Wolf Lord: WIP

I mentioned the the other day about my current huge army project: a Space Wolves army. So, what better way to kick of my series of WIP posts than with the main man himself: Rikkard Threadcuatter, the White Wolf, Jarl of Fyf.

Now, in my humble opinion, if you want an epic Space Wolves army, you need to have an epic-looking Lord to lead them. With that in mind, I tried to make Rikkard (yes, I intend to name as many of my Wolves as possible ... ) as big and imposing as I could.

In fact, I had to add a 1 mm plasticard spacer under the feet in order to boost the model's height. The legs that best fit this miniature have a pretty wide stance and reduce the height of the model. Without these spacers, he actually looked quite short next to other Teminators.

The reason I chose the legs I did was not only because the pelt would fit the lord's character and the aesthetic of the cape, but it allowed him to stand on a slightly slanted rocky base. It's important to pivot the torso so it remains on a vertical line when doing this kind of this, otherwise models can look as though they are falling over.

I should talk a little about the base. I used cork sheet and cork offcuts to create the rocky effect. I'd heard of, and seen, cork bases for a while and decided to try it out across my Space Wolf army. I have to say, it's a great material to work with and creates quite convincing rock with very little effort or skill. You just tear it and glue it on. Simple as that!

This model has a very strong 'line', or 'flow', to him. I think it's always important to consider the various directions the components of the model are flowing in when putting miniatures together. Keeping things running more-or-less parallel tends to be pleasing to the eye. Having clashing lines can make things a little disjointed.

I had to pay particular attention to this principle with this model as I chose to use that wonderful cape that comes with the Wolf Guard Terminator kit. Conveniently, I had planned to use one of Forge World's Space Wolf conversion parts, and the hair happened to be flowing in the same direction of the cape. In the end, I managed to create a unified flow from the tip of the axe to the tip of the cape.

The axe itself is lightly converted. It's a thunder hammer handle with the big Thunder Wolf axe head stuck to the end.

Unfortunately, the storm shield created a problem for me. It prevented the leg part of the cape pelt from hanging in the intended position. I had to alter the position a bit and sculpt some fur to fill the gap. As you can see in the below photo, I also had to re-sculpt some of the armour around his head as the casting was so thin it had holes in.

Modelling aside for a moment, I should probably explain a little about how I'm going to be running this guy. As you can see, he's in terminator armour and has a storm shield. I planned and built this guy pre-sixth edition so the axe was meant to be a plain old Frost Blade. Now, of course, it's a Frost Axe.

This guy is meant to be something of a wrecking ball so I will also give him Saga of the Bear. Between that and the Storm shield, hopefully he'll be a complete pain to stop. Naturally, he'll have a few Wolf Guard in terminator armour to keep him company (more on those soon ... ).

Any comments or questions, let me know in the comments or by email and I'll answer any I can. Have you any thoughts on the 'flow' of miniatures? Perhaps you have a different philosophy on this; I'd love to know your thoughts.