How to: Paint Primaris Space Wolves, part 4

If you’ve not read part 3 yet, you can find it here.

In the final part of the Primaris Space Wolves tutorial, I’ll be talking through the techniques to paint up the shoulder pads and blades, with a talk through about the weapons.

Squad markings

Although space marines are like shock troops, and don’t wear camouflage for that reason, I wanted to make their pauldrons stand out from the standard Space Wolves, who would have red and black for Grey Hunters, etc. Instead I stuck to a plain Pauldron, painted up as the armour in part 1, and just added simple markings in black.

The secret to my freehand is, that I always do a rough doodle of what I want in pencil before I start painting. In the second picture you can see the three pencil outline triangles roughly drawn on. You can draw them on perfectly if it helps, but I do rough ones and try to paint on the accurate versions with black. Once they’re painted on, I use the armour colour to paint over any remaining pencil lines.

• 

• 

• 

• 

Bran Redmaw’s Great Company Icon

The Great Company icon for Bran Redmaw looks similar to below which, though not 100% is still a reasonable representation. I could have gone over areas to perfect it and get it spot on, but for the most part, this is how I do my logos. If it’s for a special character or something I’ll go to town on it, for a normal troop, this is fine.

The initial stage was to paint the pauldron white (many layers to get a pretty much even white), then giving it a Citadel Seraphim Sepia wash around the very edge of it. Next I drew the logo on in pencil, before going over it in black. The final part was to paint on the red maw using Citadel Mephiston Red.

The main thing with freehanding logos, is to try and draw the logo reasonably well. Before pencilling it on the shoulder, if you don’t feel confident, draw it on a piece of paper and try to get it as close to how you want as you can. When you’ve got it nailed, draw it onto the miniature in pencil.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Blades

Before I go onto the blades, you might be thinking ‘What about the bolters?’ Well the weaponry I paint in a very easy way which I’ll quickly mention. I paint the body of the weapon black, and all the exposed parts in Vallejo Model Air Chrome. I then wash the Chrome with Citadel Nuln Oil, then paint any details. If it’s an Aquilla, then it’s painted the same way as the chest Aquillas. If it’s a ribbon, it’s painted like the parchment on a purity seal. I then give a final highlight of Vallejo German Grey to the black body of the weapon.

For the blades, it’s a very simple process. I paint the blade with Chrome, wash with Nuln Oil, and then use Citadel Leadbelcher to do the sloping edge of the blade. You can see this best on the bottom third of the blade on the ‘Leadbelcher’ picture. The left side of the blade has the Leadbelcher, the right has the previous layer.

After this, I use Chrome and a very fine brush to add scratches to the blade. Finally, I use Citadel Dry paint Necron Compound to drybrush a bright silver metallic onto all the edges of the blade so they stand out.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Thanks for reading! If you have any thoughts about anything above, comments on painting, or are attempting something similar, please comment, and please consider following us on the social media channels listed below:

Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / Youtube