House Taranis Imperial Knight Errant

The Imperial Knight model has a couple of problems. The most obvious one is the price, though you could argue it's pretty much in line with GW's pricing policy in general. The next problem is that there's only one way to position the legs, and while fielding multiple Knights may not be very sportsmanlike in standard-sized games, I'd still prefer to be able to position the legs differently without having to rebuild the model too drastically, or without turning to Forgeworld.
That all said, the model is still very cool-looking. Of course, I still couldn't just build a standard one, and decided to add some LED's.

 I used a multi-tool to drill holes where the model's eyes were, and added two green 3 mm LEDs. I had to slightly modify the diodes so that they would fit in the sockets, but managed to make them replaceable, in case the original pair burns out or is otherwise damaged. There are also two superbright orange LEDs in the thermal cannon, but they are disconnected from the circuit for now.

I included a wolftail talisman and what I imagine was Berek Thunderfist's (Ragnar Blackmane's predecessor) company badge. In my headcanon, the knight and the Thunderfist company served together on a campaign, where they earned each other's mutual respect. I still plan to give one of my Space Wolves models something to tie them together with House Taranis. It will probably be a Long Fang model or possibly a Dreadnought.

The mask is magnetized and removable, as can be seen here. If I buy the new, expanded Knight set at some point, I plan to magnetize the other Mechanicum masks similarly to make them interchangeable.

 I was going to magnetize the main ranged weapon, too, so that it could be changed between a thermal cannon and a rapid-fire battle cannon. However, I would have had to somewhat compromise the appearance of the weapon, and decided against it.

Despite the effort to tie the model in with my Space Wolves, I did eventually end up basing it with the red sands style of my Adeptus Mechanicus army.
I'm reasonably satisfied with how the model turned out, and am tempted to buy the expanded kit, probably making it into a Knight Warden. We shall see.

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

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