Pingo compares and paints three packs of wolves

[Pingo]

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.

 

[Glitterwolf]

Great!

 

BONUS points for painting Wolves.

 

Do not forget there are Reddish Brown Wolves too!!!

Grey and Black and Brown can occur in one pack.

 

Of course the most beautiful and smartz wolves are technicoloured....

[Mehman]

Along the lines of what @Xherman1964 was saying, there are also tan wolves with beautiful black and grey markings. There may be no more timber wolves, but we can at least paint dire wolves to honour their memory. They were big and probably gorgeous animals, too. I mean, I guess. No one knows...

 

Anyway, this comparison is great! The wolf familiar looks so tiny compared to the other sculpts that I thought it was a fox !

 

Keep us posted on updates!

[Pochi]

You can paint six of them like the GoT's dire wolves. Well, I would, lol! I am painting a wolf for a friend, well, actually, I am painting 2 familiar packs for her and a wolf is included. Looking forward to seeing how you paint these!

[Gargs]

Wolves!  Looking forward to seeing these.

[Glitterwolf]

*** Hops through the thread...people love Wolves!!!***

 

Go PINGO!!!!

[Crowley]

Very cool to see the comparison!

[knarthex]

11 hours ago, Xherman1964 said:

*** Hops through the thread...people love Wolves!!!***

Yes, they are great!

 

For cloaks, hats, muffs, necklaces etc...

[Pingo]

8 minutes ago, knarthex said:

Yes, they are great!

 

For cloaks, hats, muffs, necklaces etc...

 

Ooooooh, miniature wolf necklaces!  And earrings!  And decorations on hats!  That sounds neat!  

[Gargs]

15 minutes ago, Pingo said:

 

Ooooooh, miniature wolf necklaces!  And earrings!  And decorations on hats!  That sounds neat!  

 

See, I'm thinking the necklaces and earrings should be put on the wolves, y'know to make them all cute and fluffy like.

[Glitterwolf]

14 hours ago, Pingo said:

 

Ooooooh, miniature wolf necklaces!  And earrings!  And decorations on hats!  That sounds neat!  

 

It does!
 

However the evil Drow meant that he would like to skin innocent wolves ( even technicoloured ones) to turn into hats and stuff.

 

Needless to say I like your interpretation better!!!

[Chaoswolf]

19 hours ago, knarthex said:

 

On 4/7/2017 at 3:54 AM, Xherman1964 said:

*** Hops through the thread...people love Wolves!!!***

Yes, they are great!

 

For cloaks, hats, muffs, necklaces etc...

 

Pthbtbtbtbtbtbtbtbtbt!!!!

 

 

 

Very neat comparison between them , Pingo. Thanks for doing that. The Bones version is so small, I think I'd just use it as a domestic dog.

[Pingo]

The wolves are now primed.  I prime my figures with a slightly thinned coat of plain Titanium White paint (Golden matte fluid acrylics, usually), let that dry a day, then wash over it with a very thinned layer of Burnt Umber, usually.  This makes the details pop.

 

I left some bases unwashed because I'm thinking of painting some of them in the snow.

 

The Reaper wolves:

 

The RAFM wolves:

 

The Tom Meier wolves:

 

I mixed up a dull green from a tiny bit of Phthalo Green (it is super strong and can overwhelm mixes), Burnt Sienna, and Yellow Ochre and painted some of the bases.  The dull-mustard ochre makes it more opaque, but I used it thin enough that some of the Umber shows through in places.  This makes for a more realistic base.

 

The color varies a bit because I wasn't too strict about mixing.  This also adds realism.

 

Reaper:

 

RAFM:

 

Tom Meier:

 

I washed the Bones wolf with thinned Reaper Brown Liner and painted its base with the same green.

[Glitterwolf]

Progress!!!

[Pingo]

A note about my painting method.

 

My most used paints are a set of Golden Matte Fluid Acrylics, about a dozen of them, plus or minus depending on whether I'm using metallics or interference colors (not too likely for this crew). 

 

I mix my own colors on the fly, mostly.  I don't get too worried about color matching for three reasons:

 

1, I'm starting from a small enough range of basic colors that I can usually recall more or less how I got there;

 

2, I usually layer colors using translucency so the harmonies of the colors over and under each other matter more than the exact hue of whatever happens to be the top layer; and

 

3, I find slightly varied colors make for a more realistic looking figure anyway.

 

While I have humorously described my painting technique as attacking the figures with brushes flying, the truth is that a lot of my work, even after all these years, is trying stuff until it works.

 

Another piece of hard-won art understanding is that half-painted works, whether on canvas or on walls or on tiny pewter sculptures, tend to look terrible until they don't, so don't sweat it if they look a mess in the middle of the process.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 18, 2017 by Pingo
pictures accidentally appended