Jacked up and good to go!

These past days I realized I am pretty much done with building Space Wolves for my Adepticon 2011 team. All that is left for me to build is a second Rune Priest, a second Long Fangs pack and my Wolf Lord on a Thunderwolf. Of course, I have been helping my other teammates with their projects too and I did build a Grey Hunter or two for their parts of the list.

And then it really hit me. I had been building models and playing small games for the last three or four months without doing any considerable amount of painting. Part of the problem was that we didn't have a paint scheme to play around with and we never really sat down to come up with anything.
The thing with Space Wolves is that people paint them so differently. That's great! Also, a lot of people seem to be split between having really grey marines... or miniatures with prevailing light blue on them. Honestly, go look at some pictures on any forum and for each post you will see a brand new way to paint Space Wolves.
The paint scheme that I tried to find (and when I did I always disliked a few steps or my teammates didn't like it) was something in the middle - blue with enough gray to make the models look damaged and grizzled. I wanted the power armor to be bright enough so that  any battle damage was visible and just blue enough to contrast with the orange on the model.

This Saturday I picked out a test model from my case. In this case it was this poor Grey Hunter who received a Storm Bolter (making him a Wolf Guard, I guess) before I had any idea what the cool looking weapon was. It was a busy day and around the paint bar there were some really good painters so I started asking them how they would paint Space Wolves. I shared what I needed and I more or less received it. I slowly started painting the miniature and the more I painted, the more I liked it.  I was not giving it my 100%, but I tried to put in enough effort to make it look nice and see if my teammates would approve of it. In the end, I was really happy with the result.
Now, obviously the model is not completely done. I still need to finish the shoulders and weapons, maybe even play around with the fur. When this is done I will start painting battle damage - chipped paint on the armor, mud, grease, etc. 

Space Wolves Paint Scheme MKI

"Huh? What is this Terran green stuff?"

Undercoat - The miniature was primed Chaos Black.
Base coat - The whole model was covered in Shadow Grey. The shoulders was painted Mechrite Red and the weapons dry-brushed Boltgun Metal. The whole model was then washed with Badab Black.
Power Armor - After the model had dried, I painted Shadow Grey over it, carefully leaving some darker areas where different pieces of the armor meet, the recesses, etc. to give it some depth. Then I slowly started to mix Shadow Grey and Space Wolves Grey in layers. First it was a 2:1 ratio over the whole model, leaving some of the previous layer, then a 1:1 around the edges and where the light was hitting the model. Finally, a highlight of Space Wolves Grey was done on the whole miniature.
Shoulders - When the Badab Black dried on the Mechrite, I added a 1:1 Mechrite and Blood Red mix, leaving the darker red around the edges. A final coat of pure Blood Red was applied over the previous layer.
Eyes - The eyes were painted Chaos Black as a foundation over whatever had gotten on them while I was painting the power armor. Mechrite Red was painted, leaving the black around the edges and then Blazing Orange was applied over the Mechrite Red. A fine, thin line of Skull White was then painted in the middle of each eye and then the whole thing was painted with 'Ard Coat.
Fur - To contrast a little with the power armor, the fur needed to be slightly orange. Scorched Brown was appied as a foundation. After that dried I dry-brushed two heavy coats of Vermin Brown, then washed with Devlan Mud. This was followed by a light dry-brush of Bleached Bone and then some Skull White around the tip of the tail.
Weapons - Simply Boltgun Metal washed with Badab Black and then highlighted with Chainmail.
Golden details - Calthan Brown then Burnished Gold (because I didn't have Shining Gold). This was washed with Devlan Mud and then a second coat of Shining Gold is to be applied.
Skulls and teeth - Calthan Brown and then a Bleached Bone dry-brush. After a Devlan Mud wash I touched up with Bleached Bone again and highlighted with Skull White.

I really like it and so did my teammates. I like the subtle blue and orange contrast, how realistic the eyes look and just the color of the power armor in general. I need to work on better brush control (I'm coming from a year of playing and painting Orkz, remember?) and highlights on the armor, though. I am still getting used to it and need to learn about the separate pieces. Though, when we actually do paint our Space Wolves a lot of these steps will be simplified by our nifty Citadel Spray Gun. We are going to paint some more test models each and see if we can add or change anything, but for now this seems to be the first step to painting our army.