The Redmaw, painted (Halloween 'special')

Initially, I was going to paint Bran Redmaw's (post)human figure first, but I wanted to have a thematically appropriate figure to show on Halloween, and The Redmaw's werewolfy appearance fits the bill better than the rest.

 The figure itself was shockingly quick and easy to paint. I simply painted the whole figure with Rhinox Hide, then drybrushed the furry parts with gray shades and the less furry ones with browns and flesh colours.

The only parts that needed any accuracy with the brush were the eyes, mouth and, to some extenct, the claws. I wanted to give the eyes a striking appearance, so I used gold instead of yellow.

The figure was based in my usual fashion, with Stirland Mud drybrushed with Mourn Mountain Snow for the earthy parts and Mechanicum Standard Grey drybrushed with Dawnstone for the rocks, adding some modelling snow and a winter grass tuft to finish the look. Finally, I varnished the figure with Purity Seal.
See the model before painting

The Redmaw, Wulfen-kind

I have to say, I enjoyed this project a lot. Sculpting monstrous creatures is, in a sense,  much easier than sculpting human faces. We generally speaking don't have an intuitive understanding of how a post-human that has succumbed to a condition brought on by a flaw in his genhancements should look, and therefore, there's no standard to compare to. I went for a werewolfy look that bears some similarity to dogs and wolves, but not enough to look off, as it does if I had try and fail to sculpt a human visage.

 I wanted to tie the Redmaw form in with the character's human form, and the simplest way to do that was to simply sculpt them to have similar hairstyles (as well as the wolftooth necklace). I actually sculpted most of the Redmaw before the human form and decided to give it braids, because they fit well with the pose of the model. I also felt like they made it clear it was, or at least had once been, a sapient creature.

The tail ended up curving to the left, which gives the impression that the Bloodied Hunter is wagging his tail while hunting. This amuses me to no end.
His hindlegs ended up being on slightly different levels, so I placed some cork under the right paw. I find the pose works better this way. I also decided that even though I'm running low on resin skulls, which is nothing sort of a disaster in 40k modelling terms, the Redmaw if anyone/-thing needed a skull on the base.

The character currently is in a little weird situation rules-wise because the Imperial Armour book 11 refers to the 5th edition Space Wolves codex, but the Curs'd Lord is at his best in narrative games, anyway. I can easily imagine a scenario where both an Inquisitorial warband and a group of Space Wolves try to capture Bran Redmaw and bring him back to study or to put him to his kennel for a time out, respectively.
Speaking of rules, this project again made me sorry that the 7th Edition codex did away with Mark of the Wulfen as a wargear option. It made for some very interesting modelling projects. The Wulfen Stone is a poor substitute.
See the finished model

Bran Redmaw, the Curs'd Lord

As I have written previously, this character took two attempts (so far, knock on wood) to get right. The first one was waaay too pompous to look like a Wolf Lord known to leave the execution of his battle plans to the Wolf Guard, while hunting alone himself.
For the second attempt, the most challengin part proved to be the modelling of the Runic Armour. There is a precedent for just slapping a few Space Wolf pieces with runes in them together and calling that a runic armour, but I felt like the armour should look like it's more protective than the standard power armour.
To achieve this, I used the thicker pauldrons from the Command Squad kit, extra Mk. IV arms I had around and sculpted faulds to give the upper thighs some extra protection. The decorative backpack from the Space Wolves upgrade kit helps give the impression of higher quality armour, too.

 I gave him the Phobos pattern bolt pistol, just because I felt like a Wolf Lord, even one with a sinister reputation, would have access to more revered relic weapons of the Chapter.

The Axe of Langnvast started out as a Mk. IV Thunder Hammer. I cut off the hammerhead and replaced it with an axe blade (made of plasticard) with a wolf's head hammer as a secondary striking surface, with the ears elongated to a stabbing point. I generally speaking prefer to give the Wolves single-headed axes, because I think they look much more agile and dangerous as weapons than the double-headed ones Games Workshop seems so keen on.

I may not be entirely finished with the modelling phase. At the very least, I'm probably going to add a mag-locked battle helmet somewhere on his body, and am considering to add some extra decoration to his faulds. However, the overall shape will be more or less like it is now.

Of course, the (mostly) human form of Bran Redmaw is far from being the most interesting side of the character. The real reason people use the character is coming up later.

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.