This Space Wolf successor chapter is a bit of a break from the conventional paint scheme. Granted he's a successor chapter for a friend of mine and we're really just looking at different color schemes for his Wolf army. In some ways, he reminds me more of a Blood Angel successor chapter with the black and red than he does a Space Wolf.
The idea with this guy was to do the classic quartered scheme and then really give him a weathered and beaten look. We chose the red and black since we've already gone through a number of other color schemes. I wanted to paint him up as a Pre-Heresy World Eater, but that got canned since it wouldn't have helped with picking out a usable scheme for his army. It's just the double axes look so cool.
Since I couldn't go the World Eaters route, I had no choice but to embrace the black and red pattern. I kept everything toned down and used the red areas to add some life back into the color. I used a zenithal highlighting approach and made my highlights more pure in terms of color. I didn't add tons of color to this guy either. If I was left wondering what color something should be, I made it black.
I did give both of his weapons some bronze using GW Tin Bitz. One, it gave me an excuse to use the color and two, it makes them look older and more archaic I think. Both perfectly good reasons in my book.
The mud effect on the base
This is what I am most proud of. This is my first time trying to do a "mud" base for a model. As I was building this guy, I had him on a standard flat base with some sand on top. I was focused more on the model than I was the base. Then when it came to weathering him, I sat there wondering what kind of world he was fighting on.
A while ago, I picked up some skull bases (they're actually called Bone Fields) from Secret Weapon Minis because I liked how they looked and even more than that, they reminded me of the Dark Angels Deathwing story where they liberate their homeworld from Genestealers. I will be putting a squad of Terminators on the 40mm bases I have.
I knew I wanted something dark and miserable for this guy to be fighting in so I figured these might work. And it would give me a platform to work from for the weathering. If you don't know what kind of world your guys are fighting on, you can't really weather them properly.
I've never made it before, but I'd bought the kit to do this very thing such a long time ago that I had to go find all the pieces to it. It too came from Secret Weapon minis. Fortunately, I found the directions that came along with the materials otherwise I'd have been completely lost.
Following the directions (yes, I do that sometimes) I made myself some mud. I got my ratios incorrect and made way more than I needed and it dried too fast for me. It does not take much powder to color the "mud." You also do not need much sand or plaster for texture either. I had too much of both.
And you can't just keep adding the liquid water either because that just thins things out and you don't have mud anymore. I did find a happy medium and was able to apply a little bit of texture and some color. I wasn't going for trench type warfare although this would be the perfect way to get that effect. I was going more for it's been raining for a few days straight and everything is soaking wet now.
You can see the base is recessed and is really designed to be able to hold any kind of "water." You can get and create a number of effects because of this. For me though, with this model, I just wanted to give it the wet look and have this guy slogging over a skull ridden muddy battlefield.
I really like the effect. I used some of the dry powders after the mud had dried (it dries glossy due to the water effect used) to give the illusion of mud that had dried on his armour. The dry powders are slightly lighter than the "wet" mud and gives the illusion of layers that have built up on his armour.
I didn't use much mud because I was using a few other effects like the chipped and scratched paint and dirt buildup in recessed areas of his armour. I did add some rust to his weapon and metal areas to show the dampness of the environment already taking it's toll on his equipment.
Of all the color schemes we've done for his army, I think I like this one the best. Of course it's got the most work into it as well so that might be the reason. I'd like to think I'm starting to get the hang of weathering and finding the balance between all the techniques that can be used.
Make sure to check out these posts as they might help:
The trick to painting black is in the details
Weathering icons and details on your model
