Fifth Wulfen, painted

Units of five models tend to not be all that useful. Smaller model mass means fewer attacks in assault and fewer wounds the unit can absorb before being wiped out. However, with the Wulfen, I feel like five-man packs is the way to go. If I have ten models, splitting them into two packs and using them as a Murderpack formation makes more sense than having one large pack that will be shot at by everything in the enemy army.

 I decided I wanted at least one of my Wulfen to have dark skin. The variance in skin tones helps make the pack look like it consists of individuals, instead of copies from one template.
I considered painting the skull's helmet in winter camo at first, but decided against it. The skull has clearly been on the ground long enough to be picked clean, and while it's impossible to know how long the winters are on whatever planet my bases represent in any given situation, the dark green is suitable pretty much anywhere.

 The 13th Great Company shoulder pads still work, which is good, because it would be a problem if they stopped working before the pack was done. The dark skin was painted by starting with Rhinox Hide over black undercoat, painting that Doombull Brown, shaded with Druchii Violet and finally highlighted with Gorthor Brown.

My first pack of Wulfen is now done, excluding transport (though the Land Raider Crusader or the Stormwolf could fill that role very easily), and I think I will focus on other stuff before starting on a second one.

Wulfen Pack Leader, painted

 Slowly but surely, I keep building up my Wulfen pack. The pack leader is arguably the most important challenge of the project. The standard model's goofy looks embodies much of why the Wulfen models are ridiculed, and my goal with the Wulfen is to distinguish the models enough from the originals to get rid of the goofiness, and at the same time keep them recognisable.

One of the more central ideas behind this model was the juxtaposition between the old Thousand Sons helmet on top of his power pack and the new(er) one on the ground. I wanted to give the impression the Wulfen had been fightin Chaos for millennia.
Other than that, the model was a fairly standard Wulfen. I did paint him pale and redheaded, in an effort to display the same variety of fleshtones and hair colours as the 41st millennium Space Wolves.

 In addition to the helmet driven through with a combat knife and the bone rack, I painted the Chaos Marine helmet in Black Legion colours, to show that the Wulfen hadn't forgotten who the archtraitors were (you could argue that the Word Bearers are the true archtraitors, but I'll let the Ultramarines worry about them -- if their Codex is so great, let them prove it).

 The Wulfen pack is now 80% finished, or 90%, if you consider the modelling part to be equal to painting. I haven't decided on a transport for these guys yet, but I've been considering adding a Godhammer pattern Land Raider to the Blackmanes for a while now. I may yet choose to kill two birds with one stone.

Sicarian Ruststalker, painted

I sometimes forget that I have an Adeptus Mechanicus army, too. The models aren't as poseable and easily convertd as Space Marine models tend to be (though I've noticed an unfortunate trend of chipping away this benefit in the more recent releases), and when I decided on the reddish-brown bases, I did pretty severely limit my basing options. However, I do try to grow the army, little by little.

 The freely rotating wrist joints of the Sicarians enable some martial techniques that would be very difficult, if not impossible, for an unenhanced human to perform. For example, changing the sword between what functions much like a reverse grip and a normal grip wouldn't work as well on normal wrists, as a normal hand would probably accidentally fling away any blade with actual weight to it. I decided that, since the Ruststalker is armed with two swords, it'd have the other one behind its back, ready to parry or counterattack as necessary, while keeping the point towards its opponent.

 The colour scheme on the swords is still pretty effective, with the transition from black to white through blue. It's pretty hard to imagine what the actual sonic-based blades would look like, and I have no idea why they'd really glow blue, but again, let's not overthink 40k.

I'm pretty satisfied with the outcome of the model. I'm still not sure how to avoid the clone trooper syndrome, but as long as I keep the army small, that shouldn't be a problem, and that, in turn, should be simple enough, because the assembling the models gets samey pretty soon.

Servitor (Work in Progress)

Servitors are some of the more disturbing pieces of 40k lore. The idea of punishing someone by repurposing their body to perform some menial tasks, while their brain is basically cut out of the loop, sounds like a horror movie's premise.Unfortunately, I think that the GW standard Servitor models look too lively for what they're supposed to be. For that reason, I made my own.

 At first, I thought of using pieces from the Kataphron Battle-Servitor kit for the servo-arm, but though I had built my Kataphrons as Destroyers and had all the close-combat claw weapons unused, they didn't really look like they'd fit the part, so I would have to build by own.
Servitors are supposed to have carapace armour. I decided mine was a Blood Claw who managed to cross an Iron Priest badly enough to be made an example of. His Black Carapace implant would serve the role of the standard carapace armour.
I don't really know why an Iron Priest would have a Servitor wear trousers any more than I have my screwdrivers wear necklaces, but the other options would have been to actually have a nude Servitor, probably with some strategically placed wire bundles, or to cut him in half at the waist. The latter is still an option for the other Servitors I intend make, but for now,  I decided the Servitor would have trousers on, just as the GW standard models do.
The face is something I paid a lot of attention to. I tried to make the model look as slackjawed as possible, to show that he only moves the muscles he's been programmed to.

 I tried to really make the model look bulky enough to have been a Sky Warrior, until he did something seriously dumb and had an Iron Priest decide he'd serve the Chapter better as a walking monkey wrench than as a warrior. I think the most effective way to get this across is to focus on the shoulders and the neck muscles.

There's still plenty of work to do with the model's servo arm. This is true of anything mechanical-looking made out of green stuff. I plan to still add a whole bunch of cables and possibly modify a Space Marine backpack and give it to the model as a power source for his bionic components, the hydraulic claw in particular. Not sure about that, though, as I'd like the model to be completely scratch-built, excluding the base.
I also intend to give the model suitably Blood Claw-esque hair.

Wolf Guard Terminator with Wolf Claws

Since I started to bring my oldest Wolf Guard Terminators up to my current standard (or at least closer to it), I decided I want to do my second-favourite model next.

 The pose was inspired by a piece or artwork in the 5th edition Space Wolves Codex. The picture showed a long-haired Space Wolf in Terminator armour and Wolf Claws fighting a large Tyranid. Once I saw how this particular pair of Wolf Claws looked like on a model, I decided I want to recreate that.
Again, the model's head was sculpted out of Green Stuff. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of the head unpainted. Though I later learned to make the eyes look better and the face generally more natural-looking, I'm still reasonably satisfied with the way it looks.

I decided that I want at least this pack of my Wolf Guard Terminators to have their left shoulder pads deep red. I used Khorne Red with Mephiston Red highlights. The Crux Terminatus stone is basecoated with Zandri Dust, painted over that with Ushabti Bone, shaded with Agrax Earthshade and finally drybrushed with Terminatus Stone.

The right shoulder pads of my early Wolf Guard models have these stylized wolf head motifs. I decided against using them on all of my Wolf Guard models, but like them too much to replace them on the older ones.

Wulfen with Frostclaws and Stormfrag Auto-Launcher

I'm still working on the paintwork of the Wulfen pack leader, but decided to go ahead and finish modelling the pack. I have some (vague) plans for when I finish the whole unit, and to do that, I have to get on with it.

 The model is one of the two of the unit that have not had their poses significantly modified by heating, the other one being the model armed with the thunder hammer and storm shield. The only non-standard part of the model is the right arm that was actually promarily intended for an axe, if I recall correctly.
The skull in a helmet on the base came from a Chaos Space Marine banner.

I wanted to add some extra flavour to the model, so I quickly and simply sculpted a small pelt on the left shoulder pad. Although it's reasonable to assume any organic matter would have decomposed in the 10,000 years since the Wulfen's disappearance, the models have a few pelts and wolftail talismans as standard. I suppose that can be adequately explained by the Warp, the 40k universe's magic.

Once I finish painting this and the pack leader, I'll have to decide if I want to make another pack, or rather, how much I'm willing to put time in modelling another pack. If I was in the habit of being reasonable, I'd just assemble the other pack and try to make it unique by using the five other heads in the kit and possibly by using a different type of left shoulder pads. More likely, I'm going to end up spending months sculpting new heads for the whole pack and probably a whole lot more.

Ragnar Blackmane's Wolf Guard Terminator with an Assault Cannon

When I first got into 40k, the things that really got my attention in the second edition rulebooks were Terminator armour and Assault Cannons. Terminator models back then were metal and significantly smaller than the current ones, but they still looked big, bulky and mean, which I liked. The multi-barreled assault cannon looked like it went well with the big power armour of the Terminators.
When I returned to the hobby and started collecting Space Wolves, I particularly liked the belt-fed Assault Cannon in the Wolf Guard Terminators kit and knew from the start I'd have to make one. I decided to first make an archetypal Terminator as I saw it, with some extra wolfy bits to make him fit the chapter. So, this is another older model, and in fact the first Terminator model of the Chapter. I touched up the paintwork a little, but the model itself is mostly as it was back then.

 I wanted the model's helmet to differ from the rest of the armour, and black seemed an appropriate colour choice. The wolf's head pack marking was a simple, but functional choice. At the time, I used too much shade when painting yellow, which causes blotchiness. I mostly avoid yellow shade now.

At the time, I sometimes used Blood For the Blood God to give the weapons the appearance of having been used recently. I find I rarely like the end result, so I don't do that much anymore, and usually apply it after varnishing.
I don't know why, but I always liked the idea of deep red left shoulder pads on Wolf Guard Terminators. I think it goes well with the black-and-yellow colour scheme.

The assault cannon was painted with Warplock Bronze before thoroughly drybrushing with Leadbelcher, shaded with Nuln Oil and finished by lightly drybrushing with Ironbreaker. I still sometimes use this method for larger metal surfaces.