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These were all done at different times with three different approaches, but all of them came out pretty good an I'm happy with this whole dry brushing method I've taken to. BATTLE REPORT! Dire Wolf 1 (Left) Wins - * Skin color looks great. Did a light brown to a buff color. Helped bring up the textures. * Used a nuln oil between the fur and the skin, which gave it kind of a cool faded effect. * Sky grey color seems a bit strong. It helped show the highlights, but it may be a bit strong. * Purple/brown mix of inks in the mouth worked well, but should have gone with other colors for the muscles exposed. On a 1 to 10, I'd score this one a 5.5. Misses - * Purple ink was a bit strong. I was going for open sore look, but it just looks like he stepped in purple paint. * Could have gone back over the exposed muscle and skin areas with matching skin tones, but got lazy. Wah wah. Dire wolf 2 (Middle) Wins - * Used my new drybrush palette I made from corkboard (works like a charm!) and really helped with getting a good paint laydown with no streaking. * The color of the wolf's skin was 2 tones: Beige Red to Buff. Worked pretty good! I was thinking of a kind of reddish "I've been eating bloody things" look. * The other two wolves were done with all black primer. This one was done with Grey. * I then washed the wolf with a black/green wash I made and it really settled nicely into the grey. Will do again! This also helped keep the high points light. * Wolf fur color: Black Red to Flat Brown (should have been a lighter tone), to grey highlighted tips, to white. * Used a red ink with a mix of airbrush thinner and it worked great for the wet blood effects. * Used ivory to hit the exposed bones, but usually it's really chalky. Used the airbrush thinner to thin the paint - wow. GREAT results. LOVE THIS. Now I just keep a small bottle from dollar store full of it next to the paints. Highly recommend. Misses - * Got a little carried away with the blood effects and can kind of see it in the bones area. * Ivory on top exposed bones looks a little much...maybe. Should tone it down? * Need to do a lighter color of 2nd tone on the fur. Also noted that the fur with the grey base coat was hard to cover. Maybe doing a black paint over the spine of it would have been good and then dry brush that. We'll see in future creatures. * Having trouble pulling the color of the fur in browns up. I didn't want to go with white or grey, but I couldnt' get the browns to pop, so ended up with ol' faithful. Would love any suggestions here to help the brown lighten. Dire wolf 3 (The biggin') Wins - * Used Golden acrylic paste to fill in gaps. WORKS GREAT! Less messy than the usual milliput. Unknown at this point how well it holds over time, but we'll find out because I've put it into like 10 models now. Seems to prime fine. * Primed in black and went in order on lightening up: Skin first, then fur, then went to bones last. * Did the fur again with a dark color: black brown and then went to a grey color to lighten it. * Skin tone is made with an orange brown to buff. I like the combo, but it looks a bit strange. The pop of color is good, though. * Purple and muscle areas worked well on this one. Misses - * Feel like the face should be a different color to match the skin of the body. Maybe? * Nails and paws should be a different color, but I couldn't come up with what to do with them. * Went a bit crazy on the bone color. Should have known about the method on the ivory in Dire Wolf 2...but Dire wolf 2 was actually the last one I did. Pretty happy with the outcome on all 3. Different approaches to each and learned a lot from each. Also, this is the dry palette I made for dry brushing. I bought a clear cutting mat and a corkboard adhesive board and stuck them together. Voila! It soaks up paint like a champ and makes for a great flat surface. Much less messy than the paper towels I'd been using. I'm hoping this is something that works for others, too. I mean, it's a 2 dollar solution!

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.