Age of Sigmar - Dire Wolves
Having already appropriated the Deadwalkers from the Soulblight Gravelords for my Nurgle horde, it would be remiss of me to not also steal their undead doggies. Besides, zombie dogs are kind of a staple of the genre at this point.
Before getting started on the assembly, I first made some sprue goo as I had a spare pot of Tamiya extra thin plastic cement. Gaps are something that I have struggled with in the past and honestly, I rarely want to mess about mixing up some green stuff or milliput to fill any visible gaps. The solution is sprue goo, which is essentially plastic dissolved in plastic glue to form a runny paste. This paste can then be used to glue your model together as you would normally, but as the glue has some body to it then it can fill gaps pretty much automatically. To make mine I chopped up around ten 25mm bases and added them into a full pot of Tamiya extra thin. I chose the bases specifically because they’re black, and I have a load of them spare, so that the resulting goo stands out against grey plastic.
Backdrop by Jon Hodgson Backdrops
In any case, the Dire Wolves came together easily, and the sprue goo was instrumental in filling the gaps between the two halves of the bodies and heads. If there was any overspill, I could easily clean it up with some regular plastic glue. Once everything was assembled, they were primed with Colour Forge Dead Animal Bits.
Cracking out the airbrush I started by painting the fur of each model with some Army Painter Air Raven Black. I used the airbrush for this as I wanted a bit of a transition between the fur and skin areas. At this point, I also picked out the raven on the back of one of the wolves with Two Thin Coats Death Reaper. With the main basecoats set I then gave each model a zenithal highlight with Liquitex Titanium White acrylic ink. While I had the airbrush out, I took the opportunity to do some shading on the wolves. I sprayed Daler-Rowney Sap Green and Burnt Umber inks, as well as Vallejo Violet Ink and Army Painter Speedpaint Royal Robes at random points on the wolves’ skin. There wasn’t much rhyme or reason to it, just adding some visual interest to the skin.
Backdrop by Jon Hodgson Backdrops
From there it was a case of blocking in the colours. And by that, I mean painting the skin with Army Painter Speedpaint Malignant Green and the fur with Black Templar. I additionally picked out the raven on the back of one of the wolves and the rat chilling in the stomach of another with Black Templar. From there I painted all the wounds in the skin with Army Painter Speedpaint Familiar Pink. Any exposed guts meanwhile I picked out with Army Painter Speedpaint Purple Swarm. To make them look a bit more visually distinct, I painted some Scale75 Instant Colour Arcane Purple into the ears and eyes.
For the final details, I painted any exposed bones and teeth with Army Painter Skeleton Bone. And then carefully picked out the eyes with Archive-X Reefer White. Lastly, to bring out some texture on the model I drybrushed the fur with Two Thin Coats Carcharodon Grey and the skin, particularly the face, with Pallid Wych Flesh.
Backdrop by Jon Hodgson Backdrops
With the models done I moved onto the bases. First, I had to paint any rocks with Two Thin Coats Dungeon Stone and any wood with Two Thin Coats Scorched Earth. Any skulls I painted with Army Painter Skeleton Bone, except for one that I painted with Archive-X Reefer White for funsies. With that done I covered the rest of the base with Vallejo Thick Brown Mud texture paste. Two of the wolves have fairly prominent tactical rocks so I tried to feather out the transition between the mud and rocks, to make things look a bit more natural. Once the texture paste was dry, I gave the rocks and skulls a wash of Army Painter Strong Tone. I gave the whole base a wash of Army Painter Military Shade to tie all the elements together. I then gave the bases a drybrush of Tyrant Skull to bring out the texture.
From there I dabbed on some PVA glue in patches then sprinkled on some Geek Gaming Scenics Base Ready Forest Floor, I then sealed it place with some Geek Gaming Scenics Matt Sealant. I then dabbed on more PVA glue and this time sprinkled on some static grass. To make things a bit more Nurgle-y I then added some thin patches of AK Interactive Swamp Water. Lastly I painted the rims of the bases with Warboss Green and my doggos were ready to rip the faithful limb from limb.
Backdrop by Jon Hodgson Backdrops