The watcher of the Fang
A lone dreadnought stands watch over the vast territory's of the great space wolf company.
A lone dreadnought stands watch over the vast territory's of the great space wolf company.
So I had the idea that I wanted to create a stoic scene. One that showed ever lasting protection over the realm.
I found this image of a moutain over hand and thought it would be perfect with some form of Lord, guardian or the like standing at the very end. So the idea was formed and now I just had to build it.
This part of the project pushed me a bit outside my normal area of work. I had to delve into working with clay to try and construct as life like mountain outcrop as possible. Again, using the first photo that I found I tried to reconstruct this outcrop. After and evening of trying I got to a point that I was pretty happy so left it to dry and started thinking how I was going to paint it.
A few days later it was dry and I was able to start painting it. I had decided to try and go for the natural grey colour where possible and once painted I would then use some snow effect to really make it pop. It took some time to get it to the point I was happy but once it was done it was worth the time.
After finishing it I realised that the was one thing missing. Icicles so with a bit of work with the hot glue gun and some time holding them to the bottom of the cliff I needed up with some nice looking icicles.
When it came to the painting aspect, I was back in an area I liked. The first step was to block out as much of the main colour as I could. In came the airbrush. Once I had that down it was onto the detail and working out what colours I wanted were. So while I worked that out I decided to attach the large frost axe as that was something I at least knew what colours I wanted.
I then spent the next few evenings painting, then working out what colours I wanted, going back and repainting bit I was not happy with and then going again. but once it had all been finished, I was pretty happy with it.
Well the first thing was to dive into the good old bits box that I have managed to acquire over the past however many years of making and paints models. I found an old click fit dreadnought for back in the day and though that would be a great place to start. I soon made the decision that my dread was going to be old school now guns just the largest axe and shield I could find/ build. as that was the next hunt in the bits box. Using a few bits and some nice clean drilling and pinning I managed to come up with what I really wanted and was looking for. Then it was onto the arms and working out how to extend the arms to ensure that he didn’t look like his arms were too short. Remember the legs of the dread I cut off back at the start, well they can in handy (or should I say arm-y). I used sections of the legs as the top half of the dreadnought arms and the forearms and hands from the dread knight. once I had that sorted it was onto the back of the dread. I could have left it as it was but I liked the idea of having a large power unit on his back that kind of looking like it was from an earlier time to show how the guardian had been doing this for eons. Again, back to the bits box. I found an old missile pod from a valkary which fit perfectly but it still needed something to make it look like a turbine or engine so a nice little landradier hatch was perfect.
The Only issue was I need some legs now for this growing Watcher to make it really stand out. So I jumped back into the nice big box and found the Grey Knights dread knight again which I realised the legs would be perfect for what I was planning. So off with the legs and then on with the legs onto the dread. Once I had these the progect was coming together nicely.
The next part was to build the ledge he would stand on. Lucky a large bag of slate a hot glue gun and an hour or so later and I had what I needed. One Guardian looking Dreadnought and a nice good size ledge for him to stand on.
Issue was at this point he didn’t look Space wolf enough, so I grabbed some blue stuff and some green stuff and started to make some cases of Thunderwolf heads. For my first time of using Blue stuff I was pretty pleased with how it came out. With some extra green stuff I created some extra bits like fur and neckless of teeth and bones to add on.
And with the last few bits added i was pretty much done with the build. next onto the mountain and then painting.
And this was it!!
Thank you for reading my ramblings and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did making it.