Painting Space Wolves Space Marines Part 3

Greetings Brothers, and Welcome to the third part on how to paint a Space Wolf Space marine. We will continue using the methods and principals shown on the previous two segments of this tutorial.

1. Keep in mind the importance of contrast on a miniature and its three levels, dark/standard / bright

2. Always water down your paints

3. Use the minimum possible quantity of paint on your brushes

4. Stabilize your hand before painting

5. Have a good light source

6. Paint areas of the model one by one using gentle & small moves

The next thing we have to do after shading the model, is basecoat It’s trophies, armor decoration, weapons, furs and in general all the details that make a space Wolf so unique. Like we did with the armor, after painting a basecoat on all the above we will shade them with wash. I like to start by painting with Badab Black the joints between the armor. They are already shaded by the wash , but they still need to be pure black.

Next , I will use tin bitz to paint all the metal decoration areas on the armor. I am using this choice of color because it can be a good base for gold or bronze, plus it is strong enough to stay on its own if I choose so. When painting thin small areas like these, you have to be careful not to water the paint too much, because it may be harder to control it.(1-2 drops of water for every drop of paint will be enough).

After that, I use dheneb stone to basecoat all the skull and wolf teeth trophies on the model. While painting all these details, try not to touch the armor and leave a small gap where the previous wash has settled. This is important to create contrast on the final result. You don’t have to be too worried about avoiding the eye sockets and nostrils of the skulls. Keep in mind that all these will receive a good wash with Devlan mud later.

Personally I use the paint cup as palette as I find it to be quicker and more practical to do so. I always keep them clean though and water down the paint on it.

Use Bestial brown to basecoat the purity seals and the ropes and knot-works or any equipment holsters on the model. I basecoat the rune stones with hawk turquoise, because I like them to have a glowing effect (I will highlight with ice blue later).

Basecoat the eyes with mechrite red. Use as less as possible paint on the brush. It has to be diluted with two drops of water. Then you need to paint a small red line inside the eye socket using just the tip of your brush. Don’t attempt to fill the eye socked with red. It is harder to do so, but also there needs to be that small space between the lens and the edges of the eye socket.

This is a preview of what the final result will be, so you can have an idea.

Moving on, its time to paint the weapons. The holy Bolter and the mighty chainsword. These will be metal & black. I choose to paint the metal areas first because they are for the most part under the black parts. Using watered down boltgun metal (in order to be applied easier and because I want this coat to be thin as more coats of wash and black will follow on top of it) , I basecoat all of the chainsword, and the lower parts of the boltgun. Make sure to spread the paint evenly everywhere and try to avoid letting it swamp on any part. After the metal has dried, it is time to paint the black parts which are the upper part of the bolter, and the most part of the chainsword blade.

After the model dries, don’t worry too much if you have missed some spots, it will all be covered nicely by the badab black wash that follows. Wash the whole weapon, from hilt to top with badab black. This wash doesn’t need to be diluted that much, just make sure that it spreads evenly. The purpose is of this coat of wash is to darken the metal parts, but also to fill any gaps, and cover any mistakes. Make sure to apply some between the blade’s teeth!

After the wash has dried you can paint the detail on the bolters.

Finally we have to paint the shoulder pads. This will take at least two coats. First we will start with the right pad which will be painted red as the model is a grey hunter. I will paint a thin coat of mechrite red. (By saying a thin coat I mean coat of diluted mechrite red. 2-3 drops of water, 1 drop of paint. I am making this clear for those who are not familiar on what a painter means when mentions thin coat. The more water you use, the thinner the coat is) With this first coat the purpose is to mark the painting area and create a base for a second smooth coat. Try to apply paint on the pad, avoiding the part where it meets the armor edge, and leave that area darkened by the wash untouched. Don’t get carried away and try to paint a full solid coat , as this is not the goal, and because this could lead in making a very thick coat with brush marks. The second coat could be blood red, red gore, or any mix you like to use depending on what the final shade of red you want your model to have. I just use a second coat with mechrite red. The second coat is more diluted than the first by one more drop. It has to be more watery because I want a very smooth and soft finish. This time I am not afraid to use a very watery paint, as I have already marked the limits on the pad and I don’t have to go near the edges (I have the previous coat reaching there. (in the photos the paint hasn’t yet dried and you can see where the second coat is reaching the first coat.

First Coat

Second Coat

I will do the same steps with the left shoulder pad which in this case has to be yellow as this brave marine is member of Ragnar’s great company. Yellow is a lot tougher color to deal with. I will use Iyaden Darksun. The first coat needs to be watered by 2 drops.

 

First Coat

Corrections

Second Coat

If while applying the first coat you accidentally make a mistake, you can recreate the line of shade between the armor and the yellow part by using chaos black. Don’t worry if it shows at this point. After the model is finished and varnished it will be ok. When this coat has dried, paint another coat, this time diluted with 4 drops. Now, this second coat can be tough to achieve without mistakes. And mistakes tend to be visible on yellow smooth surfaces like the shoulder pad. Don’t get frustrated though. Varnish, transfers, and the better look of the rest of the miniature will be able to hide everything, and you will learn how to do this better by the next time you try it !

Now it’s time to paint the pack markings on the right shoulder pad. The first time I did this, I used this technique: Use a pencil to mark with dots the tips of the pack markings, and then draw lines from there to complete the design. Start painting with chaos black from top to bottom the inside area of the lines you drew.

You can then use an eraser to clear the pencil lines that are still visible. (Gently, not to take the color off too!) A different way to use this without the use of pencil is draw a thin black line on the center of the pad, then create the angle and paint it, and then start drawing a second elliptical line to create the next part and so on.

When all the above step are finished, we need to wash again almost all these details, in order to hide mistakes and shade them a little bit. The parts that will be washed are the eye lenses, teeth trophies, skulls, metal parts, chest details and eagles,purity seals and the rune stones. All these parts will be washed with devlan Mud. The advantage to not having painted the armor yet is that we can wash generously all these parts without the fear of spoiling the clean parts of the armor.

Two last things for today. After this step of the painting procedure, I like to base my model. My basing technique is plain simple so I won’t be giving it much importance on this tutorial, as I am sure that most of you have your own basing techniques that you prefer. The other important thing is the way I paint wolf pelts and furs. Unfortunately this model hasn’t had any so I couldn’t add this technique on the tutorial. In short I will tell you that I basecoat the fur with bestial brown, wash it with badab black, drybrush with khemri brown to bring up the detail, and light drybrush with dheneb stone the edges to open it more. I will do this in more detail on other tutorials that I will make, but for now you need to know that this procedure needs to be done along with the painting of the other trophies, prior to painting the final coat of the armor, as drybrushing will dirt the armor parts and they will need cleaning afterwards.

That’s all for now brothers, Let me know what you think at the comments section .

Read Part 1 of the tutorial

Read Part 2 of the tutorial