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Hi everyone,

I tried to get into the hobby with a Space Wolves army a few years back, but did so half-heartedly and quit after painting some models. With the release of a new Space Wolves codex, I'm finally seduced enough to seriously get back into the hobby and collect an army. As such, I dug out the models I'd painted and started adding highlights to them and painting on the company badge.

So, I present to you my first fully painted squad of my Space Wolves army which I've taken about 4 years to paint... I'm still pretty new to all this painting business, so critique and help would be greatly appreciated. I'm currently facing two problems:

1) I 'm having trouble getting nice smooth lines for my highlights, especially on the shoulder pad rims! Is this something that comes with practice or does it look like I'm doing something wrongly? And I'm not too sure where to put the highlights, so every model is an experiment, in case you're wondering why the highlighting seems a bit inconsistent. And I'm using a standard brush for the highlighting for the moment since I don't have a detail brush yet.

2) I'm having trouble getting smooth coats with full coverage for the shoulder pads. I can't seem to get a consistent colour across; some parts are lighter and some parts are darker. I'm not sure whether is it because my paints were thinned too much or I had too much paint on the brush or I did not apply sufficient layers. On the shadow grey base colour, I lined the shoulder pad with chaos black, then added a thin layer of fortress grey, followed by 3 thin layers of skull white, then 3 thin layers of golden yellow (or red gore), thinking that multiple thin layers is key for a smooth coat. Unfortunately, I didn't quite managed that. So advice on this would be much appreciated too.

Many thanks in advance!

A group shot. I'd painted and highlighted 7 of these guys a few years back, finished up another 2 and painted the company badge for all 9 models.


A shot showing the right yellow shoulder pad. I've not painted the squad marking for 2 of the guys as I'm lacking the colour I'd used for the rest. And I forgot which yellow I'd used for the other 7 too so I tried golden yellow which turned out to be the wrong colour... Hope that that's not too obvious.


A shot showing the left red shoulder pad. Painting the company badge was a nightmare. I can't convince people that it's actually a wolf head...

Paint a thinned line of a 50-50 mix of your highlight and base colour to help blend in the thicker highlights. It'll soften it and make it look less jarring and harsh. I'd also use Devlan Mud to line just in some of the recesses of the armour to help add some definition.

I used shadow grey for the base colour, then 50-50 shadow grey-space wolves grey to highlight followed by pure space wolves grey. I remember doing 4 layers (25-75, 50-50, 25-75, then pure space wolves grey) for some of the models, but didn't really see any difference, so I cut it down. Maybe I need to paint more finely for the highlights?

Okay. I'll go grab some devlan mud and try applying it as a wash to the recesses to see how it goes for the next squad which I'm painting.

Thanks!

Those look quite good actually. Couple of suggestions...

1) What color primer are you using? If you're using black, switching to a white primer might help with your color consistency on the plates as you're not having to "fight" the primer by covering it with a lighter color. I know that a black undercoat saves some time as you don't have to paint some of the underneath bits... but there aren't all that many black bits showing on your models anyway, so it might not be saving you all that much time. (and if course, if you aren't using black primer, please disregard this comment)

2) I have far less issues with the quality of your highlights than the lack of shading. The figures look flat to me, but that's easily remedied. Take a fine brush and some badab black wash. carefully draw a line of badab black wash along each of the crevices where two plates meet. That should really bring out the depths of the figures to accompany your highlights. I see you've got the effect I'm talking about on the shoulder pads... but not anywhere else that I can clearly see.

Thanks for the suggestion.

1) I am using chaos black as an undercoat, and unfortunately, I've already sprayed most of my models with chaos black, so I don't think I'll be changing that for the moment.

2) The shoulder pads was a recent job, and a relatively straightforward one since it's a nice big flat area. I'll try the shading proposed. Will experiment with both devlan mud and badab black and see which gives a nicer result.