Iron Priest on a Thunderwolf (WIP)

It's been a while since I've made a Work In Progress post, and now is as good a time as any. Though it does make sense from a lore standpoint, I wish Rune Priests and Wolf Priests weren't excluded from riding Thunderwolves. That only leaves three different non-named characters capable of doing so, and since Wolf Guard Battle Leader and Wolf Lord are very similar in most respects, Iron Priest is where I get to use my creativity.

The headless and armless horse... wolf-man look is obviously going to change. I've been thinking about Mk.III arms, for the extra protected look, and custom-sculpting a head with some bionic augmentations to it, just enough to mark the Iron Priest for who he is.
I thought it would make sense that an Iron Priest would combine the proven effectiveness of the ancient Mk.IV Maximus armour and the newer innovations, such as the raised gorget in Mk.VIII Errant armour. After all, Iron Priests wear 2+ armour, and this has to be represented on the model.
I have studied historical horse armour for tips on how to armour the Thunderwolf, but horses have typically been protected by quilted cloth and/or chainmail, which would not really work in the 40k setting. Admittedly, GW's own Thunderwolf models haven't been armoured at all, despite having 3+ armour save, so I'm not taking too much pressure from this.

I have no idea when this will be finished. Hopefully relatively soon, but that may still mean months ahead.

Deathwatch Watch Captain Artemis

So I'm still one update behind schedule. I do have several models in the works at the moment, but considering my schedule for next week, it remains to be seen if I'll have the time to finish two of them by next Sunday. I do have high hopes, though.

Artemis is one of those characters I never really cared that much about. That's not a bad thing, though, because now I can use the default GW model without feeling lazy about not having made one from standard parts and Green Stuff.

 Though he's now included in the Start Collecting Deathwatch box, originally, Watch Captain Artemis was only available in the Death Masque box, and that's where I got my model from. I like the model, but since my Deathwatch army isn't stationed at Talasa Prime in my headcanon (I'm not that interested in defending Smurfville), I don't know how much use I'll get out of him.

Unlike on the illustrations in the Codex, I painted his shoulder pad in the established Mortifactors colours, ie. with a yellow trim and bone coloured skull. I also added a couple of skulls on the base, one human(oid) and one ork.

Mostly, however, the model was painted fairly unsurprisingly. I noticed that my satin varnish can is probably starting to go empty, judging by how glossy the models turn out now. Will have to fix that soon.

Wolf Priest, painted

Between the Deathwatch and a couple of Wolf Priests (Ulrik included), I have been getting plenty of practice in painting black armour, which I remember finding difficult when I first originally started 40k back in the primitive days of the late 1990's. I probably would have originally started collecting Black Templars, if I could have sorted out how to highlight black armour properly. Of course, I had much less experience in painting and even just with my general manual dexterity.

Most of the model being coloured either black or bone, I wanted to give it a little colour where I could. The rope around his thigh was painted bright red, to contrast with the cold blue jewels.
I have to say I like the way the fur hood turned out. It looks somewhat like a mail coif, giving the model a very Medieval flavour.

The purity scrolls fluttering to a completely different direction from the wolf cloak is something of a flaw. The backpack the scrolls are attached to cannot move in a different direction than the torso that the cloak is attached to. The only explanation I can think of is that the much lighter purity seals are flying in the wind, while the heavier cloak is being thrown back by its own momentum.

Wolf Priest

I have quite a few Blood Claws already, but at WS and BS of 3, they're not very effective on their own, even if they get a lot of attacks on a charge. I decided they could use a boost, and the various Priests of the Space Wolves are a natural choice. I already have a couple of Rune Priests, and Iron Priests aren't really meant for this, so here's a Wolf Priest.

 I wanted to clearly differentiate the 'generic' Wolf Priest from Ulrik the Slayer, so in addition to the different ranged weapon (bolt pistol vs. Ulrik's plasma pistol) I decided to give him a fur hood. The legs are from the Space Marine Vanguard Veteran kit, with some of the less chapter appropriate details filled in and a Space Wolves style gemstone added. The torso is a very vanilla Mk.VII power armour front combined with the cloak from the Space Wolves upgrade kit. I also sculpted some extra details on it. The pointing bionic arm is from the Devastator Squad kit.

I wanted to make a very norse-looking power maul, so I ended up taking a relatively typical Scandinavian interpretation of the mjölnir (Thor's hammer) and scaling it down enough to look more like a power maul than a thunder hammer. Incidentally, it almost looks small enough to be actually useful as a blunt weapon, at least when used two-handed.

As a model wearing black armour, the model should be done by next week.

Ulrik the Slayer, the Wolf High Priest

Back when I started my Space Wolves army, I considered just buying GW's official Ulrik model. Though old, the model's pose was far better than the original Ragnar Blackmane model's (I wonder if they're actually ever going to remake him), and Ulrik looked like he could handle himself in a fight.
Then GW remade him. Now, I do think the new model looks more impressive and probably has higher level of detail than the previous one, but the pose could only look more static if he was modelled taking a nap. This is unacceptable of any Sky Warrior, nevermind one fierce enough to earn a salute from Angron himself.
So, as with Ragnar and Logan before him, I eventually started working on my own version of the Wolf High Priest.

 The torso piece originally came from a Space Marine Apotechary, and I specifically saved it for a Wolf Priest. I find that the vials hanging from it are appropriate for a character doing the double duty of an Apotechary and a Chaplain, and while Wolf Priests don't use the same exact methods and medicines as codex Apotecharies, I imagine there would necessarily be a lot of overlap, as Space Wolves still are Astartes, and there are only so many ways to provide medical care for barely understood physiologies.

The backpack, as well as the arms, came from the Mk.II Power Armour. I decided the ancient model would be appropriate for the oldest non-Dreadnought, non-Wulfen Space Wolf still in the galaxy.
I also decided to custom-sculpt the wolftail talisman hanging from the plasma pistol, since I no longer had any of the smaller ones from the Wulfen kit handy.

The Crozius was originally (and technically still is) a Power Maul. I cut off two of the flanges and expanded the other two into stylized wings, finally sculpting a wolf skull on top of that.

The black armour made painting considerably faster than with most Space Wolves.
I decided to paint the gemstones on Ulrik's shoulders and on the forehead of his helmet red, and the vials on his belt in colder colours, specifically green and blue. The overall effect turned out great, with the few spots of colour standing out well in the midst of the black armour

I hadn't originally left any space for Ulrik's personal sigil, the stylized wolf paw print, but decided to paint it below/on the model's left knee. A kneepad would have worked better, but still, I'm reasonably happy with the way it looks.

The model's cloak was painted in three layers, with Khorne Red base, shaded with Nuln Oil, and Mephiston Red and Evil Sunz Scarlet highlights. It ended up looking appropriately deep red without compromising too much on highlighting.

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). 

Luna Wolves Centurion

I managed to order one of the limited availability Horus Heresy Centurion models back when Forgeworld redid their webstore. It took me a while to decide what to do with it. Originally, I considered just gutting the poor guy for its parts, but as it turned out, the model wasn't constructed like the standard multi-part Space Marines, but had its legs and torso as a single piece, and the head and arms didn't have the standard connections, either. This somewhat limited its use as spare parts, and the model's decorations didn't exactly fit Space Wolves of 41st millennium, probably not the heresy era Rout either.
I figured I'd just paint the model as a member of another 30k army, finally deciding on Luna Wolves, at some point near the end of the Great Crusade, before Horus' daddy issues got the better of him (I like to.imagine an egyptologist somewhere reading this blog entry with growing confusion and irritation).

 One of the first things I noticed when painting the model was that painting black & white power armour is surprisingly difficult. My method of choice was painting the white parts with Dawnstone before heavily drybrushing them white. I had to paint the black parts black again afterwards, then re-drybrushing them, only lighter, but it worked... ok. It's not the cleanest paintjob I've done, but I accept it. I do like the stark contrast between black and white parts, so all in all, it's ok.

 The one thing I did with Green Stuff was painting the Luna Wolves Legion Symbol. It's not my cleanest sculpt, either, but considering it's supposed to be an ancient armour, damaged and repaired several times over, it sort of works.

I doubt I'll end up making any sizable Luna Wolves army. Maybe a small task force of somewhere around 500-750 points, that can be explained as a force lost in the Warp until reappearing when the Heresy was in full swing, but not large enough to fit in the 41st millennium history books.

Unidentified Wolf Lord, painted (Christmas Special, pt. 2)

I admit that "no-one knows" is something of a cop out for writing backgrounds for characters, but seeing how the Wolf Lords of the late 41st millennium are already canon, and I didn't want to start a fourth Great Company, a Wolf Lord outside the established Chapter was a necessity, and having one being general knowledge wouldn't really work, either.

I imagine the unknown, blood-soaked Astartes warlord in Space Wolves paraphernalia and with huge horns on his back being first spotted during Abaddon's 13th Black Crusade, appearing in several desperate battles to fight against the traitors. He's rumoured to be one of the 13th Great Company, though his Indomitus-pattern Terminator armour and markings from long after the Heresy speak against this theory. He's also rumoured to be one of the Jarls of the ill-fated Wolf Brothers, though his colour scheme is clearly that of the parent Chapter. He is said to somewhat resemble at least three different Wolf Lords who have vanished at various points in the Chapter's history.

Space Wolves haven't acknowledged the rumours of the unknown Jarl in any way, but according to accounts of those few non-Space Wolf Imperial troops who have fought by his side, his eyes appear to have no visible irises or pupils, suggesting blindness, yet he doesn't seem to suffer from this, and some claim to have heard him speak of his mission for the Allfather. Any tangible information is rare, as any witnesses have soon disappeared, rumoured to have been captured either by the Inquisition for questioning, or Space Wolves themselves, to prevent the Inquisition from learning too much.

I wanted to keep the theme of an amalgamation of Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, Krampus and Yule Goat, so I painted the gauntlet parts of his weapons as well as the shoulder pads red. The extra redness was also the reason I wanted to use Blood for the Blood God on the model relatively liberally. The horns were drybrushed with Zandri Dust, then again with Ushabti Bone and finally with White Scar.

 I wanted the scarf (cassock? I don't know the terminology) to remind of Saint Nicholas, so I painted the Nauthiz rune on it, as it both vaguely resembles a cross and supposedly stands for approximately same sound as the letter N. The model's flesh was painted with Kislev Flesh, as I wanted his skin to be relatively pale.

This concludes this year's Christmas Special. Just as a heads up, I don't plan to make a special for every possible holiday -- I don't really have one planned for New Year, for example. Anyway, in case you missed it yesterday, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah (though I think that was already? Anyway, hope it was happy), Joyous Kwanzaa (is that what you wish?) or just have a nice weekend!

Unidentified Wolf Lord (Christmas Special, pt. 1)

So far, most of my HQ choices are special characters, and while it's nice to be able to field characters that already have a history, personality and general background, sometimes I want to have my own Wolf Lord that is not being written from Nottingham. I plan to write some actual background for the character tomorrow, but for now, let's just say Logan Grimnar's little sleigh of murder opened a door for this guy.

 The inspiration for the model came from the various myths and versions of Father Christmas AKA Santa Claus, mostly focusing on the Northern European Yuletide traditions, though there is a little Saint Nicholas in there, too (specifically the scarf, which can be seen in many depictions of the saint). I also added a subtle reference to Yule on his belt in the form of the small circle, symbolizing the sun, as is fitting for a celebration of the winter solstice.

 The most visible part of the model is clearly the horns, referencing more than a few Northern European traditions of Yule, such as Yule Goat in the Nordic Countries and Krampus in Germany. It took me a while to figure out how to add horns on a Space Wolf model without making him outright a Chaos worshipping renegade, until I simply decided they're a trophy taken from a Xenos creature he killed, presumably in hand-to-hand combat, as can be deduced from him having a Wolf Claw on his right hand...

...and a Chainfist on his left. I originally considered just giving the model a pair of Power Fists, but that would have been very inefficient use of points. I wasn't entirely happy with the thought of him having a pair of Wolf Claws either, so I went for an anti-infantry weapon on his right and an anti-armour for his left hand. They are both Special Weapons, so he gets +1 A, and is able to counter a variety of threats.
I'll cover the model's narrative side in Part 2 of the Christmas Special. For now, merry Christmas if you celebrate it, happy holidays if you have time off and have a nice day if you're working!

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

Ragnar Blackmane, finished (this time for real)

I'm starting to understand George Lucas. This is the third time I replaced a head on my Ragnar Blackmane miniature, instead of just making a new model and leaving the old one as it was. In my defense, sculpting big chainswords is really fiddly, and this one has a Frostfang I'm reasonably satisfied with.

 When I started sculpting this head, I wanted to pay special attention to making the character's brow. The main problem I had with Ragnar's previous head was that he looked too calm. To make facial expressions visible in this scale, they need to be seriously exaggarated.
Another thing to pay attention to was how clean the sculpt was. It's very easy to leave some areas a little rough, but they become painfully apparent in the painting stage.

I recently learned to use a fairly limited palette when painting flesh. Too wild changes in tone make the model look like it needs to see a dermatologist, and drybrushing is very risky. The character ended up looking much more like a person than many of my earlier models.

 The new head fits the model IMO much better than the previous one, and the Allslayer actually looks more furious than surprised.

I should be done now swapping this guy's head. If I find that I still don't like it, I will just make a new model instead of sculpting a fourth head for the same one, and I don't think I'll be doing that any time soon.
See the first version of the model before painting
See the first attempt at the painted model

Wolf Priest in Mk.IV Plate

It's surprising how little reference material there is for Wolf Priest helmets. It is often mentioned that it's shaped like a canid skull, but the only actual example is Ulrik the Slayer miniature, and he wears a special relic helmet supposedly worn by Leman Russ himself. Now, you could argue that considering the size difference between Primarchs and Astartes, it's very unlikely Ulrik could possibly wear a helmet worn by his Primarch (I also have my doubts concerning the so-called Armour of Russ), but either way, it stands to reason this relic helmet would somehow differ from those worn by other Wolf Priests. I suppose the differences are in more advanced auto-senses, better HUD etc, so it doesn't have to be apparent outwards.
In any case, I decided to take the perhaps boring, but safer route and just sculpt a helmet similar to that worn by Ulrik.

 The model's pose turned out very energetic. I was going for an aggressive look, as he's meant to join a large pack of Blood Claws, and combining the running legs with a forward-leaning torso fit the bill. His Rosarius is formed of a Crux Terminatus from vanilla Terminator kit glued on to a short piece of fine chain, with some wolf teeth added on for a more Fenrisian look.

Crozius Arcanum is a power maul, so I decided to sculpt this one shaped like Mjölnir. This shape is more typical to Scandinavia, as opposed to the Icelandic style used by Marvel's version of Thor (a completely different character from the mythological short-tempered, gluttonous and honestly rather dim-witted gingerbeard). I sculpted a small badge of Morkai on it, to signify Wolf Priest's role as the first and last person a Skywarrior typically sees.

The chainblade representing the Fang of Morkai is from Tartaros-pattern Terminator set, used to turn power fists into chainfists. The fit isn't perfect, but works well enough.

Painting the model will be interesting. Black is a challenge, as it requires some subtle highlighting to make the model look painted at all.

Terminator-armoured Rune Priest, work in progress

I originally intended to just make one rune priest in regular Mk.VI power armour. Then, I misplaced that and started to work on one in Mk.V armour while the first one was lost. Then, having already sculpted two psychic hoods, I decided I should have one in Terminator armour as well.

Though I like the frost axe included in the Wolf Guard Terminators kit, I'm having difficulties dealing with the thought of using a piece without modifying it. The storm bolter, on the other hand, is about ready here, with a double drum magazine and customized iron (bronze? Green stuff really, though) sights.

His right pauldron still needs some work. I'm thinking of including some knotwork decorations. Also, the top of his wrist still needs some fixing.

As it says in the title, this one is still very much work in progress. He's still lacking all the rune medallions, wolf teeth, wolftail talismans etc. a rune priest needs. I also think he should have a pelt somewhere on his armour.
This model's finished version here

Logan Grimnar, the High King of Fenris, painted

Painting my older sculpts is scary. Often a fault may be small enough to be nearly unnoticeable when sculpting, but painting brings it to a painfully clear focus. One example would be the first head I sculpted for my Ragnar Blackmane model, that had perfectly serviceable-looking nose when the whole head was still bright green, but once painted, poor Ragnar looked like he had taken a savage left hook to his nose.
Nothing too bad happened with my Logan Grimnar, though his eyes are somewhat asymmetrical and he could afford to have a little more ferocious look on his face. All that said, there's something that makes up for all this. In my eyes, at least, he looks a little like Christopher Lee. It certainly wasn't something I planned, as I don't think I currently could sculpt portraits in this scale if I tried, but now that it has happened, I can't think of a more appropriate Old Wolf. Rest in peace, Sir Lee.

On to the paintwork. I usually use bronze for the yellow/brown metal parts, but because Having just one part gold-coloured would have looked out of place and I wanted Fellclaw's head to be painted gold, I also decided to repeat the colour on his Belt of Russ, as well as the Imperial Eagle on the base.

 Grimnar has used the Axe Morkai since the first war for Armageddon, which is around 600 years, if I remember correctly, and I think that would be more than enough time to form a patina on the bronze parts. More importantly, the green hue accentuates the red blade nicely. I decided against painting patina on most pieces of his armour, though, since I feel like many of those parts would often require servicing by the Iron Priests and therefore be swapped for other compatible pieces of Terminator armour.

I'm fairly satisfied with my Logan Grimnar model overall. Sure, the sculpt could have been cleaner, but that's the problem with improving your skills; your newer work ends up putting your older work to shame.
 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.

Rune Priest in Mk.V power armour, painted and varnished

One of my favourite things about Space Wolves' visual style is how rough and functional pieces of armour and torn pelts are combined with ostentatious decorations. This model represents the cruder end of this spectrum. The psychic hood was intentionally sculpted to look unadorned and functional, and the most striking decorative element on his armour consists of very angular runes.

 I didn't notice the similarity in position to Forgeworld's Sigismund model until after it was already painted. I didn't knowingly imitate the pose, but it's very possible I subconsciously took influence from it.

I like to imagine he has had his nose broken in the past and the piece of metal was originally sort of a splint to help it heal, but he chose to leave it there to work as an additional noseguard. Space Wolves don't like wearing helmets in general, and the Mk.V armour might be more quirky than most when it comes to battle helmets used together with psychic hoods, so connecting extra protection directly to his skull would make sense.

Ragnar Blackmane, the Young King, painted and partially resculpted

As I mentioned previously, Ragnar Blackmane was one of the first models I started making. I finished his head early on, and then left the model half-done for a long, long time, until I recently finished modelling and started painting. Now, while it's fairly obvious that skills improve by using them, what is easy to forget that your expectations of yourself tend to rise more or less at the same pace. So, what had represented the best of my abilities a couple of years earlier, now looked unacceptable.

 Specifically, the part I wasn't satisfied with was the face. Mostly, his nose was the issue, being just a misformed lump on his face, but the general shape of his head was none too pleasing, either. So, I decided to redo the head. I went with Ragnar's trademark howl for his expression on the new head, and added a couple of braids on him. I wasn't sure if he canonically has any facial hair after rising to a Wolf Lord, but I had always imagined Ragnar with sideburns, so that's what I decided to sculpt. His high top knot is what marks him out as who he is, but I also added a couple of thin braids on the model, just because.

Having painted him, I'm still not sure if I like his facial expression, as his eyebrows seem a little too high, and his skull shape could have used some more depth, but I decided this will be good enough for now. This new head is just glued on with superglue, so if I so choose, I can yet again change his head without doing any significant damage to this one.

I felt secure enough with my brushwork to freehand the army badge on his left kneepad (white, fanged skull with crossbones on a black background). Turned out pretty well, actually. Probably because I kept it simple.

  Frostfang turned out well, considering how tough it is to sculpt chainswords by hand. There's probably a trick to it that I don't know, or maybe I should just use different material for weapons.

 His backpack may be my personal favourite part of the finished model. I'm particularly happy with the freehand design on his helmet crest, but the gemstone and the patinated wolf heads worked out well, too.
 See the first version of the model
See the actually finished model