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Hello everyone, some more metal models today. Mostly painted using dry brushing and tapping technique. Here is my take on Jason Wiebe's 02897 Hellhounds. I intend to use these Dark Heaven Legends models as Dire Wolf in my D&D games. I really like them, they will also fit as Worg or even Barghest if the opportunity arises. I painted them with Reaper MSP paint and fixed them on 50mm bases.

https://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/news/still-snarling-after-40000-years-a-giant-pleistocene-wolf-discovered-in-yakutia/ The intact head of a gigantic wolf has been discovered in Siberian permafrost. The head is 40cm long, as large as a modern donkey’s head (fully half the body length of a modern wolf!)

So this is an experiment in multiple ways. First, when I painted this guy up. I wanted to try and paint a black wolf for something different. I wasn't sure how to make the fur stand out, so this is the first time I've used reference photos. Also for the longest time I've been having trouble getting photos to turn out. They look fine on the phone but awful on my laptop when I try to edit them. Turns out, when you upload things to a potato, they look like potato. So I'm seeing if I can make it work with just my phone. Anyway here we go.

Here is a 77437, Winter Wolf I painted in black to make it look like it's a Worg for the purpose of my D&D campaign. This model was sculpted by Sandra Garrity and I mounted on a 25 x 50mm base.

Loved doing this!

These gorgeous wolves (Thunderbolt Mountain 8560) are the nicest giant wolf sculpts I have ever seen. They are by the legendary Tom Meier. IMPORTANT: TOM MEIER IS CLOSING HIS THUNDERBOLT MOUNTAIN STORE DEC. 25 OF THIS YEAR, SO IF YOU ARE INTERESTED, GO THERE NOW! They are pretty big. I mounted them on 1.5" fender washers for extra stability. Tom Meier sells optional goblin riders for them. WIP thread with extensive color notes, painting details, and comparison to other wolf figures here.

I had these in an RAFM blister and as I recall their bases said RAFM (I glued them to 1.5-inch fender washers for stability). I haven't been able to identify them. They look like the sorts of giant wolves that are ridden by goblins. I am not sure where they came from. Well, apart from RAFM, obviously. They are pretty big. Here's a size comparison with the RAFM one on the far right: Left to right these are: a wolf from Reaper 02830; a wolf from Reaper 77176; Reaper 03682 Willow Greenivy; a giant wolf from Thunderbolt Mountain 8560; and an RAFM mystery wolf. I painted them as several different types of wolf, one with a snow base and two with grassy bases, for multiple uses. Their bases are 1.5". Extensive WIP with lots of color mixing and technique notes here.

Here's something I have been meaning to do for a while, since apparently I have had Tom Meier's Thunderbolt Mountain pack of three giant wolves (Thunderbolt Mountain #8560) and RAFM's three dire wolves so long I can't even remember when I got them or how on earth I got an RAFM product I can't seem to find mention of on the internet. I also nabbed a set of Reaper's #02830 Wolf Pack, which contains three smaller wolves, still impressively sized next to humans. Here they are, cleaned and glued to bases (all nine wolves were more prone to tipping over sideways than I like). Reaper, on one-inch fender washers: Thunderbolt Mountain, on 1.25-inch fender washers: RAFM, on 1.25-inch fender washers: And here they are together for a size comparison, from left to right: A Reaper wolf from the set, the Bones wolf from the Familiar Set #77176, Reaper's Willow Greenivy #03682, a Tom Meier giant wolf and an RAFM dire wolf. I would say the Reaper wolves are the most classically wolf-shaped. They are a bit large for wolves (see the picture above for scale). They are realistic and look well posed for various purposes. The two larger sets of wolves are almost the size of small ponies and look like they are begging for goblin riders. The Thunderbolt Mountain giant wolves have the elegant long, thin legs Tom Meier gives a lot of his creatures (I have also seen some astonishingly elegant wolfhounds and impossibly graceful insect-like horses from his hand). Here they look maybe almost a little too long and thin, but they are certainly beautifully sculpted, as are the ranks of fur sliding along the animals' forms. Their poses are realistic and expressive. The RAFM dire wolves, as large as the Thunderbolt Mountain ones, are a lot more cartoony. Their faces are kind of pushed-in and piggy and their anatomy doesn't make as much sense. They move oddly, although melodramatically. They definitely have a mood of menace to them. Something was a little off with the casting of the Thunderbolt Mountain wolves. Two of them had little pits along their spines, as though there were just not quite enough pewter in the mold or something. I filled them in with epoxy and tried to smooth it out to match the surface. At the moment the figures are glued but not yet primed. When I paint these, I am thinking of painting them mostly as realistic grey wolves, white arctic wolves, and perhaps some black wolves.

Just finished this Warg (Reaper SKU 77202) to be used by our party druid when he shape changes into a Dire Wolf, I modded on the spikes with copper wire as studs and then used ProCreate to sculpt them on. For me, this is just a quick Tabletop+ figure that I enjoyed doing and it'll allow us to have another large wolf miniature at the table when we need it. WIP found here. Anyhow, C&C are welcomed and appreciated, thanks for looking!

Today, I'm working on another animal form for the Druid PC in my D&D group. I pulled out the bones Warg (77202) from my collection and added some spikes to his back in order to get him to look like a Dire Wolf. Anyhow, here's the progress so far today, I'll add more pics as I continue one. Not as many as I usually do for my WIP as I'm trying to zip through it. I do have a fun little thing to add to the base towards the end.

As has been a theme this year, the minis I manage to paint will all count towards the resolutionary challenge. As per the resolutionary painting challenge guidelines, I will post them here, and link in my post in the challenge thread. Once upon a time I read a short story by Isaac Asimov, entitled "Shah Guido G", a story about a floating cityisland named Atlantis, it's Shah named Guido G and the landing of a flotilla of flying craft called Waves all at the same time. Yes, you might guess correctly what happened next, and that the whole story was nothing but a massive setup for a single punchline. Groan. It was a so-called Shaggy Dog story, and I realized that Asimov even actually gave that fact away in the title. (read it like) "Shahgui-doG". Groan again. You see a Shaggy Dog story rambles on at length, only to end in a punch-line like sudden and "humorous" way. Does Rickons wolf's name have any double meaning? Let the unending conspiracy theory-like debates commence! Dire Wolf Bones KS2 92607 Reaper Miniatures Bonesium PVC 50x25mm oval base by Warbases.

I am starting a new D&D 5e campaign Monday, running the Princes of the Apocalypse adventure. I was inspired by getting my Oathsworn terrain yesterday to incorporate it into the adventure, so this morning when I got home from work I started painting minis. The first adventure involves five giant rats and a black bear, and the party has a druid who wants to wild shape starting at level 2. I started prepping five terrain pieces (two tents, the well, cookpot/fire and firewood) and nine animals (6 rats, a black bear, a lion and a dire wolf). I am a slow painter at the best of times, so I really forced myself to work fast. I am also not a very good painter at the best of times, so I was prepared to accept some serious mediocrity just to get them table ready. My group uses a lot of prepaints, so that was my quality goal with this speed session, make something that wouldn't look out of place next to prepaints (low bar, I know). Amazingly, I got both tents, all the rats, the dire wolf and the black bear finished. I also got a fair bit of progress on the cookpot/fire. And even more amazing, they don't suck. They aren't great by any means, and looking at the photo I can see some things that could use fixing, but I am really pleased with the results. Especially the tents, and the black bear. I think I got a nice weathered canvas tent look (the green on the bottom edge was deliberate, I wanted it to look like grass from the base), and the bear's snout really turned out well, I think. For colours I used a bunch of Reaper paints. Most of the figures were base coated in ruddy leather, the others were based in tanned leather (unfinished lion, tents) or black (black bear and a couple rats). I did have some trouble using the pure black (09037) as a base coat, it tended to bead a bit, but I did manage to get it to stick after re-coating it a couple times. I will pick a different black if I want to base coat another mini. I used ruddy leather, tanned leather and linen white for the tents, and did a black wash on the dire wolf. I used muddy olive and olive green for the mossy looking grass, and some stone grey for blending, sun yellow for eyes , brains pink for tails and fresh blood for mouths (and some drips on the dire wolf base).

Time for some evil canines! Tre Manor of Red Box Games sculpted the mighty Fenris wolf, a really nice resin miniature which was just a joy to prep, assemble and paint. I mostly followed this tutorial which I thought was quite nice, but substituted with Reaper paints. Hope you like the way I painted him, I'm happy with how he turned out, but am actually tempted to at some point get another of these and paint up in black with glowing red eyes for a more nightmarish look. To accompany Fenris I also painted up the six dire wolves I got from Tre's second Kickstarter, here are two of them: And all of them together with papa Fenris: Lastly, a scale shot showing the poor Sir Forscale out in the wilderness trying to secure a wolf pelt for his lady, but probably biting off a little more than he can chew: