Marine showcase - Space Wolves and Crimson Fists

Second showcase coming up with five more to go.

Space Wolves

The Space Wolves were a bit more tricky to get right as I didn't want them to look too dark or too light. Also, as I'd decided to use Harald Deathwolf's company I would need to freehand the shoulder pads. I started by painting the model in Fenris grey on a black undercoat. After that, I added a layer of 50:50 shadow grey and space wolves grey (SWG) which was a nice middle-of-the-range colour to use as the primary colour for the model. I highlighted with a further 50:50 of the above mix (which I called Russ grey) with SWG on the larger areas, followed by an egde highlight of pure SWG.

For the gold I used my typical 50:50 tin bitz:vallejo gold followed by vallejo gold alone. The left shoulder pad was built up using mechrite red blended up to blood red, with the highlights done a garish orange before being washed in thinned red to dull them and blend in. The right on the other hand was built up from iyanden darksun to sunburst yellow with the blood red painted on top. The free hand wolf was just white and black with a steady hand and some patience. Using fenris grey I added some runes to the right leg, as I didn't want to simply paint on text as with the ultramarines. The SW codex has lots of rune examples to draw upon on the borders of it's pages. The rim of the base was painted calthan brown, while the top was painted white. I then mixed some GW snow with PVA glue and painted it thickly over the top of the base. Once it was covered I sprinkled a little white powder over the top and left it to dry.

Crimson Fists

For the Crimson Fists I wanted a rugged, weathered look to symbolise the hardship the chapter has endured. Therefore, I dispensed with the usual precise line highlighting and went for a drybrushing technique for the majority of the marines; for the honour guard/characters I was happy to do the usual highlighting. All in all I'm happy with a quick and easy paintjob for the chapter, a contrast to the detail and precision required with say Blood Angels.

The armour was regal blue over a black undercoat, with a drybrush of regal blue mixed with SWG to pick out the edges. Some areas I did give an additional line highlight to in order to make them stand out better. The whole model was then washed with thinned chaos black to make them look extra dark. Reds were mechrite red with red gore painted over. I added in a few lines of text and squad markings also. Most of my crimson/imperial fists have the metal shoulder pads/backpacks which means it's easy to freehand the chapter symbol but a little more complicated to add in the circle surrounding it. The base was simply covered in sand prior to undercoating, with the rim later painted scorched brown and the sand drybrushed codex grey.