Luna Wolves Reborn a.k.a. Cawl’s personal Guard – by Bothi

Lastly I had some spare time, so I decided to paint up 3 messenger models, as the tournament I am going to has a special missions in which you can use them. I used 3 of the new Infiltrators from the Shadowspear box. Amazing sculpts.

So. Now I am really finished. The tournament can come! I “only” painted a bit over a year on this. Lol 🙂

Next up I finished the Repulsor. What a Model. Took me ages to build. I magnetized every weapon option using 42 magnets. Painting went actually really fast. Hope you like it.

The tournament is nearing and I needed to hurry. I had two Inceptors and a Repulsor to go. I finished today.

Photos are in the new light booth with the new camera settings. Still playing around with that. Tell me what you think.

As a tournament is coming up I have to finish this army soon. Or at least a playable list. So I painted 5 more Hellblaster to complement the already existing 5 (see below) to a full 10 men squad. I also painted up the Lieutenant from “Wake the dead”. His name is Solomon in honor of Solomon Demeter.

I am also playing around with a new photo setup. Better camera, better lighting, black background. Tell me what you think (I already think my background is not black enough).

Next up will be a Repulsor. I completely magnetized it and all of its 26 weapon options. It’s already getting primed, while we “speak”.

Work continues on the Luna Wolves. This time with a Redemptor Dreadnought. First of all I have to say: I love this kit. One of the best, if not the best, I ever assembled. An absolute joy.

Otherwise I just stayed with my painting scheme for the marines. It worked nearly as good and I was suprised that it worked at all on such a large model. And the model is HUGE.

Also the entire model is magnetized. Meaning all weapon options are interchangable.

As said yesterday I painted a Primaris Librarian along side the last Intercessor Squad. I put some finishing touches on him today and thus he is finished. His name is Vardas.

Next up will be more Hellblasters (to bring the squad up to full strength of 10) or maybe a Redemptor Dreadnought.

I decided to make these minis a viable army a while back. I love the look of the new Primaris and I really like to paint this paint scheme. So I went for a few more of GWs bigger boxes.

First up I needed a 3rd troop choice to be able to field a Battalion. So. Here are 5 more Intercessors.

These are now the free posable and equipable sprues from the Wake the Dead box. I really like them and they are great to work with.

I painted a Primaris Librarian along side this squad. Should be finished tomorrow.

The deed is done. I am finished with the Dark Imperium box. The last two minis left were the Captain in Gravis Armor and the Lieutenant with Assault Bolt Rifle. I painted them along with the Hellblasters most of the time, but finished the Hellblasters first, as these two characters have some more details. They are named Garviel and Hastur.

This finishes the Dark Imperium box set. But this doesn’t mean that I am finished with this army. I will built up over the next month to a 1750 points army. And maybe even some more after that. Next up will be an Apothecary and a Librarian. These are currently in the mail. Stay tuned 😀

I was asked multiple times how I do my bases. I already posted a small overview in a the painting guide down below a few month ago. But I wanted to go more into detail and create a step by step photo guide on how I do these bases. So here we go.

Stuff you need:

• Your Base (Duh!)
• Black Paint (I use Army Painter Black)
• GW Martian Ironearth
• GW Carroburg Crimson (dark red wash)
• Some Bushes/Tufts (I use Warlords Patchy Tufts)

Step 1:

Paint the mini as you would normally do. In my case it is a white Primaris Marine. Then use a normal black paint of your choice and blacken the entire base.

Step 2:

Apply GW Martian Ironearth to the flat area of the base. If you get some on the rim use a tissue to wipe it of. Don’t worry if the rim stays a bit red, but you don’t want to get the thick stuff on it. Also don’t worry if you get some on the mini. You can use this later.

Most guides say that you should apply this stuff very thin. I completely disagree. I suggest you apply it from thick to really really thick. Like up to 2mm. I worked with this stuff a lot and it seems that the thicker you apply it the larger the crevasses you get. Try around a little and see what results you like.

In the pic below you can see how it looks completely dried. Let it cure for at least an hour. Notice the different sizes of crevasses.

Step 3:

Apply GW Carroburg Crimson to the entire base. Don’t worry if it pools in places. This only gives you deeper shadows.

Unfortunately I didn’t took a picture with the wash dried. But the base gets really dark.

Step 4:

Now you only need to drybrush the base again with GW Martian Ironearth. Don’t be too heavy with the drybrush or you destroy the shadows you created in the step before.

Also in this stage you can drybrush very lightly over the boots/feet of your mini (as I did). This creates the illusion that some of the dust has settle on your mini.

As mentioned before now you can use some mistakes you maybe made earlier to your advantage. If you got some of the Ironearth on you mini, just drybrush over and around it. Make it look like as if the mini was lying in the dust or fell down. Looks especially great on elbows and knees.

Step 5:

First get your black paint out again and paint the rim of the base black. Be careful not to get anything onto the top area of the base.

Then just glue a tuft/bush here and there and you can be finished. I like to put bushes were I went too heavy with the drybrush to cover that up.

Notice the red knee guard on the right marine. That’s what I was talking about in the step before.

Lastly I like to have name-labels for my Sergeants and other Characters. But this is of course optional and not needed for this base style.

That sums up mostly of how I do my bases. Hope to get another post out tomorrow with the last two characters.

As the title might already give away, next up were the Hellblasters. The Sarges name is Crysos, thus is the Squad named Crysos aswell.

I decided to go again for a really bright green glow on the plasma weaponry. This is painted up from old GW Snot Green, over nearly as old GW Purtrid Green to pure white. Then glazed with GW Waywatcher Green and a last dry brush with white.

Everything else is the same as described a few posts below.

As it’s holiday season over here I didn’t get as much painting done as I would have loved to. But we never have 30+ degrees over here and it would be heresy not to take advantage of this.

Nevertheless I managed to get some more Luna Wolves painted. As I am still painting my way through the Dark Imperium box I decided to go with the 3 man Inceptor Squad next. These models are a bit larger than the normal Primaris Marines and have a few different details (especially the guns) but I still think that my “quick-painting-scheme” works quite well. I nearly busted the 2h per model limit on these. But in the end I managed to finish just around the 6h mark (from priming to finished bases). Take a look for yourself:

Due to some heretic watching of football it took me a bit longer to finish those two than expected. But here we are. The Lieutenant and the Ancient for my Primaris Luna Wolves. Named after another two original and loyal Luna Wolves.

The Lieutenant took about 2h 15m and the Ancient nearly 3h due to the banner. The Insignia (Wolf and Roman 10) on the Shoulder Pads and Banner are again my self printed decals. So is the “Luna Wolves” label on the Banner. The names on the rims of the bases are freehanded. As I said I am not that good at it.

To cement my know-how in the color scheme I decided to paint up another squad of 5 Intercessors next. And I just finished today. This time I managed to get an exact timing. I put a bit more effort into them an it took me a bit less than 9 hours of ideal worktime on these. That’s not counting wait time between steps. So thats about 1h 45m per Marine. A bit more than I planned, but still acceptable for “speed painting”.

I started work simultaneously on the Lieutenant and the Ancient. These are at about the same stage (besides the bases), but have a few more details (power weapon, banner, etc.). Should be able to finish these tonight or tomorrow.

I guess I haven’t mentioned it before, but these marines are of the 10th company. Paying respect to the original 10th company of Luna Wolves (Garviel Lokens company) which didn’t join Horus and nearly all died on Istvaan III.

First enjoy a few pictures of the finished squad. Below I’ll put a complete step by step of the painting process. It should be noted that it took me less than 7 hours (if I remember correctly) to paint these. I’ll take a more exact timing on the next batch.

Paintingsteps. First natuarlly comes

Priming:

• Entire model with AP Unifrom Grey from the rattle can. Make sure you get into the deepest corners. I glue my models on nails for painting so I have a good handle on them while priming (wear a glove)
• 45° up to 90° with AP White. Also from the rattle can.
• Entire base with AP Black. From the dropper bottle with a (large) brush.

Base Colors:

• AP Black. You should have some left on the palette from the priming of the bases. This goes on the rims of the shoulder pats, a few larger parts on the backpack, the respirator, gun handles, grenades and a few pieces on the guns itself.
• Vallejo Brown. All the bags and gun holsters.
• GW Gore Red. On the top parts of the sigils.
• GW Bleached Bone. On the lower parts of the sigils.
• GW Trollslayer Orange. On the eye lenses.
• Vallejo Gunmetal. On the armour joints and gun muzzles.
• GW Ultramarine Blue. On the gunsights.
• GW Purtrid Green. On the laser marker, front of the boltgun.
• Dark Grey. This is a 50% mix of Vallejo Cold Grey and AP Black. This goes on the exhausts and larger parts on the backpack, the aquila, front handle on the boltguns, a few single parts on the bolt guns.

Highlighting / Layering:

• Dark Grey. Same mix as above. You should have some left on the palette from the previous step. Edge highlighting on everything that is black. Make these large on the shoulder pads and the grenades as these get a second highlight.
• GW Sunburts Yellow. Layering on the orange in the eyes.
• GW Blood Red. The rim of the upper part of the sigils.
• GW Graveyard Earth. Edgehighlighting on the brown things.
• Vallejo Cold Grey. Layering on the larger parts on the backpack. Edge highlighting on everything else that is dark grey (aquila etc.). A second hightlight on top of the dark grey highlights on the shoulder pads and the grenade. The respirator can take a second highlight aswell, when you have a really fine brush.
• Vallejo Foundation White: Edge Highlight on the sigils.

Clean up:

• Depending of how clean you have worked you only have to do a bit of white here and there. I use Vallejo Foundation White for this. Also I layer the white parts of the boltgun completly with white again, because the zenith shading looks weird on them

Decals:

• Cut the decals very precisely so they are as small as possible.
• Put them in water, apply Decal Set on the shoulder pad.
• Wait 30 seconds.
• Slide the decal on the shoulder pad.
• Apply some Decal Sol and move it into position.
• Wait 1-5 mins until Decal Sol is dry.
• Apply another layer of Decal Sol and try to brush the decal flat.
• Repeat until decal is completely flat on the round surface.
• Apply a layer of AP anti shine (from the dropper bottle, only on the decal).

Note: With 4 marines the Decal Sol was nearly dry when I finished the last marine with the step before. With 5+ you should be able to work without waiting.

Base:

• Just a really thick layer of GW Martian Ironcrust. This will break up, hence the black undercoat on the bases.

Washing:

• AP Quickshade Dark Tone (water based, from the dropper bottle) undiluted on the gunmetal parts.
• Super Light Wash: 5 drops AP Quickshade Dark Tone (same as above) with 5 drops of Vallejo Airbrush Flow Improver and 10-20 drops of Vallejo Airbrush Thinner. This applied to the entire model. Pick it up again if it pools somewhere. I like this effect a lot. It keeps the bright white but still shades the deeper parts a bit more. Also it binds all the colors together with a slight matt varnish.
• GW Carroburg Crimson. Apply to the entire base.

Finishing Touches:

• GW Trollslayer Orange. Thinned down like 10:1. Then applied around the eyes to create a glowing effect.
• GW Martian Ironcrust. Drybrush the base with it. Also drybrush on some places where the marine got dirty. Like the feet and the knees
• GW Soulstone Blue on the gunsights
• GW Waystone Green on the laser pointer
• AP Black. Some writing on the sigils
• Some tufts on the base ( I use the Warlord ones)
• AP Black. Just a black rim on the base.

… and TAADAAAAA, you’re finished!

double Post

As said before I started with my first prototype. A single Intercessor with that new Boltgun. Mostly this should be a proof of concept that the zenithing and the self printed decals would word on it. And to my suprise: it did!

I am quite happy with the decals. Although my printer doesn’t have the greatest resolution. I used white decal paper and not clear one as my printer can’t print white. The paper is specialized for a laser printer is like 2€ for an A4 sheet. More than enough for an entire company of marines. To get the decals on the round surface I used Decal Sol and Decal Set from Microscale Industries. This stuff works wonders for decals.

I am ok with the zenithing method. It looks a bit weird on large photographs due to the sprackled nature of the rattle can. But from like 20cm away this blends in and look amazing.

So next up should be rest of the 5 man squad.

As said in the project description I decided to paint my Primaris Marines from the Dark Imperium Boxset as Luna Wolves. As I consider myself to be a speed painter (70% focus on speed, 30% on a good tabletop result) the first question I asked myself was:

• How much time do I want to invest?

Directly followed by:

• What new techniques I want to try?

The answer to first question was quite arbitrary. 1h per Marine is ok, but no more than 2h per Marine. This should be from priming to the finished marine. So with coating, base riming and flocking.

The second question was a bit harder. I just had seen the tutorial by John here on Beasts of War, where he used a zenithing method to paint the Star Wars Legion Stormtroopers. Stormtroopers are white too. John used a rattle can to prime the troopers Uniform Grey and then used his airbrush to put some white on them in an angle. So they were white models, but hat some grey shading on them already. Problem is I have no airbrush. So I decided to try to replicate the method with two rattle cans. Uniform Grey and White. As I never zenithed before, I’ll consider this as the first new technique I am gonna use.

The second new technique was based on the problem that the Primaris Marines had no insignia on them. They where supplied with a decal sheet for the most famous loyal legions like Space Wolves, Dark Angels, Smurfs, etc. But obviously no Luna Wolves. So I had three options. Buy some extra shoulder pads with Luna Wolves insignia. Free hand the s**t out of it. Or print my own decals. This decision was easy:

• As the shoulder pads of Primaris Marines from the Dark Imperium box are no more single bits like the marines in the past (they are part of the arm or the body now) I would have to do a lot of clipping work to get other shoulder pads on them. -> not doing it
• I suck at freehanding. -> need to get better at that sometime, but not now
• Ok printing my own decals it is 😀

The third new technique isn’t actually a technique. I am using some kind of AP dip (solvent based from the huge 250ml can) on nearly everything I paint these days. But I guess it would be to strong on just white. So no dipping this time. Which is actually quite new for me.

So I had my 3 more or less new techniques to try. A great theme. And a lot of motivation. On to the first prototype!