to some images of your 'maori' themed marines? I'd be very.. very interested to see them.

I'm doing something similar, Blue helmets, Blue face paint.

I'm a fluff writer/ conversionist. I create chapters just for the fun of it so my Maori marines don't actually have models.