Mournwolves ready for paint!

Actually, the title is slightly misleading. It should really read "almost ready for paint". But it's so close that it might as well be true. Last night was a night of pretty intense modelling, interrupted for an hour or so when I went off to lose at indoor soccer (boo!). I started as soon as I got home, which was a bit before 6pm. I headed for bed at just before 1am. So it was probably 5-6 hours spent at the painting table, labouring away on these guys. And for my efforts, they are now basically ready to be painted.

My Mournwolves basically finished, although they need a banner.

The things that remain to be done are honing the green stuff axe head (which needed to cure, so I couldn't do it last night), tidying the sides of the wolves down where the saddle straps go (just plain forgot about that), and work out what the hell to do about a banner. Given my tight schedule and how long green stuff takes to cure, I suspect only the sharpening of the axe head will happen before they see undercoat tonight.

This curing time of green stuff is really the reason it was such a late night for me. It meant that I really needed to get all the putty work done (so that it could harden overnight and during the day today) if I wanted to be able to undercoat the models tonight. 

So what did I do last night? I sharpened up the armoured arms a bit, made 2 sets of moulds of them, made 2 more sets of arms using the moulds, and stuck them to the models before they had even fully hardened (they were still tacky). I made a mould of the hands on the weapon haft and made a copy of that, actually putting plastic rod into the mould with the green stuff where the hands went. Figured I'd get a better finish than making the pole out of putty and it worked fine. I made a ogre-sized furry master cloak and let it cure for long enough that I could make a mould and press out 3 copies, using them whilst they were still flexible as I did for the Knights Panther when I first tried the process. I then stuck it all together, glued on some suitable heads and extended their beards to make them more White Wolf-ish, and scrounged some weapon heads. That basically covers it. I'll discuss any finer details in the picture captions.

All 3 of the models got White Wolf medallions as clasps to keep their cloaks on. Seemed like an easy way to add detail. I expected to have to create over-sized weapon heads for each of them, but it turns out Black Orc weapons do a pretty admirable job. This guy got some hair as well as beard extensions because I wanted it to look more different from the plastic head I started with. And most White Wolf Knights have long, flowing hair - wanted to see what an Ogre with hair looked like. Not sold on it for other models, but this one will be fine.

The cloaks got wrapped over the shoulders and down the backs of the models whilst still only half-cured. This meant they were hard enough to pry them out of the moulds without too much damage, but still easy to drape and shape over the Ogre.

The thickness of the cloak on top of the bulky armoured shoulders gives them a pretty hulking appearance, but I'm not too unhappy with that.

This guy wound up with another Black Orc weapon head, but this time I wanted it to be larger. Once the green stuff is properly hardened, I'm hoping a knife and file will give it the edges it needs.

The same guy from the side.

A closer look at the axe head. I think I've given it enough shape to make the remaining effort easy enough.

I couldn't decide on a banner (see text below the images), so left it as a plain banner pole for the moment. This guy has the same arms as the other 2, but with separate plastic hands rather than the green stuff ones connected by a weapon haft. This guy's beard was the easiest to model thanks to there being no pole across his chest.

Another Black Orc weapon head. It was this one being used as a hand weapon that prompted me to modify the other guy's weapon. They're using the same weapon head, but it looks better as a hand weapon for an Ogre than a great weapon. Bit of plastic rod and some pinning put this weapon together.

These guys are really just a mass of fur from the back, hey?

If I'm honest, I think the banner will get done after the painting begins. It allows for more procrastination time, and there's a fair chance that whatever I do will have to involve more putty. I looked at Ogre banners, Empire ones, even a Black Orc banner top (which is actually one of the better fits for the way it flows). My combined requirements of it being large enough to be impressive for a unit of guys who are frankly enormous, whilst looking like it's moving appropriately for the motion of the unit and the angle of the banner pole. There is a good chance I'll end up modifying the Black Orc banner (removing the Beastman head at the top and filling out the material with green stuff to make it look less tatty). It was just work I couldn't make myself look at so late last night.

All in all, it was a very successful night. For the first time in the project, I really came away feeling like I'd done everything I could hope to. Now I have 2 whole nights to paint these 3 guys. And the 2 Ogre Halberdiers. And the Sabretusk. Not even a problem...