Why would you make these a Kickstarter Exclusive? They’re wolves, FFS.
Or more correctly, the Giant Wolves add-on boxed set from the Conan Kickstarter that I painted some barrels for recently.
Anyway, I’d selected these to take a look at alongside the Accessory Pack, and on opening them up was really quite impressed with the models inside. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any photos of them before priming or adding paint, (The render above is as good as I have, I’m afraid) but they were really a nice surprise and on par with the fine details of the stuff in the Accessory Pack. Since furry friends are usually on the easier side of the painting spectrum, and inspired by Subedai’s recent success in getting Conan’s stuff painted, specifically his Hyenas, I got busy with them pretty much immediately.
I initially primed them with Tamiya Grey Surface Primer and no real plan, then came inside to google some wolf images. On doing so, I decided that they would look good with a lot of white involved, and so re-primed them from each side with Tamiya White Surface Primer while leaving them a little darker with the grey down the back.
Once I got them inside I sorted the bases firstly by supergluing some small shards of slate down, and once that was done, I used the sample of “Area 51” scenery glue kindly sent my way from Kibo to affix the sand. I almost always prefer to use PVA because of the higher surface tension of PVA, but given that these models are pre-fixed to their bases, something with low surface tension and flow was much more useful, and the Area 51 was perfect for the job.
Next, I added some Old Citadel Bronzed Flesh (round HMG pots, baby) thinned down to add some buff tones to the fur. Following that it was a combination of a half-dozen photographs of wolves from Google Image Search and painting – utilising a mix of drybrushing and fine detail brushing in various combinations of Vallejo Model Colour Basalt Grey .869, Sky Grey .989, Reaper HD Arctic Grey, and Vallejo’s airbrush Black and Schwarzgrau primers, carefully brushed on.
The yellow of their eyes was painted with (discontinued) Citadel Foundation Iyanden Darksun, dotted with a pupil of black. A very-thinned down mix of brown and black was dabbed onto their paws to darken/dirt them a little in contrast to the majority of their pelts. As mentioned, I used various photo references as guides to painting their pelt and facial markings, taking note of the variations of colour and pattern that can be found inside even a single wolfpack with the intent to create models that (can) work as individuals while retaining a unified and natural feel for the entire pack.
A few adventurers face off with the wolves to provide a scale reference.
Models like these can of course be used in pretty much any fantasy-esque game, from Pathfinder to Warhammer to 40k to Kings of War. And so they shall be.
I took some additional pics of the wolves on the Urbanmatz Snow Territory Mat recently, so I’m adding them in here.
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
Cool man. Very good work on the fur
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Cheers mate!
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Wow… dude, they look amazing! Your research really paid off mate, because they are perfect. High 5s!
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Thanks Alex. It’s nice to have some realistic models to offset all of the insane fantasy and sci-fi beasties from time to time.
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I LOVE the paint work, very realistic. I think it also helps that the sculpts actually look like wolves. Not many wolf miniatures over the years have – most are vaguely canine interpretations but rarely hit the true lupine form. This partnered with your great paint job gives the real impression we’re looking at ‘proper’ wolves here and not just another fantasy stereotype “Warg/Worg”. Splendid stuff!
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You’ve hit the nail on the head there. The Fenrisian Wolves I painted a few years ago are done in a reasonably realistic way, but the sculpts are very much in the “warg” vein and so they don’t “feel” nearly as “real”.
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Very realistic fur, I agree with the other comments.
That is true, the fenrisian wolves do look more like “wargs” than real wolves, but as you know, I’m sure, “there are no wolves on Fenris.” 🙂
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Thanks Ann. And we’ll just ignore that little bit of propaganda from Ahriman and Magnus. What would they know, after all…?
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Indeed! Consider the source after all. 🙂
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Those are very convincing, good stuff Azazel.
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Thanks Cheetor!
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Excellent paintjob. The subtle differences in the fur markings and shades really bring those alive. The sculpts are also very good and, as Somet already wrote, they actually look like wolves. Are or will those be available separately? They are perfect as familiar or encounter and I did not come across some better looking ones so far.
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I just realised they are exclusives, should have looked more closely at the promo and not your pictures ;).
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Yeah, exclusives. Such a silly thing to have as such – and a real waste of some excellent and versatile sculpts.
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These are formidable and fantastic. I love the way the pack blends so naturally. Nice job on the research and changing course with the priming there – and that is a new technique for me to heighten the back color, really works!
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Thanks Mark. I really enjoy it when I decide that something needs natural photos as reference material. It tends to force me to learn/figure out something new on the fly in order to make it look realistic instead of just replying on what I already know and the way I already know how to do it.
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