Painting Wolf Fur

As I recently adapted my method of painting wolves I thought I’d share the new recipe.

As you can see I started out exactly the same…

Next I added highlights. I started with the light grey highlights, then added even lighter ones to the tops of the muscles. I then did the light brown highlights, these were allowed to bleed into the grey ones to break up any unnatural lines. All the folds in the fur were highlighted with the brown too. I then added Bleached Bone Highlights along the all the edges of the brown as well as to the lower body. I finally added a few select highlights in pale flesh.

Using a wash of Bleached Bone diluted with water I washed all the white areas. You dont want to obliterate the detail here so it needs to be quite fluid.

Next I added a wash of Gryphonne Sepia and Bloodtracker Brown to the brown areas and allowed it to bleed into the grey. The trick with the washes is to wash down, so that the darker colours bleed a little into the lighter colours. If you want the model to end up lighter start with the darker areas and work to a lighter colour, this is a technique I use with light coloured beards for example.

Next I added Devlan Mud to the brown mix and washed all the grey, again allowing the wash to mix with the lighter highlight.

Finally I washed the grey with Greatcoat Grey and Badab Black, leaving some of the dark brown mix showing through. To add more definition to the fur I might go back and a second layer of highlights in pale flesh to the white patches where they mix with the browns, but I’m pretty happy with the results.

And here you can see the new version standing next to his old counterpart…

I think it’s a clear improvement, however I’m not sure how much work it would take to redo the rest of the pack, what do you guys think, do they look so different that they no longer work as a pack?

Click to Enlarge

And here are the four I painted for the Otherworld Monthly challenge,

Along with their lunch… Siegfried…

Admittedly, he’s a little elfy considering he’s supposed to be human, but I’m pretty happy with how he came out. The eye you can’t see needs redoing as the flesh wash ran a bit rampant. He took a little over an hour, I was rushing a bit, but I still think he’ll do. I might alter his hair a bit as it’s too shiny and maybe a bit too yellow.

And finally, the minis I hope to get done this month, work permitting. In addition to these I have a mini for the next Painted Dragon competition, entitled The Winds of Magic.

See you next week guys and happy gaming!