Painting Space Wolves

By Anthony Karl Erdelji

I never intended to write an article on painting Space Wolves, hence the lack of any "in-progress" shots, but I received so many questions on how I painting mine, I thought this would be helpful.

I assembled the marines as normal, but I left off the bolters so I could paint the chest eagles. They were primered white. I started by basecoating them in Games Workshop Shadow Grey (This is the proper color according to GW) with my airbrush. An airbrush is not necessary, but it making this a lot easier. Shading comes next. This is where most people get stuck. The blue-gray basecoat is confusing since it is difficult to decided whether to use a dark blue or black to shade. I shaded with a coat of Ral Partha black ink over the entire marine. The benefit of using RP ink is that it is much more transparent than standard ink and works perfectly in this situation. 

The ink darkened the blue a bit too much so I had to go back and reapply the Shadow Grey. This coat and all of the following coats were applied with a drybrush/scrubbing method. Take a large, flat, short bristled brush, I used a number 10 brush, and dip the tip of the brush in your paint, then brush the excess paint out of your brush by scrubbing it on a paper or cloth towel. You just want a minute amount of paint on the brush otherwise this technique will not work. Test your brush out on the back of your hand. If you see any brushstrokes you have too much paint.

Once your brush is ready apply you need to scrub the paint onto the miniature. Imagine your removing a stubborn stain from a kitchen sink. Use the motion to apply the paint. You'll need to scrub firm, but not so hard as to remove the basecoat.

With the reapplication of the basecoat, I applied three highlighting steps, added a bit more white to the shadow gray each time. The first two were applied with the scrubbing method. The final highlight was applied with a standard drybrushing method, dragging a small brush with a bit more paint gently over just the edges of the armor.

All of the gold areas were undercoated with Vallejo golden ochre, then based with GW burnished gold and washed with RP chocolate brown. The fur was based with Coat d'arms bone, then washed with RP chocolate brown, then wash gain with RP black in a smaller region on top of the brown.

The other areas of the model were painted as obviously shown and I don't think they need any explanation. Red, yellow, and black and your done!