Pingo compares and paints three packs of wolves

[Pingo]

So anyway, I started mixing up some colors for their coats. 

 

I've mentioned before, one of my favorite general-purpose shadowy grey mixes is a balance of Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Sienna.  Carefully blended they become a neutral near-black.  It's not pure black (really more of a subtle super dark grape purple-grey), but unless there is some real black nearby it is close enough to fool the eye.  With just a little bit of nudging this way or that with either the blue or the brown it can become a lot of useful colors, and the addition of white can give an entire range of warm and cool greys.

 

In fact, I once painted a couple of frost giants using nothing but this mix and these two colors (plus white).

 

At the time it was a fun exercise, but I remember I was frustrated by the lack of a good warm yellow.  So I guessed that I would probably want to mix some more creamy yellows to augment the blue-brown greys for the wolves.

 

Oh, and I love using photo references as a way of avoiding falling into tropish painting.  This was one of the books I had out (covered with a piece of plexiglass while working to protect from paint).

 

Wolves have such varied blends of natural colors in their coats that I figured I could work with a lot of layers and start several of them similarly and vary them later.

 

***

 

 

To begin with I took my neutral grey and brushed it lightly on the bellies and legs of some of the wolves.  I am painting these particular ones more or less identically to start.

 

Reaper pewter:

 

 

Reaper Bones:

 

 

RAFM:

 

 

Tom Meier / Thunderbolt Mountain:

 

 

Right away I could see that the leg color was too blue and would need more creamy yellow later.   No worries, though.  The cool grey left a little underneath will give some shadowy realism to the later colors.

 

I decided to paint one of the RAFM wolves as a black wolf, so I washed it with the pure (no white added) Ultramarine Blue-Burnt Sienna mix:

 

Then I blended some of that with some of the paler grey I mixed earlier to make a darker grey for the wolves' upper bodies.

 

Reaper Pewter:

 

Reaper Bones:

 

Thunderbolt Mountain:

 

RAFM dire wolf:

 

 

Edited April 18, 2017 by Pingo
Some pictures accidentally dropped

[Glitterwolf]

Wonderful Progress!

[hosercanadian]

I personally enjoy blending and mixing colors and I have to say you have a nice natural tone going here.

[Pingo]

I mixed up a drab pale buff color for the wolves' legs, and also to paint some as arctic wolves.

 

I had a look at photos of arctic wolves, and they aren't really "white" at all.  So I figured this color should work.

 

It's a mix of Yellow Oxide, Burnt Sienna, a tiny bit of Ultramarine Blue to grey it down, and a lot of Titanium White.

 

First I laid it in on some wolves I hadn't painted yet:

 

Reaper pewter:

 

Other Reaper pewter:

 

Tom Meier / Thunderbolt Mountain:

 

Then I brushed some of the buff color onto the legs and bellies of the grey wolves.  The blue-grey underneath shows in places.

 

Reaper pewter:

 

Reaper Bones:

 

RAFM:

 

Thunderbolt Mountain:

Edited April 20, 2017 by Pingo

[Pezler the Polychromatic]

I've been eagerly watching how your wolves are turning out. When I did my wolf pelt, I put a bit of Citadel Fenrisian Grey in the white, which is a grey with a wonderful touch of blue to it, made it seem realistic enough for my liking.

[Pingo]

I still had a few wolves who didn't have any color on them yet, so I decided to paint them reddish (For now at least.  Later layers may change this.).

 

I mixed a dull red-brown color out of a lot of Burnt Sienna, some Yellow Oxide, a small bit of Ultramarine Blue to grey it down, and a little Titanium White to make it more opaque.

 

I painted their legs and bellies with the dull buff color I mixed above (the sharp-eyed will note that its ingredients are exactly the same as this red; only the proportions are changed), then swashed on some of the red color.

 

RAFM:

 

Thunderbolt Mountain:

 

Those RAFM wolves are a little oddly posed.  Their paws are mostly curled all the way up and I kept feeling like I should cut away the metal that supported them.  But that would leave them suspended in midair.  I feel like they should almost have flying bases, like carousel animals.

[Chaoswolf]

Nice work on them; I like the variety you're doing with their coats.

[Pingo]

Although these are nowhere near done, I felt they needed a little more expression to help decide how to continue.  Their faces looked kind of blank, so I took some pure Carbon Black and painted in their eyes, noses, lips, and claws.

 

I don't work much with pure black as it feels a bit "dead" as a color to me.  But here it is useful to indicate expressions and will hold up even if I slop a little more paint over it in the continuing process of painting these puppies.

 

The faces are crude and just indicated in, but I feel like they have made these figures more alive.

 

Reaper Wolves:

 

 

 

 

Thunderbolt Mountain Wolves:

 

 

 

RAFM Wolves:

 

 

 

 

 

[Pochi]

I am definitely seeing the GoT's direwolves. There is Shaggydog, and Summer, and Nymeria, a couple that could be Ghost, One that makes a great Grey Wind. Only one I am not sure of is Lady. Haha!

 

These are looking great and I just know they are going to be brilliant when finished!

[Glitterwolf]

That black is great for the eyes and such.

 

It may be the sculpts, I feel that the effect looks best on the Thunderbolt mountain Wolves, they look very natural already.

 

Looking forward to see more!

[Pingo]

I was painting soft blues on some other minis, so I slung some shadows on the snowy bases.  These are blends of Ultramarine Blue and (lots of) Titanium White, and Phthalocyanine Blue with a touch of Hansa Yellow Opaque and (even more) Titanium White.

 

Thunderbolt Mountain:

 

RAFM:

 

Reaper:

 

[Pezler the Polychromatic]

Ooooooooo moonlight on the snow.

[Pingo]

More work on bases, this time on the green ones.

 

All of these greens were mixed from two colors:  Hansa Yellow Opaque (a bright, slightly warmish lemon yellow) and Carbon Black.

 

On the palette the mix sort of looks like blackened yellow, muddy, weird, unpromising, dull even.

 

But put it on a mini and it's bright spring green.  It's amazing.

 

(Tom Meier reddish wolf in grass)

 

Anyhow, I first put a medium mixed green on the bases over the browns and the rather murky green I had already.  I used a small flat hog's bristle brush to begin to make that grassy texture I like to use.

 

(RAFM grey wolf in grass)

 

(RAFM black wolf in grass)

 

(Tom Meier Grey wolf in grass)

 

(Reaper grey wolf in grass)

 

Then I simply added more Hansa Yellow Opaque to the mix to make a brighter, lighter green and added some of that to the bases.

 

(Tom Meier reddish wolf on grass)

 

(RAFM grey wolf on grass)

 

(RAFM black wolf on grass)

 

(Tom Meier grey wolf on grass)

 

(Reaper grey wolf on grass)

 

(Reaper Bones wolf familiar on grass)

[Pezler the Polychromatic]

They're looking so good, I want to run with them.

[Glitterwolf]

Awesome!

 

New recruits for WOOF!!!