Third Blood Claw of the Blackmanes, painted

I'm not planning on actually numbering the Blood Claws, but I'm also not going to come up with names for each of the 15 Blood Claws in the pack. The rookies are as close to cannon fodder as the Sky Warriors get, and they're supposed to make up for their lack of skill with ferocity and just sheer numbers.

 The rune on the model's forehead is pretty bright, because I used Wild Rider Red to paint it. The actual reason was Mephiston Red not being willing to cooperate, but for narrative purposes, you could imagine the Blood Claw has the potential to become a Rune Priest, if he survives.

 I personalized his Mk.VI helmet by painting the "beak" yellow and adding a red pattern, making it extra clear the model is a Blood Claw.

I'm reasonably happy about the way the model turned out, though it is clear that I shouldn't leave too many of the Blood Claws bald. Space Wolves seem to lack something when they have neither scruffy hair nor beard, and the fact that in my Great Company Blood Claws keep their faces shaven leaves few options. I may add another bald model in the pack later, though.

Long Fang with a Missile Launcher, painted

You can read a thousand warnings how craft knives are very sharp and you should be careful with them, each time think how that should go without saying and yet still find yourself in a situation where you keep pressing several keys at once because you cut into your left index fingertip with a craft knife and the bandage on it makes the whole hand feel unwieldy.
This wasn't really related to tonight's post, but it's what's on my mind and my finger at the moment, so there you go.

 I have found that painting the eyes on heads I have sculpted is weirdly difficult, despite my habit of sculpting the eyes larger than those on GW heads. I think the eye surfaces tend to remain concave, causing me to have to paint the pupils slightly, yet significantly deeper than the eyelid thickness would suggest. I'll have to look into that in my future sculpts.
I decided to paint the wolftail talisman in reddish tones. Greys and browns are fine, but used too consistently, they often become monotonous.

 Whenever I paint the first model of a pack, it means I have to decide on the pack markings. The weirdly shaped trim on the Space Marine missile launcher arm (they may have changed that in the new Devastator Squad kit, I don't know yet) made this a challenge, as I didn't have as much surface area at my disposal as with most shoulder pads. In part because of this, I decided on a simple white rune on black background. The rune I decided on ended up being the thurisaz, pronounced as a th-sound.
I also wanted to paint the cables in a little more interesting manner than solid colours, so I went for the yellow-and-black striped look.

I have painted all the missile casings white so far, with the exceptions of coloured tips. I left the latter out this time around, and just decided the missiles should have all-white casings. This decision was born out of laziness.

Deathwatch Veteran Grey Hunter, painted

Time for another previously painted and now touched up model. A good while ago now, I ordered a couple of Deathwatch Kill Team Conversion Kits from GW. I have used some of them for my Kill Team (which I still have to start painting at some point), but wanted also to have a veteran or two among my Space Wolves. The Chapter is well-known for sending warriors to serve in the Watch, despite being one of the least orthodox forces of the Imperium, and I wanted to reflect that in my army.

 The metal helmet has significantly more pronounced "cheekbones" than the plastic one, making it look meaner. I also wanted to leave a big part of it black. I like to imagine the Astartes was impressed by Deathwatch, and wanted to show that respect by keeping his helmet largely in the same colours. I also painted a red sawtooth pattern on the helmet's crest, to show that he still respects the Rout, too.

 I used to paint the backpacks differently, with more metal colour showing. I then changed my painting methods, but have elected not to go pack and repaint the older models with my new method.
As can be seen here, the model's left arm is Mk. IV pattern. No great idea behind that, I just had an extra Mk.IV arm lying around. I imagine his armour was damaged during his service to the Watch, and was fitted with an Mk.IV arm that the Inquisition has better access to.

The bolter arm came from the Thunderwolf Cavalry kit. I saw little point in arming my Thunderwolf Cavalry with bolters, but the more wolfy weapons are always welcome for the Grey Hunters.

Hairless Blood Claw

Having gotten started with my Blood Claws pack, I decided to push on and sculpt another head for another model. As I was doing that, I came to think that a lot of my Wolf Guard and Grey Hunters are bald, and it really wouldn't make sense if all the Blood Claws had long hair or tall mohawks. Of course, my Blood Claws have no beards or at most stubble, and beards help keep the models seem more, eh, wolfy, but then again, they have fangs and stuff hanging all over the place, even if I don't usually give them too many decorative items on account of their low rank in the Chapter.

I'm starting to get the hang of sculpting a snarl on a model's face. I also considered adding some service studs, as Space Wolves don't really care much how they're supposed to be used according to the Codex Chapters, but decided against it, as I feel like it would take some influence in the Chapter to have them implanted, and Blood Claws rarely have that.
I still have a few of the older Ragnar Blackmane's shoulder pads, and feel like they fit Blood Claws the best.

 The rear view is pretty standard, with the Mk. VI helmet and a combat blade hanging from the belt. The model has a combination armour, with Mk. VII torso and Mk. VI legs and helmet. I assume that is true for most Astartes by the 41st millennium, with original full sets getting rarer and rarer. Of course, Mk. VII would be the most common type, with it being the one used to mainly replace the losses suffered during the Horus Heresy.

This is now my third Blood Claw. In the fluff, the pack is about ready to take on almost anything. In game terms, it will soon be legal to field and get nothing done with, yay!

Blood Claw with a Flamer, painted

Time for another Troops model. I decided to keep building up my Blood Claws for the time being. Right now, the pack consists of... two whole models, which admittedly is still a few short of a horde, though in the fluff, two Blood Claws is enough to claim victory in a skirmish or have a significant impact on a small scale battle.But yeah, pointing out the disparity between the rules and fluff in 40k is nothing new, so let's get on with it.

 In my headcanon, the geneseed of Russ causes many of the blonde Vlka Fenryka initiates turn into redheads. This explains why so many of the models have red hair and/or beard. Out of universe explanation is that I think that red hair is very eyecatching on the miniatures. I also gave him a reddish stubble, as described on the appropriate video on Games Workshop's 2015 YouTube Advent Calendar.

As usual by now, I also painted some knotwork decoration, and as usual, it turned out a little tricky to make work in red and yellow. It looks fine from a normal viewing distance, though, and I suppose that's the important thing. Another usual thing about the paintjob is the heat discoloration made in rings of shade paints.

The twin fang pack marking is pretty quick and effective paint, which is great for Blood Claws, as I still have 12 or 13 to paint.
I hope to get at least five models painted in fairly quick succession to get the pack rules legal. Of course, a pack of five Blood Claws isn't very effective, so I plan to triple that, and add a Wolf Priest. All in good time.

Void Claw with a Cyclone Missile Launcher, painted

This is my 100th post, and to celebrate that, I'm finishing the first of my formations, the Void Claws. I started painting this model during the weekend, but having been surprisingly busy with other stuff, it took longer to finish than expected. The Cyclone itself adds more to painting time than expected, especially with all those nice, flat surfaces for extra decoration.

 The  first step with all the Void Claws has been to decide the individual colour scheme of the model. With this one, I felt like the model's special weaponry and bionic arm would distinguish him clearly enough from his battle brothers, but I did paint some extra yellow-on-black decorations on his helmet. As for his claws, I painted the casings the chapter's grey and his fingers black.

 The Wolf Claws were painted as usual, with Caledor Sky base, drybrushed with Fenrisian Grey and finally White Scar. I use this scheme for all the frost weaponry (excluding Frostfang), which I count Wolf Claws as.

The wolftail talismans were painted with deeper brown basecoat, then drybrushed with Gorthor Brown and finally with Dawnstone. I use this for most of the talismans, unless I want to make them stand out somewhat.

For the Cyclone itself, I decided on simple knotwork patterns on each side. with the over-under patterns opposite from each other.
This is the final model in my Void Claws, at least for now. I do consider it possible to add more, in case I want to increase the formation's size, or if I want to take them without the Cyclone at some point.

Space Hulk Brother Leon

I've mentioned time and time again how I like the Terminator armour's look, but one thing I haven't really praised much so far is Assault Cannon's look, and unlike with Dreadnoughts with Assault Cannons, when they are combined with Terminator armour, it looks all the better.

 Brother Leon's simple and effective heraldry was easy to paint, yet manages to look nice. I might personally prefer models with Assault Cannons to have a little more pompous pose, but as a combat pose, this works fine, and is about as credible as the subject matter allows.

 In hindsight, painting the power fist's casing white may have been a mistake. It'd made more sense to repeat Brother Leon's heraldic scheme there instead. On the plus side, I managed to paint the yellow and black stripes on the cord going through the model's Crux Terminatus well enough.

The rear view of the model doesn't really reveal anything too interesting. I painted the armour red, the support struts and power cable casings gunmetal and the decorations gold.

Long Fang with a Missile Launcher

Thinking back, I was originally going to sort of phone in the Long Fangs by simply making them through some standard kitbashing. However, the view I have of the Long Fangs as the veterans who almost leisurely take shots at the enemy from afar didn't really go with the standard available Space Wolf heads, which tend to be shouting. I have a hard time imagining an ancient warrior calmly taking aim with a heavy weapon and screaming at the same time.

 So, the logical thing was to sculpt my own head. He is scowling, but not outright screaming, and beneath that beard, he might be even smiling.
Of course, I still did do some kitbashing. The legs are from Sternguard Veterans kit, the left shoulder pad from Thunderwolf Cavalry and the missile launcher from the old Devastator Squad kit.

 From behind, the model has little special flavour to it. The backpack is a little crooked, but that's fine, since it's attached with blu-tack at this point, as are both of the arms. I won't glue them on until they're painted.

I also attached a Wolftail Talisman to the missile launcher with a piece of chain. I wanted to decorate the weapon somehow, and this was pretty much the simplest way to do it. I consider it sort of a pilot for decorating heavy weapons in the future. After all, Long Fangs are veterans and have deserved the right to customize their weapons.

Rune Priest in Terminator Armour, painted

As I have mentioned before, I really like the look of the Indomitus-pattern Terminator armour. Its helmet design looks appropriately angry, and the armour looks massive enough to seem forbidable, but not so massive as to be ridiculous (I'm not saying Space Marine Centurions, but... actually, yes, I am saying Space Marine Centurions).
Generally speaking, the way I see Space Wolves, they prefer to go bare-headed. In part, this is because their helmets would hinder their use of their extraordinary senses, but also because they want to be recognized when they do something worthy of a saga. Decorating your helmet may help with this, but nothing really compares to have your actual face associated with a great kill. Both of these factors would go double for Wolf Guard, who would have learned to really rely on their senses, and who would also want to be recognized as their jarl's greatest warriors. That's why I rarely got the chance to model Terminators with their helmets on, until I came up with the idea of modelling all of my Void Claws and the associated Rune Priest with the battle helmet on.

 The colour scheme turned out simple and effective, with mostly Space Wolves grey armour and deep red pauldrons, weapon coverings and decorations, such as the loincloth and shield. I didn't want to make the model look too busy with too much decorative patterns.

I wanted the gem on the Crux Terminatus to contrast with the deep red of the pauldron, and chose greenish-blue finish. The red glow on the Rune Axe's runes was accomplished with Evil Sunz Scarlet thinned down with Lahmian Medium.

I painted the skull on the right pauldron with bronze, since it complements the deep red of the pauldron well. The wolftail talisman was painted with Rhinox Hide, then drybrushed with Doombull Brown, Stormvermin Fur, Dawnstone and finally Longbeard Grey.

With the Rune Priest painted, the only model missing from my Void Claws force is the Cyclone-armed model (though the Rune Priest isn't actually a part of the formation itself). 

Imperial Chapel, early stage build

With the basic building elements cut out, the next stage was to start putting them together. It became immediately apparent that the pillars at each corner made things significantly more complicated that just a cubical construction would have done. The octagonal shape calls for a whole bunch of various calculations, and making the pillars solid is a challenge by itself.

 Even though I thought I was making a modestly-sized building with 15 cm wall length, it turned out to be relatively large when I tried to fit it in the box I use for photographing my models.
The pillars were made by cutting 175 mm x 80 mm pieces of foamcore and then dividing it into eight 10 mm wide and 175 mm long strips. I then cut the paper on the outside of each strip so that I could fold them inwards, making a pillar with an octagonal profile.  For the time being, I use tape to keep the pillars in shape, but will have to think of a more permanent solution.
As you can see, I used sewing needles to pin the pieces in place while waiting for the PVA glue to dry.

 The two collapsed pillars were made similarly, only cut irregularly at certain height. I plan to use the pieces I cut out of the wall elements for rubble later on.

I also started working on the interior. The walkway is placed so that models on it can fire out of the large, circular window. I'm thinking of adding stairs that lead to it, though the placement of the windows may make that challenging.

Imperial Chapel, first pieces

As I mentioned last week, I got a hold of some foamboard, or foamcore, to be more precise, and am now starting a project to build something out of it.
I haven't previously worked with the stuff, so this playlist on TerrainTutor's channel on YouTube helped immensely with getting started.
As I mentioned it might be, my first project is going to be an Imperial chapel for 40k. As with many projects, the first thing to do was research. I ended up loosely basing my chapel-to-be on the Gothic chapel in Peterhof.

 The white foamcore board in front of the white background isn't very clearly visible, but there's not much yet to see, anyway. This is the front wall of the chapel, with a quinto acuto arch on the doorway (the center of both arcs is one fifth of the width short of the opposite edge).

 The windows on the intact side (one of the walls will be mostly collapsed, to gve access to the building) are similar to the recto style (the centers of the archs one fourth forward from the opposite edge), but I used five as the number instead of four.

 The collapsed side, with a partially collapsed tower. Two of the towers will be damaged, while the other two will be intact. The two damaged ones will be on either side of the collapsed wall. The roof will be about half collapsed, possibly more, depending on how much room is needed so that about a normal-sized hand can fit in the building to move the models.

The back wall will have a large, round window, with a catwalk or a ledge behind it so that it can be used as a firing position. Round, decorative windows are very typical to gothic style architecture.

There's a lot more to do, but those are the four walls, around which the chapel will be built. I have no idea how long this project will be, but I plan to sculpt at least one major statue, possibly three or more, to decorate it, in addition to the building itself. I haven't decided on a schedule yet, but considering how fragile the foamboard and how dangerous place my desk is, I think it will have to be completed in a fairly short order.

Space Hulk Sergeant Gideon

Out of the two sergeants in the default Space Hulk Blood Angels, I somewhat prefer Gideon, as far as fluff goes. Rules-wise, Space Hulk Terminators would do well to never let Genestealers come close enough to attack them, which puts Gideon in an awkward position as a model with no ranged capability.

 Space Hulk Terminators are a little trickier to paint than their standard multi-part counterparts, as they can't be disassembled into as many little pieces for painting. I would probably have preferred to paint Gideon's head separately, as the high collar on his armour makes it a little more difficult to reach. Not by a huge margin, but everything counts.

 The highly detailed Storm Shield was a challenge by its own right. It took me a while to decide on a scheme, but ultimately decided on a fairly standard gold decoration on a red background, with the edge decoration painted silver.
Again, note how the Crux Terminatus is less sharply defined than on standard Terminators.

I painted the Thunder Hammer in just metallic colours, the grip and the blue glow effect excluded. I use thinned-down Temple Guard Blue for the glow effect, placing it in a few select recesses.

The Blackmanes' Blood Claw, painted

I haven't started with the terrain building project yet. It was a crazy weekend, and not in the "went out and partied like rockstar" way, but in the "had a clogged sewer, with which I battled for several stinky hours". I just barely had time to finish one model.

Blood Claws are certainly more colourful than most of Space Wolves, thanks to their red and yellow markings. I capitalized on this by repeating the pack markings (in the shape of two red fangs) on the left knee pad. On the right, I painted the white skull and crossbones, ie. Ragnar Blackmane's army badge.

The old resin shoulder pad is clearly less impressive than the new ones. It works with Blood Claws, who would have whatever armour is available, while the more prized equipment would go to more senior warriors.

The relatively simple style continues on the backside of the model. Keeping things simple with Blood Claws is a good idea, not only because they're not supposed to be the most impressive members of the Chapter, but also because they only really work in large packs. For example, I still have to paint 14 packmates for this guy.

Some barricades, and plans for 2016

According to a lot of people who do terrain building, it's best to start small, pick up the skills you need and then move on to larger projects. With this in mind, I made a couple of small barricades way back.

  The bulk of the barricades was made simply by snipping off small pieces of sprue and gluing them on a piece of plasticard. I then went on to glue some extra bits leftover from various kits on top of this.

The arch on this one is from a piece of old Games Workshop's ruins. I also sculpted a couple of sandbags and added a hatch from an old Leman Russ kit from when I collected Catachans in the late 90s.

The larger sliding door is from the Rhino kit, as well as the half of the hatch. I painted all the metal parts with Leadbelcher and then applied Orange Rust rather liberally on top of that. I finished the barricades with modelling snow to make them fit in with my basing style. 

The biggest issue I have with these barricades is that in hindsight, the rectangular pieces of plasticard I built them on were too regular in shape and stick out somewhat. I'd recommend using rounder shapes instead, preferably with some irregularities.

The title mentions that I have some plans for this year, and they're related to these by the way of terrain building. I managed to get my hands on some foamcore, ie. the stuff that hobbyists most like to build terrain out of, and intend to start some sort of build at some point. What it will be, I'm not certain, but I'm thinking of a small Imperial chapel. Depending on how small, it may actually become a multi-part series.