Space Wolf .Thunder wolf lord. Project log# 1.

The progress I have been making on a project for someone has picked up as of late. The briefing was simple: Do a lord choice for one of two space marine chapters, the austere and chivalrous Dark Angels or the mighty and feral Space Wolves.

The idea of Space Wolves on thunder wolves has always caught my imagination as it really blends the sci-fi and fantasy genres which is space opera at its best. So that is what I have been working on. I do like GW minis but I thought that I should go with my image of what the Space Wolves are and make this one fluff accurate and a bit less of the mild-grim dark appearance that sometimes ruins the otherwise wonderfully cruel depiction of the 40k universe we are all accustomed to.

The thunder wolf is first up, he has not been tackled much further than having the armature somewhat finished and bulked up. The face if mostly bulk at the moment and is lacking any detail but I have atleast determined where the bionic eye and the real eye are sitting within the head and so the hard work is done (detail is not hard but correct anatomy, human or otherwise is) .

The eye is not finished either but a somewhat completed eye was necessary to determine exact positioning. The thunderwolf will also have a bionic leg which will mostly consist of these bitz:

So far this project is looking less than stellar, I am aware but this is the foundations of the thunderwolf and it will shape up very slowly.

To put this in context, the rider of this beastie is already looking pretty bad-ass like some kind of techno viking with an axe to grind and yet he is only about 20% done as opposed to the wolves 5. There is alot to do but I am putting in more time as of late and making some headway.

The basic idea is that I have magnetized the neck and right shoulder to allow for head swaps and weapon swaps.

This is the first time I have magnetized anything, as I have never been pro-active enough to learn to do it for the sake of my own miniatures haha! It is a shame as now I realise that it also means subtle advantages like changes of pose not just entire pieces of a mini. 

Something else to point out is that even though I have not built this marine with the aim of him being true scale, I felt that as a lord choice is was only fair to make him a little larger without sticking him in terminator armour and so I am lengthening the legs somewhat and the neck of each head swap to a point. The right leg is far from done and the left will match up, the feet obviously are missing too right now.

This wolf visage-power armour helmet is pretty cool if I say so myself but needs tidying up, especially the right ear as it looks completely a-symetrical right now. I was originally going to add a wolf tail helmet plume-crest thingy, but decided this would be overkill and look stupid plonked between the already conspicuous ears. 

The right arm has been magnetised on but is far from done and is lacking a hand. I will complete it and it will weild a tasty looking thunder hammer; there also will be a second right arm built which will hold some other weapon, either a frost blade of some sort of a ranged weapon like a plasma pistol (do people still use those? it's been a while for me) 

The left arm will be static and hold a shield. The power pack will be ornate and have a large banner which will not be embossed so as to leave the owner room for free-hand, I personally think there is nothing quite like looking at a hand painted banner on a nice mini :)  

Project log# 2. shall be up shortly. Many thanks :)