Space Wolf HQs - Progress

Over the last few days i've been working on my Wolf Lord and Rune Priest.  I've decided that all of my HQ units will have different coloured armour to that of the regular rank and file and decided on red for Captains / Wolf Lords etc, Purple for the Psykers and Black for the Chaplains. 

These two have taken me a long while to do, a lot longer than other models and at the moment i'm not really that happy as they don't look any better than some of my others!

The red I've used is from the White Dwarf paint scheme in the Space Hulk edition.
Started off with a basecoat of 3:1 blood red to dwarf flesh,
followed up by a devlan mud wash. 
Continuing that, two thin layers of blood red,

then a layer of blood red and vomit brown in a 2:1 mix to highlight

followed by a wash of baal red
then finally highlighted with a mix of 1:1:1 blood red, vomit brown and bleached bone.

For the face, I used a painting scheme that I found from awesome paintjob - how to paint space marine faces - http://bursleylb.tripod.com/id13.html

Basically, it uses a base of dwarf flesh,

wash of leviathan purple,

relayer with dwarf flesh

highlight with dwarf flesh : elf flesh (1:1)

highlight with elf flesh

highlight with elf flesh : bleached bone (1:1)

Rune priest.

With him (he's still not finished) I used a guess for the armour.

Started with a base coat of warlock purple : chaos black : regal blue (1:1:1)

layered with warlock purple

highlighted with warlock purple : skull white (3:1, 2:1),

washed with thraka green

continued to highlight, mixing in more skull white each time through (1:1, 1:2, 1:3)

washed again with leviathan purple then thraka green.

I tried an experiment with some directional lighting around his eyes.  I wanted to get the feeling that they were glowing with ethereal energies just prior to him casting a spell.  I used skull white for the eyeballs, ice blue and enchanted blue in glazes and kind of stippled it around the eye sockets / nose  and upper cheekbones.

In both, the wolf pelts were base coated scorched brown and chaos black respectively. 

I then drybrushed detail into each coat.

Wolf lord has -

mix of scorched brown / vomit brown (1:1)

vomit brown

gryphonne sepia wash

vomit brown / bleached bone

bleached bone

skull white (very little)

devlan mud wash

Rune priest has -

codex grey / chaos black (1:1)

codex grey

badab black wash

codex grey / skull white (1:1)

skull white (tips only)

badab black wash.

So it's taken me a long time to get through these two, and I think for the amount of time i've spent on them, the results aren't all that great.

Can anyone give me some advice on how I could speed this up or any other ideas that could help me out with painting? 

Any thoughts more than welcome!!

Space Wolves - Wolf Guard Progress

Work has been pretty hectic of late, which means little time for modelling / painting.  A few things arrived this week - ironclad dread, scout bikers and some more forgeworld stuff.  Also managed to pick up a chapel of sanctuary - interestingly it needed no painting, unlike most GW stuff. It's actually pretty nice, with some plastic stain glass windows.

Anyway, I have been working on my Space Wolves "wing" of my army this week.  In particular the Wolf Guard retinue that tag along with my Wolf Lord.  I'm reasonably happy with how they have turned out.  The bulk of painting has been done on two of the Guard, just some touching up to finish off.  Will try to get the Lord done this weekend as well for a Sunday blog update!!

Heavy Flamer and Frost Axe Wolf Guard.

I tried a different technique with the Frost Axe from a White Dwarf - November 2009 edition I think - the one with the Beastman on the cover.  It's an attempt at a "crystalline" weapon.  I thought that the Frost Axe could have a mirror-like ice finish to it.  More pics below.

As you can see, he isn't quite finished, but is looking alright.

The Heavy Flamer guy I didn't take as much time on, especially his power sword which I think I may redo.

Also managed to do some more modding of my "primarch".  Which after a bit of deliberation with Exarch Sammy J - I think he may be integral in the new background fluff that I've been considering.

The wings are from a Bretonnian Pegasus Knight.  Makes him look pretty formidable I think.  Thanks again to Exarch Sammy J for the idea. 

Before I sign off, one last pic of the Forgeworld dreaddie that I got this week. I'm going to modify him a bit to become my death company dreadnought with Blood Talons.