I started collecting Warhammer back in the ’90s when I was in primary school. Space Wolves have always been my squad of choice. I fell out of the hobby for a while, but when I returned a couple of years ago, they were my first choice again.
Returning to the hobby after almost 20 years was quite daunting. There have been significant changes at Games Workshop over the years, so it took some time to find my footing again.
For the last two years, I’ve been experimenting, improving my painting skills, and building up my tool and paint collection. I didn’t want to commit to any large-scale projects until I had played around enough with different factions and techniques to develop my process.
Now, I’m ready to begin my first 2000-point army. Given the amount of time I spend digging for articles and resources, it seemed like a good idea to document the process for others looking to do something similar.
Starting Point
Currently, I only have a few squads of Space Wolves. I won’t be using these much in my final army; they are mainly for developing the final paint process I’ll use on all the units going forward. This means I’ll be starting from zero as far as units go. I also want to modify the designs to make them more like Space Wolves, so there will be a customization element.
Tooling
As far as tooling goes, I’m about as set up as anyone could be. I have a good workspace now, a high-quality airbrush, and all the paints I could possibly need. Here’s my main toolkit:
- Iwata Eclipse HP-CS Airbrush
- Voilamart Mini Airbrush Compressor
- Raphael 8404 Kolinsky Sable Brushes (Sizes 01, 02, 03)
- Redgrass Everlasting Wet Palette
- Four E’s Scientific (You can only shake so many paints)
- Elegoo Saturn 2 8k Resin Printer
- Hobby knives, clippers, etc.
I still have upgrades planned for my workspace, but they are mainly efficiency pieces to improve storage and access.
Plan
Step one in building a standard paint scheme and planning a process is creating a ‘Recipe’ for your units. I’m close to finishing this, with only a few elements left to figure out.
Next, I’ll plan out the list and acquire the units. I’ve made a start here, but finding some of the units is proving challenging.
Then comes the assembly. Because I plan to do some modding and customization, this will involve some 3D printing and custom modelling.
After that, the painting process can begin. Here, planning, simplifying, and batching can save literally hundreds of hours.
Finally, I’ll take them to a competition.
Conclusion
That’s the broad strokes. I’ll delve into much more detail as each step comes up. The first stop, though, is building a consistent painting recipe for all the different elements.
FOR RUSS AND THE ALLFATHER!