Adeptus Mechanicus Skitarius Ranger w/ an Omnispex

Of the two main Skitarii troops, I find I like the Rangers more. Though the Vanguards look nice with their sallet-type helmets, the snipers capable of moving and firing are more interesting to me. The general steampunk appearance is interesting, even if it wasn't what I imagined when I first thought of AdMech troops.

 Mars' red, black and white colour pattern is pretty striking, especially with the long, flowing robes.

 As I mentioned with my Sicarian Ruststalker, I think the models look really nice, just wish there were more posing options. Of course, it would be difficult to fit the robes with various kinds of legs, and would probably lead to clunkier-looking models. Still, I hope GW finds a way how this cake could be had and eaten, too.

Thunderwolf Cavalry with a Thunder Hammer

The title makes me wonder, if I had the rider also wearing a Mk.I "Thunder" Power Armour, would I hear from AC/DC's lawyer?
Anyway, I decided to move forward with my Thunderwolf Cavalry. Of the mounts in the box, this one has the least dynamic pose, choosing to stalk instead of running or leaping. I decided to make it look like the wolf is going around some rough terrain. Because I happened to have some very old Citadel Skeleton Warrior parts lying around, I decided to throw in a corpse, too.

 The Thunder Hammer is scratch-built. I wanted to have an axe blade along with the hammer face. It sort of does look like a big meat tenderizer, but then again, why shouldn't the Wolf Guard have their steaks tender? I'll still have to sculpt Ragnar Blackmane's symbol on his left shoulder pad before painting.

I gave the mount a somewhat Gjermundby-style spectacled helmet to make the Viking influences more obvious, and drove the point home with the runes on the plates covering its shoulder blades.

Again, his Mk. VI battle helmet is attached to his belt. The rear of the wolf mount is somewhat unprotected, but it sort of makes sense to mostly protect the side that's going to charge the enemy and otherwise try to keep your equipment load light.

Arjac's Next Shieldbrother

Arjac's Shieldbrothers is potentially a fairly big project to model, especially for someone with my refusal to accept standard solutions. Not every model needs to have a huge gimmick, though. With this Shieldbrother, I had a couple of fairly simple goals: to have a Terminator with a mohawk, and to customize a hammerhead.

 There's not much to be said about the head. It's just a fairly typical male head with sideburns and a mohawk, sculpted to be shouting. Of course, sculpting a head could be a whole topic in itself, but I'll save that for later, in case I decide to make some sculpting tutorials in the future (not a simple thing, sculpting in general has more art than science to it, and using green stuff for the medium doesn't exactly make things more predicatble). For the hammer, I went for a design where four wolf claws hold on to a runed orb and with a fang-shaped backspike.

 The rest of the model uses a mixture of vanilla Space Marine Terminator and Wolf Guard Terminator parts, with pieces of cork on the base. The only other customized part is the shoulder guard, where I sculpted the Great Wolf that Stalks the Stars, or as the less nerdy people call it, that rearing wolf symbol.

This being the fourth Shieldbrother just on this blog, I should probably get around to finishing the pack leader model, not to mention my Arjac conversion.

Modified Space Marine bike

Space Wolves clearly have a biker-kind of look to them, even if it is because they share influences, rather than one directly influencing the other. Long hairs, big beards and general over-the-top masculinity is very typical to both looks. That's why I decided to go for the custom bike look when I started modifying the first of my army's bikers.

 I lengthened the fork with pieces of 1.5 mm wire, while cutting out most of the front and bottom plates. I also sculpted extra pieces to the exhausts so they wouldn't look like they end so abruptly. Future plans include sculpting drum magazines for the bolters for the same reason.

 Another thing to modify was the handlebar. Instead of the standard straight model, I used pieces of wire to set the bar higher and slightly wider. I also cut off part of the seat to accomodate the rider sitting further back. Of course, this requires some modifications to the rider as well, but that's getting ahead of things.

This one will just be the pack leader's bike -- I doubt I'll go through all this with the whole pack. Then again, it's not like they need to be ready by some specific date, so you never know.

Sicarian Ruststalker

Ever since I first read the 2nd edition Codex Imperialis, I have always liked Adeptus Mechanicus and consider them to be an integral part of the fluff. I actually find it a little strange GW didn't publish codices for them earlier, but better late than never, I suppose.
I bought both Codex Skitarii and Cult Mechanicus as soon as they came out. Never mind that I basically paid twice for what really should be just a single codex (together with the Imperial Knights), the models look cool and most importantly, it's AdMech.

Sicarian Ruststalkers have an appropriately menacing look to them. It's not easy to have no facial features and still have a threatening stare, but these guys somehow manage it.
Game-wise, the combination of chord claw and transonic razor would have admittedly been better, but it's a little too late to change the equipment now. Besides, I don't think I could have made a pose like this with just a hand with unclipped nails and a knife.

 I wanted to have one of the Ruststalkers crossing his/her blades (I suspect the recruits may be of any gender, but by the time the Tech-Priests are done with them, I don't think the concept of gender really applies to them) and painted the blades reacting violently to each other. Martially speaking, there's hardly any point to do this, except maybe to intimidate the opponent, but WH40k isn't about realism.

 I do have one complaint about the models, and that's the fact you can't really repose the legs, torso or head. That just leaves arms, and while a lot can be achieved by using various combinations of weapons and arms, a large Sicarian army will end up a little deja vu-y. The other Skitarii models have the same problem. Green Stuff can't help much either, unless you want to resculpt the torso, and while I do enjoy challenges, that's just a little too much work for the reward of just having a slightly different Sicarian. As a result, my AdMech army will probably remain a small, secondary army.

You may notice that I based my AdMech differently from my Space Wolves. I went for a red desert look, as if they were on the surface of Mars. I also decided to base my Imperial Knight in a similar fashion. I'm sure I'll end up showing the Knight in a future update -- after all, there has to be some use for that Lords of War tag besides Logan.

Lukas the Trickster & a return to the drawing board with Bran Redmaw

Imperial Armour 11 may need some updating as far as the rules go, but I have always liked the backstory of Bran Redmaw, and since the book had at least some sort of rules for him, I started working on my model of The Curs'd Lord to lead one of the three Great Companies in my army. However, what I found myself working on would have been fine for some other Wolf Lord, but not for someone about to give in to his inner beast and turn into a monster at any moment.

 I mean, come on, most Ultramarine captains would call that posturing a little excessive.
I expect the torso will make a return in the form of a Wolf Guard pack leader or possibly a Deathwatch Captain, if I feel like thinking outside the box. The arms will probably be used for the final Bran Redmaw model, and someone else was glad to receive the legs...

 Lukas the Trickster, aka the Jackalwolf, is an interesting character, but once again, I didn't really like the way GW's model is posed. Pointing a wolf claw at the sky behind one's head doesn't make a lot of sense. I also thought the doppelgangrel pelt doesn't cover enough of him to be of any use, especially in a challenge. I chose to model and give him an older model of lightning/wolf claw, which I then posed in a way that suggests issuing a challenge. I imagine him saying "May I have this dance?" and then laughing mockingly.

The dramatic pose of the legs works well when the character is canonically arrogant.
I'm still planning to add a battle helm somewhere on his armour, where he can put it on if necessary, and may make his pelt a little longer and more dramatic.

Another Void Claw

Slowly building up to the Champions of Fenris formation, here is another one of the Void Claws Terminators. Again, I kept it relatively simple, just adding studs to the right shoulder guard and the extra cabling. I also added another extra cable to the side of his helmet to further make him his own individual.

 I opted for a little more aggressive posing this time. He's stepping in while thrusting with his left claw. While his right arm is doing pretty much nothing to cover him, I like to imagine he's currently pulling it down to continue with an uppercut.

 It's also possible that his left attack is actually a feint and what he's really doing is stabbing through an unsuspecting someone on his right. These things depend on context.

Wolf Guard Pack Leader with a Combi-Plasma and Bionics

The story behind this model is pretty simple: my plasma-armed Grey Hunter pack needed a pack leader. At first, I was going to use one of the default heads, but I had already used a wolf-head helm on another pack leader, so I decided to just go the long way and sculpt him a head of his own. The pelt and necklace are there just to make the default Forgeworld parts (Mk. V torso, Mk. IV character conversion kit legs) look more wolfy.

So far, I haven't really customized any of the weapons. This is probably going to change with future models, but this one will probably keep his vanilla.

 The model is fairly simple, but it works. Hope to have this one painted pretty soon, too.

Rune Priest in Mk.V Power Armour

As far as looks go, Mark V "Heresy" may well be my second-favourite version of the Astartes power armour patterns, just behind "Indomitus" Tactical Dreadnought Armour, or what most people just call Terminator armour. The studs and cabling give it a suitably rough appearance, and the helmet looks mean.
In the fluff, the pattern is mentioned to be unpopular among loyalist chapters and that it may cause suspicion among the Ecclesiarchy and the Inquisition. Considering their history, I figured the Space Wolves wouldn't be too concerned if either of these groups happen to like what they're wearing.

 The first thing I sculpted was the psychic hood. I wanted it to have a rough appearance, similarly to the armour pattern. I decided on a relatively angular form, as if it was made of two rectangular pieces bent to shape, and added studs to it to complete the rough look.
I also had to "wolfify" the standard pattern armour a little, so I sculted a wide belt, a wolftooth necklace and a some tooth totems and a pouch to hang on his hip. There's also a wolftail talisman hanging from his left knee.

 The runic sword was sculpted out of a layer of ProCreate to create the main form, and sandwiched between two layers of Green Stuff, into which I sculted the runes. I wanted the sword to have a Viking look to it, so I made the pommel and the crossguard about equally wide.

Bjorn the Fell-Handed

 Bjorn is probably my least converted special character by a fair margin. Not only did I use hardly any green stuff, it's actually built using mostly the original, official kit's parts. The biggest change I made was in the base, where I added a few layers of thin plasticard under his left foot to make the pose a little more dynamic. I also added the banner from the Space Wolves Pack kit and attach a couple of Wolf Tail Talismans using fine chain, instead of the larger pelt in the original kit.

 I'm fairly satisfied with the overall paint job. I kept him it pretty clean, to represent the amount of care the Iron Priests would put to upkeeping a Dreadnought of his status. I may paint Murderfang to look more worn down to contrast this, assuming I come up with a way to make the kit look good. I'm not a huge fan of the way that model looks. Of course, this also presents an interesting challenge. We'll see.

 I do like the way his claw turned out. Drybrushing paler from blue works well for frost weapons, especially with the red gems giving it contrast.

Logan Grimnar, the High King of Fenris

Logan Grimnar is one of those cases where GW's own model looked alright, but I still had to make my own, no matter how ambitious the project would become. After all, it couldn't really be my Space Wolves army, if the Chapter Master was a standard model (hmm, I may have just condemned myself to sculpting my own version of Leman Russ).
One of the inspiring thoughts behind the model was the persistent rumour that Logan has turned renegade. I could have gone the obvious route and try to make a model to deny this, but instead, I wanted to intentionally make things a little ambiguous. I attached no purity seals anywhere on the model, and I added a broken Imperial Eagle at his feet, leaving it up to the viewer to decide if he's about to trample over it or if he's defending it to his last breath.

 Since Logan Grimnar is repeatedly mentioned to be the biggest, tallest Space Wolf in the Chapter after Arjac, I wanted the model to reflect this. I added a little bit of green stuff to the bottoms of his armoured boots. The Belt of Russ helps conceal that I also made his midsection a little longer for the same purpose. I also sculpted Grimnar's personal badge on his left leg, and cut off the head from the pelt-apron, since the only wolf's head decoration his armour is mentioned to have is Fellclaw's gilded head, pulling the double duty of a crown and a trophy.

Fellclaw's head was fun to sculpt, as wolf's head generally are. I decided to leave the eye sockets empty to give it a little more sinister look.
The Axe of Morkai is built of a custom-sculpted blade attached to a thunder hammer's haft. To make the weapon look large enough to be two-handed (compared to the one-handed thunder hammers), I also made the haft a little longer by covering a short length of steel wire with green stuff and sculpting a small figure of Morkai to its end. I also replaced the cable with a length of guitar string.

I really wanted his storm bolter to be belt-fed. Fortunately, the Wolf Guard Terminator set provides a belt-fed model, so all that was left was to attach it to the side of the weapon, slap in on his wrist and fill in the gaps with putty (again, a mix of ProCreate and Green Stuff -- I did this part early on).

I'm generally pretty satisfied with how he turned out and hope it will still look good once painted.
See the painted model

Thunderwolf Cavalry with Mk. IV Armour, WIP

I still haven't completely made up my mind about Thunderwolf Cavalry. On one hand, it does sort of go against the whole "fighting on foot, the way Russ intended" thing, and is silly enough to register even in 40k context, where person-sized chainswords (chainswords!) is the norm. On the other hand, the models are IMO among the best GW has produced, as long as you take care posing the riders.

This is another old model, as can be seen in the ProCreate/Green Stuff mix used to make his chainsword and the wolf's chest armour. As the title says, this is still work in progress, more so than with most of my submissions so far; the wolf's chest armour needs some sort of decoration, and the little canine helmet could use some more details.

 The rider is wearing Mk. IV 'Maximus' power armour from Forgeworld. I imagine it to be something of a minor relic of the chapter, signifying his rank as a senior member of the Wolf Guard. I may also end up adding an extra decoration on his backpack, marking him out as the pack leader.

I thought the reins one of the more important aspects of the conversion. The thought of a veteran warrior trying to steer a charging wolf by telling it where to go was just ridiculous to me. The reins are made of fine chain I bought from a local craft shop (one of my better purchases).

The battle helm is hanging from his waist / mag-locked to his armour. I may yet add some identifying markers on it.

Final model here

Redmaw Grey Hunter with an Aventail

The vanilla Space Marine Tactical Squad set comes with a few different kinds of torsos, most of which can be used for Space Wolves as is. However, the one with the laurel wreath may fit well with Ultramarines' Greco-Roman appearance, or Blood Angels' Renaissance Italy thing, but not really the celtic viking barbarians of Fenris. So, obviously, I had to hide the laurel wreath somehow, and since I had wanted to make a marine with extra mail defenses for some time, things lined up beautifully. I'm not sure if aventail is the correct term here, since it really refers to mail defense covering the gap between the helmet and the torso armour, but I thought it gets the point across well enough.

 I also decided to add some studs to the rim of his left shoulder guard, because why not. His bolter is the Umbra-Ferrox pattern from Forgeworld, because I like the chainblade bayonet.

The bolt pistol is also from Forgeworld, specifically the Space Marine Character Conversion Set. I assume it's mag-locked to his thigh armour, as described in the novels.

I never feel sure if a bayonet attachment on the bolter is enough to communicate that the model is also equipped with a close combat weapon, so I tend to also add a combat knife, just to be sure.

I intend to paint him in the colours of Bran Redmaw's Great Company. Many of them are wearing their helmets. In my head-canon, that's because they prefer to hide their faces, in case they are gripped by the curse of Wulfen.

Arjac's Shieldbrother & a Deathwatch Veteran

Having read Chris Wraight's Blood of Asaheim, I knew I wanted some of my Wolves to have Deathwatch experience. Since the vanilla Space Marine Terminator set comes with a Deathwatch shoulder pad, I figured I would make one of Arjac's shieldbrothers a DW vet.

There aren't that many distinct Thunder Hammer models, even if you combine the vanilla and Space Wolf sprues, so again, I decided to do some customizing and add a backspike, sculpted to look like a large fang.

His head was a fairly straightforward sculpt, pretty much just a shouty bald guy with a long beard at the tip of his chin. I may yet decorate his shield in some way before painting, though I haven't decided how. Probably just by gluing on some small flavour piece from my bitz box.

To further give him some personal flavour, I connected a Tyranid head (from the Scout sprue) and a banner head from one of the vanilla marine sprues with chains. I consider them both to be mementos from his time in the Deathwatch.

Arjac's Shieldbrother with bionics

The idea behind this one is that Arjac and his pack have fought together for centuries, and haven't always gotten through it in one piece. This one has been hit harder than most. Since the shape of a skull is the starting point of sculpting a head, I decided to be a little lazier this time around and leave half of the head at the starting point.

To give the impression that he has been severely wounded on one side of his body and patched up with bionics, I also sculpted a bionic arm. It didn't turn out quite as clean as I would have liked, and I may yet try to improve it before painting.

His left side is fairly standard, with just a wolf pelt sculpted to hang from his shoulder pad.

See the painted model

Grey Hunter from Bran Redmaw's Great Company

This time, I decided to show one of my more mundane models. This Grey Hunter from Bran Redmaw's Great Company was built without any Green Stuff, though I did use some Forgeworld components, such as Mk.V legs and torso. The head was from vanilla Space Marine Tactical Squad sprue, but I decided to use it anyway, since it did have a mohawk. Coupled with the runic tattoo I painted on him and the wolfy mcwolfwolf weapons and backpack, I figured it would be wolfy enough.
You may notice his skin is pretty dark. I decided to paint him to represent a Sky Warrior recruited from one of the Southern Fenrisian tribes mentioned in the fluff.

 As with most bareheaded models, excluding those in Terminator armour, I had him carry his helmet with him. As with the bolt pistol, I figured it would be mag-locked to his armour. The runic design on his face is repeated on his helmet.

First of Arjac's Shieldbrothers

As was probably the case with a lot of people who bought the Champions of Fenris supplement, I took an instant liking to the Arjac's Shieldbrothers formation. I like Terminators, I like dedicated assault units and I particularly like the concept of shield walls. It was pretty much unavoidable that I would end up modelling and painting this formation.
This was the first one that I finished, largely because he's the only one in the pack with a helmet on. Not handsculpting a head does make things a lot quicker, even though I did connect a couple of wolf tail talismans to his helmet via chains and sculpted a pelt on his back to give him an individual look. I also sculpted a topspike to his thunder hammer (purely decorative in game terms).

I like the model's relative simplicity. The legs and his pelt flaring out, together with the weapon arm far back, give him a dynamic look. He sets the standard I hope to meet with the rest of the formation.