Bran Redmaw Conversion

Ready for paint..

I think….

There's a few bits to clean up, primer always shows you the flaws, it’s why I do it when I think I am nearly there. – incidentally I used the Vallejo airbrush primer this time as the humidity was high and i didn't want to mess it up with my usual Halfords can, hence it’s quite a bit darker.

He’s been a long … time … coming if you red the blog regularly you’ll have seen that, but I’m happy with the current state of affairs.

Here’s the rest of the pics -

 

A suitably dark paintjob will be required I think, lots of fur, and maybe black trim in places, rather than gold? hrm, will have to ponder some more.

The backpack was made from a regular wolf power pack from the grey hunters/blood claws box, with some bitz chopped off axes from the same box, the big ol’ axe is “borrowed” from the Thunderwolf Cavalry box, as is the chest plate. The fur cloak, collar and tabard are sculpted using this technique and the beard was similarly added by me. The head is from the terminator box with it’s top knot removed.

I have part of a GH squad on the paint bench at the moment, but this bloke might well be next.

Thanks for taking the time to read, your comments have influenced this build and I value them all :)

Cheers!

Space Wolves - Fur Sculpting Tutorial Video

Had half an hour today so thought I would record as I did this next bit of work on Bran.

It’s soundless, hence captioned, and for some reason my best light seems to cause banding in the video – I'll have to look into that.

Anyway, it’s a short demo/tut on how I sculpt the tabards and fur on the wolves. Here’s hoping someone finds it useful.

Thanks for viewing!

A question about Bran Redmaw

 

Oh and .. KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!

Yeah, so a week after my typing “I did think about using a nice dynamic sculpt like Khan as the basis of this, but ya know, he’s mail order only.. and metal” they go and release a finecast. dammit. never mind, I’m committed now.

So I was doing some GS groundwork, I put in the shape of his loincloth (fur to follow) and started on his beard.. with the intention of adding flowing hair..

But he’s been sat on my desk a week now as a baldie, and I'm not sure if it’s not the way to go..

here’s a black and white close up, so the green isn't distracting

So whaddya think? Is Bran Redmaw Bald? or do I carry on with hair?

Mark of the Wulfen - Modelling

Having decided to enter into a bit of Bran Redmaw’s shenanigans, I figured it was time to model up a few of these.

 
Of course I cheated, and instead of getting busy with the greenstuff, I ordered some bitz from puppetswar, who is a sculptor/bitz manufacturer in, I believe, Poland. He produces a pack of arms and heads, for 14eu you get enough arms and heads to convert up 10 Wulfen.

The kit arrived in just about 4 working days and is well packaged for transport, The bitz themselves are well detailed and although there is some flash, so far I’ve seen very few casting issues and they are very minor (such as an air bubble at a fingertip that will take seconds to deal with). All in all very good quality.

I’ll certainly use these guys again, and with the breadth of products on their site, maybe more than once.
The guy pictured above is my first test case model and I think he’ll paint up well. leaving only the one question… Shoulderpads?

Making Space Wolf Objective Markers

Oh I went right round the houses making these!.

I decided I wanted to make Norse style runestones, Menhir, which meant I needed to carve “runes” into stones.. now I don't exactly have the equipment or skill to start chiselling away at rock in 28mm scale.. so I decided it had to be plaster…

First job is to head out into the world and pick some suitable “scaled” monolithic rocks.
 
Once you have enough, return to your lair and what I did was mount them on a firm base using blutak. this was a bit of a mistake, and I knew it at the time, but I didn't have plasticene (which would have been Waaaaay better) but I did have blu-tak.


The next task is to build a support structure around the rocks to prevent your mold making materials from going all over the shop.. I see a lot of people online use lego for this, but again, not having any I use old off cuts of perspex, and glue them with hot glue, as I know i can break this apart with relative ease later





once the structure is complete, it’s time to start making the mold 
I used laytex for this, as I do for any rock castings, such as the rocks on bases or in larger terrain pieces. although you could use rubber.
the first layer is “neat” laytex brushed on so as to capture all the detail.





The next layer is with added thickener and goes on heavy.
you can keep adding layers slowly, and indeed should, but my laziness will not allow this, so I put a quite thick application on, and walk away for 24 hours.




24 hours later….










And it’s time to pick apart the mold and see what we made… as you can see, clearing away the blu-tak was a bit more difficult that I would have liked.. note to self.. buy plasticene…

 
The empty mold…


not going to be easy to cast from this.. a support structure is needed…

Tah-Dah!

metal rod, box.. hole.. sorted. Now in the past I’ve used plaster and mod-roc to make a plaster outer support brace but this really wasn't necessary for this, it just needed holding 2upside down” for plaster to be poured.
 
plaster of paris is tricky stuff. it can sometimes be so exothermic it will burn you quite badly, and it contains lime, so watch your eyes.. that said, its awfully useful stuff.

most packets you can buy in the hobby shop have instruction, I would suggest following them, as I never do.. been using the stuff so long i tend to eyeball it. in this case I made my plaster a tad too thick for the mold, and got a few more air bubbles in my cast that I would have liked, but no matter, gave me an excuse to explain how to fix them :)



Two hours later, I can de-mold and look at my cast stones.



The air bubbles are filled with GS and the texture applied by pressing one of the original stones into the still soft GS to transfer the correct texture.
Also, at this stage the castings are glue gunned down to 40mm bases.


 
 
The design is carved into the surface of the soft plaster with a needle mounted in a dowel









And the newly created runestones Menhir are dressed with Bitz…and based in keeping with the army.









And here they are in primer.
For painted pics, see the post here.


Thanks for reading, comments or questions always welcome!

Wolf Scout Conversions Painted

 
Fairly happy with how these guys have come out, as they were a bit of a compromise between speed and quality, also, going in, I wasn't sure how to approach them, I toyed with using some camo.. but it wasn't right, in the end I went for a slightly muted version of a “normal” Space wolves paint job.
 
the Squad is rolling heavy with melta bombs, plasma pistols and a melta gun.. I do have the parts to make five more of these guys, and will probably, with the exception of a wulfen model, do them “vanilla” to give me a cheaper deployment option.
anyway, individual pics incoming.
 


 





 
thanks for dropping by to take a look at these!