Long Fang with a Plasma Cannon

I decided I wanted to sculpt something again for a change. Now, I usually have at least a few projects I'm working on at any given moment, but the amount of time I put into any of them varies. Lately, I've been actively working on two models. The other will need some more work before it's ready to be shown, but this one was done fairly quickly.

 The plasma gun is from the older Space Marine Devastator Squad kit, and as such, didn't have any wolfy bits on it (neither do the newer ones, I understand). I decided that Long Fangs are venerable enough to have a wolf's head mounted on the power pack, so I went on to sculpt one. I don't want to have too many of these on my models, as Logan Grimnar famously has one, as does Njall Stormcaller. However, the large and bulky backpacks that come with heavy weaponry IMO need something to decorate them.

According to the fluff, Long Fangs have centuries of experience and keep their heads cool under fire. A roaring or grimacing face would look off. For that reason, I wanted his head to look calm or even be laughing.It may not look obvious, but the corners of his mouth are turned up.
The pelt covering his left shoulder came from the Thunderwolf Cavalry kit.

I like plasma cannons, as they have high enough strength to pose a threat to most units in the game, and can lay down a template to threaten hordes. The downside is that statistically, one in 18 shots kills the model firing it (assuming standard power armour). With just one of them in a pack, losing a model to Gets Hot! is not a huge risk.

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.

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.

Arjac's Shieldbrothers' Land Raider Crusader, painted

This is another model I had mostly finished earlier, and now just touched up the paintwork and varnished. I originally started to work on the model quite a while ago, and this can be seen in certain places, as far as quality of the work is concerned.

 I sculpted the decoration on the front hatch out of Green Stuff. Unfortunately, the sculpt wasn't terribly clean -- a problem that was exasperated by using the final gasps of a spray bottle in a warm weather for the primer coat. This led to the final sculpt collecting a little too much of the washes in its recesses, making the highlights stick out a little more than I'd like. It's not a disaster, but I wish it could have been better. The somewhat rough finish of the decoration called for some weathering on the front ramp. I used rough pieces of sponge to apply some Leadbelcher over the ramp.

 The Wolf that Stalks the Stars was painted freehand just today. I found the thought of painting it a little intimidating, even though I knew that the symbol wouldn't be visible from both sides at once, so perfect symmetry wasn't absolutely necessary. As it is, I think the symbol fits the model well enough.
Decorating a large model like a Land Raider in a suitably Space Wolfy fashion is demanding, but pretty fun. I ended up using a lot of pieces from the Stormwolf/Stormfang kit, such as the decorative chains and shields that I don't think work that well on an aircraft model. I also added some wolf skulls that I glued over the headlights and painted in bronze colour.

 The rear of the model is left pretty much undecorated. In hindsight (no pun intended), having some kind of decorative elements behind the model would have been cool, but it is as it is.

 The left side door had a plastic Space Wolfy bit from the dreadnought kit IIRC. I also sculpted a small Crux Terminatus between a set of bronzed rows of teeth. Again, this was made of Green Stuff, but the finish turned out significantly better than on the front door.
The meltagunner has the Iron Priest torso and head from the Stormwolf/-fang set, but the rest of the gunner comes from the standard Land Raider kit.

 I felt like the top of the model needed some flavour, and after a lot of deliberation, I decided on a loose knotwork pattern. It could have been cleaner, too, but it's not really even close to what I'd call bad.

 I magnetized the side doors so that the insides could (and should) be painted. The small magnets I used can be seen in picture, as I had already painted most of the hull when I came up with the idea. I think the naked magnet look actually works pretty well here, though.

I also painted the insides of the crew compartment. To achieve that, I simply painted the insides of the model before the final assembly, so that both sides of the track and side assembly,floor and the upper part of the model were painted, as well as the assault ramp and the front door.

Now that my Land Raider is finished, the only things to finish of Arjac's Shieldbrothers are the Pack Leader and Arjac himself (canonically, pretty much the same thing, but in terms of rules, a Wolf Guard Termnator pack must have at least two models and a pack leader).

Vindicator, painted

I tend to focus more on infantry than on vehicles. Painting vehicles seems to take forever, and the boxes on threads aren't as interesting to me as the (somewhat) human shapes of infantry. Vehicles also take a lot more space on my shelf. Still, I don't want to focus exclusively on either one, and a vehicle every once in a while keeps things fresh.
As far as Space Marine tanks go, Vindicators are particularly brutal with their short range, high power weaponry. The Predator's more typically tank-like shape is IMO more aesthetically pleasing, but the Vindicator looks more threatening.

Generally speaking, I added some decorations here and there, but I didn't depart too far from the tank's basic shape. Since The Blackmanes form the backbone of my Space Wolves army, I wanted to make this tank a part of it, but found it a little tricky to find a space for the company badge. Eventually, I painted a yellow diamond on the siege shield by hand and added the transfer on it.

 I was somewhat unclear as to what sort of colour scheme the model should have, but eventually decided on the black and white markings of Long Fangs, since the model is a heavy support choice.

 The Vindicator kit includes a large shell and a winch, but I broke the winch assembly while fiddling around with an almost empty bottle of super glue. I didn't want to leave the rear of the vehicle completely unadorned, so I included the wolf pelt I had left unused from Bjorn's kit.

 To make the model look a little more interesting, I decided to add a commander to the tank. His body came with the Vindicator kit, with the chainaxe from Forgeworld and the head from AdMech Skitarii Ironstrider kit. I went for the dark South Fenrisian skin tone on the small area of flesh that's visible. He's pointing to the direction of the cannon decoration, as if to say "Look at our sweet figurehead, or I'll hit you with this axe!" No-one tell him he has a Demolisher cannon, that could end badly.

The tank's brutal nature made the Wolf of the Red Moon, described in the 5th edition codex as a terrible god of vengeance, feel like a natural totem to the vehicle, so I sculpted its badge to the side armour of the vehicle.
I considered sculpting a wolf's maw all around the Demolisher cannon, but that would have required some pretty major rebuilding and wouldn't have been very visible from behind the siege shield anyway, so I decided on a smaller wolf's head.
Obviously, I don't really know where the line after which you've overdone something goes, but when I found myself trying to learn to write Old Norse in Elder Futhark runes so that I could have a slightly more meaningful text on the siege shield, I was pretty sure I had crossed that line. The text is supposed to say "Vengeance of Ironhelm" on the first line, "Burning death to traitors" on the second and "Hail to Russ and Allfather" on the third. I doubt it's grammatically correct, and may very well have some spelling mistakes, but considering it's written in dead alphabet, in a dead language, on a soft sci-fi wargame model, I thought it's accurate enough.
Finally, I wanted to make the rear hatch openable, but able to stay closed, so magnetized it, with a couple of tiny magnets I bought from a local electronics retailer.

Overall, I think the model turned out fairly well. Of course, for gaming purposes, two Vindicators are better than one, but that will have to wait. I think my next tank might well be a Predator.