Night Wolves commission: Logan Grimnar

My regular customer, Rhapsody, approached me last year about painting a new Logan Grimnar for his Night Wolves army (sans Rocket-Sled). I said yes, since I'd wanted to paint one since I first saw the model, but had no interest in paying that much for a mini I'd never use.

I got the mini a while later and holy crap was he detailed. It's easily the most intricately modeled mini I've ever been paid to paint. Rhapsody always preps minis before he gives them to me, and the only things he doesn't glue are bits that would make it difficult to paint the nooks and crannies. This usually means a mini will show up in two pieces. Grimnar here showed up in five. I wasn't even able to start assembling him until I was 90% done.

I knew this would be a visually busy model, so I did my best to limit the palette. The armor was either blue, or brass, the fur all had a base of Stormvermin Grey, etc. To make sure Grimnar's head stood out amongst the rest of the details I made sure his hair was the only area of pure white on the mini. Ideally this will draw attention back to the head, and differentiate it from the rest of the fur.

There were several entertaining details to this guy. The chest armor has a nice embossed scene of a trio of stars and a wolf, but it's almost completely obscured by the necklace he wears. One of the areas I wish I'd spent more time was the axe blades. My goal was to create a kind of marbled red glow, but I think I kept it too dark at the surface cracks don't read well.

Here are a few other Long Fangs I painted alongside Logan. They're done a lot faster, both because they're far smaller and less detailed, and because they just need to look good at arm's length. They're decent, but Logan Grimnar is the centerpiece of the army.

~Muninn

What I've been up to: Night Wolf Terminators

Hey all. Been a while hasn't it?

I've been keeping pretty busy in the last month or so. Following the May Mini Madness I concentrated on the remaining Night Wolf commission. For the most part this consisted of a terminator Rune Priest, a Lone Wolf, and a generic Wolf Guard.

The Rune Priest was fairly detail heavy, and had a few fun conversions to it. The client added a large Fenrisian wolf pelt onto the shoulder. I'd painted a power armored Rune Priest for him two years ago, and he wanted this to be the same character in different armor.

To accomplish this I had to duplicate the face, hair, and greying patterns of the original mini. I've replaced many of my paints from back then with the newer line, so matching colors took a little time. In addition to the fact, I replicated the lightning technique on the blade, and the glowing effect on the extended hand. you can see the comparison below.

These two should fill out his ranks nicely. Or not, I hear the Lone Wolf minis I painted can't use the weapons that were modeled for him. I haven't seen the new codex, so I'm taking his word for it. In that sort of situation I'd probably trim off the chainsword blades and swap in an axehead or hammer.

Most recently I've been plugging away on my Daemons. I signed on for the Ordo Fanaticus tournament in Portland, Ore. and now I have to paint my way up to a 2,000 point army. At the moment I have about 40 days to paint up a Lord of Change, 7 Bloodletters, 6, Pink Horrors, 5 Seekers of Slaanesh, a Soul Grinder, and a Skull Cannon of Khorne.

Doable, right?

Wish me luck.

~Muninn

Days 30 & 31: Night Wolves pack leaders

Muninn's May Mini Madness is complete for another year. This year was tough, but I made it.

Here are the final two minis for the month:

Two pack leaders for the Night Wolves. Rhapsody (the client) wanted them to stand out, so he decked them out with command-level bits. The wolf backpacks, the pelts, the veteran shoulder pads, etc. He also wanted them painted to a slightly higher level, and for the fur to be white instead of brown.

My only contribution to the conversion was the first leader's head. If you don't recognize it, I don't blame you, since it's from the Empire Hurricane Priest. I'd bought the mini for my Tau Ethereal conversion, so I had a head left over, and I thought it would fit nicely on a wolf body. All it took was a little Greenstuff work.

I finished each of these guys on their respective days, but I didn't have time to take their pictures until today. it worked out alright though. I wanted to finish three more Night Wolves for the last day, but I just ran out of time. I still finished 31 minis in as many days, so I'm happy.

I'll write up a recap later this week. Take care all, and thanks for following the madness.

~Muninn

Day 14: Long Fang (5/5)

Alright, this unit is done.

I still have 5 Night Wolves to finish this month: 3 sergeants, a Lone Wolf terminator, and a Wolf Guard. All of them are here on my painting table, quietly waiting their turn to reach completion.

There's quite a bit on my painting table at the moment actually. 5 termis, 7 marines, a daemon herald, a Tyrant Guard, some warmachine, reaper, and my end-of-the-month game store painting contest entry. That might not seem to be a lot, but my painting table is a GW painting station sitting on a tray table (now that the twins are walking I have to be able to move my bench to the top of our dresser for protection, for both the twins and minis)

More tomorrow,

~Muninn

Day 12 & 13: Celestial Lion (1/4) & Long Fang (4/5)

Years and years ago Yorrik & I were contemplating a Kill Team campaign at our FLGS. If I remember correctly he was working on a SoB team, and I decided to create a group of elite space marines. I started getting interested in 40k when the Armageddon books were coming out, so I always liked the fluff behind the Celestial Lions.

Who better to play in kill team missions then a group of dejected marines fighting to regain their honor and save their chapter? I started five minis almost a decade ago, but I've only be able to find four of them to finish this month.

I've always liked their color scheme, although the gold can look a little grainy. I'm still using my old Shining  Gold though, so I don't know if newer line, or other manufacturers have smoother application.

The next mini is the fourth Long Fang to grace my painting table this month.

Say what you will about Space Wolf minis, but good lord are there a lot of head options. I've been painting this commission for a while now, and he has yet to duplicate a single head. It's kinda nice actually.

~Muninn

Day 11: Night Wolves Long Fang (3/5)

Here's another Long Fang I finished. Like I said, I'm hoping to hammer out the remainder of my commission this month, so get used to this scheme. :P

The armor scheme was relatively easy for these guys. As far as the armor & details were concerned I didn't blend or fade. Just color, color, wash, color. Sometimes not even that much.

I put the same amount of detail in the face and hair as I do for all my minis, since people pay more attention to faces & heads so they need to be presentable.

Blue: Necron Abyss basecoat ---> Hoeth Blue highlights ---> Asurmen Blue (watered down) wash
Bronze: Warplock Bronze basecoat ---> Runelord Brass layer ---> Agrax Earthshade (watered down) wash
Silver: Boltgun Metal basecoat ---> Nuln Oil wash ---> Boltgun Metal highlight
Leather: Balor Brown ---> Agrax Earthshade wash ---> Balor Brown layer
Fur: Bestial Brown basecoat ---> Agrax Earthshade wash

More tomorrow, I'll try to break up the stretch of Night Wolves a bit with a different chapter or two. We'll see how it all shakes out.

~Muninn

Days 9 & 10: Night Wolf Long Fangs

 This weekend was crazy. My family is sick, I was working until late, then up early the next day, then it was mother's day, excuses, excuses.

Suffice to say, the last few days have been long, but I'll be caught up shortly.

Friday & Saturday's minis are missile launcher Long Fangs for my friend's Space Wolf army. (I'm not sure if he has an official name for them, but I call them Night Wolves)

My goal was to batch-paint these, so they aren't as precisely executed as a lot of my other work. When we were negotiating prices he wanted them to look good at a distance, but didn't need them to be showpieces like some of his other minis. I also cheated a bit with the lining of the shoulder pads. In an effort to save time I used a .05 micron pend to line the recesses. It doesn't look great up close, but at an arm's length it's fine.

Before the end of the month I hope to have 8 more night Wolf commissions done.

More later today.

~Muninn

Day 2: Fenrisian Wolf

The second finished mini for the month is a Fenrisian Wolf commission for a friend's Night Wolves army. This is the 18th and final wolf from the group I did for him. This one lagged behind the others a bit because I've been taking my time in order to take photos for a tutorial.

I adapted the Zenith spray painting technique a bit in order to knock out a bunch of these wolves in a quick and easy fashion. It isn't super high-end painting, but it should catch plenty of attention to see over a dozen painted wolves hit the table.

Aside from the base and several details (eyes, teeth, paw-pads) only one paint is used. Everything else is spray paint and washes.

I'll be posting a tutorial in the next few days.

~Muninn

Commission: Night Wolf Guard complete

Okay, so after getting a few more instructions from the client, these guys are finished.

 I'm pleased with these guys, although I kinda abandoned the "speed painting" aspect of this gig, but hey, I like painting, so no worries.  Hope he likes them, cuz we're already arranging some more commissions this year. Good stuff.

~Muninn

Commission: Night Wolves Terminators, continued

Happy New Years all. Hope 2013 treats you well.

Since my last post about these Wolf Guard three weeks ago, I've made quite a bit of progress, but haven't quite wrapped up the last details. Here's how they looked last week.

All that's really left to be done is the weapons, the armor edging & wash, and a few details like the missiles & remaining gems. I'll also be adding a few yellow details here & there. Probably just kneepads, & a few edge triangles on the shoulder pads. After today I've got a four days off, so they'll definitely be done before week's end.

~Muninn

Commission: Night Wolves Terminators

I jumped into my Night Wolves commission this week, and I'm hoping to have them done before the apocalypse on Friday. The owner wanted them to look good, but wanted the Detailed HQs to stand out comparatively.

There are 7 termis in this batch, and less then a week to do them, so I'm doing my best to push my speed painting. Mostly this means I'm not doing any more than three layers on any given color: a base coat, a wash, and a highlight. Not necessarily in that order.

Here's the first guy I completed to test the scheme:

He was a quick piece of work, so he isn't perfect, but I think he'd good for what he is, and he'll stand out nicely once he's on the table.

The armor itself is pretty simple. Here's a quick side by side of the progression.

It's done in four steps (not including priming):
1.) A coat of Krylon Indoor/Outdoor Regal Blue. It coats nicely, but it only available in gloss finish (note how shiny it is in the pic above). This doesn't affect the finished product though, because once it's hit with a coat of wash it mutes the sheen.

One important thing to note: The spray can be thick and will muck up some fine details. So to protect certain areas, like the heads and faces, I cover them with strips of masking tape.

2.) A coat of Citadel Regal Blue. I'm still working with the old citadel paints, so I don't know what to recommend out of the new line. I've found that paints flow really nicely over the krylon gloss, and it's really easy to see which areas you've missed because the difference in gloss.

3.) Extreme highlights with a Regal Blue/Skull White mix. Nothing drastic here, just hitting the high points & more visible edges.

4.) A slightly watered down wash of Asurmen Blue wash. A little bit of this wash goes a long way, so I'm fine watering it & spreading it a little thin.

Like I said, I'm painting seven of these guys, so it'll test my attention a bit, but I've got my goal in mind & I hope to hammer them out in short order. More updates as I complete them.

~Muninn

QUICK REMINDER: I'm doing my drawing for my Emperor's Champion Giveaway tomorrow. So sign up if you'd like a chance to win. May the odds be ever in your favor. :P

Night Wolves: Rune Priest

My commission project with my friends army, the Night Wolves, continues.  It's a pretty good deal really. He converts/assembles his minis, then gives them to me for painting.

Today I finished one of his Rune Priests. His painting requests were relatively simple: He wanted the outstretched hand to glow as though it were shooting lightning, the hair to look like a graying redhead, and the spear to look badass. Here's what I came up with:

 I hope the effect is simple but effective. I didn't want to do much with Object Source Lighting (OSL), so i kept it isolated to the palm of the hand. I also tried to mirror this with the white/blue eyes.

It isn't as noticeable in the pictures, but I also tried my hand at an electrical effect on the spear to go along with the lightning motif.

The Thousand Son on the base was its own little accomplishment. the 1k Son & Rune Priest use a pretty similar palette, so I tried to lighten the prone marine's armor, & did a little OSL green to differentiate it & draw a little attention to it.

This was a fun one to paint overall. I'm not sure if I'd do anything differently other than lighten the 1k Son's armor a bit more.

~Muninn

Night Wolves: Logan Grimnar

A few years back I painted a Rune Priest for a buddy, I was bored, & it was pretty much on a lark. Now, years later, he'd like me to continue painting his army & he's offering to pay. He uses a dark blue scheme for his wolves (originally I used Storm Blue as a basecoat, but that isn't a thing any more, so I've been substituting Necron Abyss).

He likes the original mini, but wants the new guys' armor to be a few shades lighter, and the metal to have a brassy tone to it.

I finished this guy in early March, but I figured I could stand to break up my Mini Challenge with something else.

I'm happy with him, and the owner is too. You can't see it this picture but the door he's standing on has freehand scrawlings and Blood Angels icons as well as some weathering. If I'd had a bit longer I would have liked to do a little freehand linework on the cloak along with a few runes, although I figure it's probably still above & beyond for the price without it.

~Muninn