Pack of Wolves, Dire Wolves, & Warg

    My first painted minis of 2026! Six Reaper Bones wolves, dire wolves, and warg

The first miniatures "Acquired" in 2026 were the first to be finished! I received three packs from Reaper Miniatures so that I could field a unit of wolves with my orc and goblin army for Dragon Rampant. All were from the Reaper Bones line. One was a pack of three wolves, the other two dire wolves, and the final one, a huge, menacing Warg. As you can imagine, they are three different sizes. The warg does tower over the others, but I think they'll still look fine together as a unit. Or perhaps I can substitute the warg out and put in one of the metal wolves I painted up awhile back for my first Devilry Afoot game. Those are closer in size to the pair of dire wolves.

        The Warg is definitely the largest of the six, towering over the other ones significantly (I felt)

The Reaper figs are plastic, but somehow I feel the detail was a little more crisp than I've seen on some from that line. I based them up first (having to create my own for the "alpha" warg) then primed them with Liquitex White Gesso. Unfortunately, I discovered when I opened the package that one of the tails of the three wolves had snapped off. I tried gluing it with Testors plastic model glue, but that didn't work well. When I began to do its base coat, I noticed the tail separate again. This time, I used poster tack to hold it in place while I did the dry brushing. Once that was done, I tried white glue all around the tail. Hopefully, it will dry as a hard shell, and with the spray matte coat, finally hold in place.

    The Dire Wolves were the in between size and look good alongside either

I pulled up a page full of Google Images of wolves (of course!), and picked out photographs that I would try to match each wolf up with. I wanted variety, so that meant six different colors for base coating. I had enjoyed the way I painted up the five beavers, raccoons, and fox: base coating all of the figures, but then finishing each figure's various dry brushing and details before moving on to the other. I decided to replicate that process with these six wolves. Essentially, they were done as a group up until after the base coating stage, and then again in the flocking stage. Otherwise, I did each one individually before going on to the next. I really like how that allowed me to focus on one particular wolf and do my best job matching his (or her) fur coloring with the photograph I'd picked out.

 

    The pack of three wolves were the smallest -- nice variety of poses among the trio

Wolves tend to have lighter fur around and under their snout, as well as on their undersides and legs. The darker fur tends to be on the middle of the back, running from their head to their tail. There also seems to be a pattern of how it moving irregularly down from the spine to their flanks. Each wolf ended up with two to three dry brushed colors and I really like the effect this gives. For all of the biologists who study wolves out there, yes, yes, I realize I mixed a few different modern breeds of them together in my pack. There are ones that appear to be timber wolves alongside gray wolves. Remember, these are being painted up for a FANTASY miniatures game -- not a museum diorama...ha, ha!

Once the pattern on each wolf's coat was done, I would paint the mouth Blood Red. Then it came for the black details. I did the edges of the ears, the eyes, nose, and their black lips. I also picked out their claws/nails in black. By the time I'd finished all of that, I could use a dull yellow to fill in their eyeballs. I then used a very light tan to pick out their teeth. This was one of the reasons I felt these Reaper figures had above average crispness. I could see the teeth in most cases. Finally, I Googled "Wolf+Eyes" to see how to realistically depict a wolf's eyes. 

    This "above view" probably does a good job of showing the relative sizes of the three packs

I think this "research" really makes the wolves look accurate. Honestly, the extra dry brush stages in different colors to replicate the coloring doesn't add that much time to the painting. I know it the old days I would just do one color base coat and one color dry brush. I would let the miniature say "wolf" rather than actually taking the time accurately depict its real coloring. So, if you want your animals to look a little better on the tabletop, take an extra 10-15 minutes to pull up images and add a few extra steps. 

I did my usual flocking for these six wolves, and they were ready to go! In fact, there is a good chance they will be used with a whiff of matte spray coat wafting about them. We are playing our first game of Dragon Rampant on Sunday. So, there's a very good chance they'll be on the tabletop soon. Also, it looks like the group is excited about playing the game and we will likely have 8 players. Yikes! Worried about eight armies fitting on my 8'x5' table I went out and bought a couple smaller tables of the same height and width aross to add width to my table. So, instead of 8'x5', our gaming area can be 12' wide, now. We will see if that is wide enough, though for 8 players on Sunday!

    The detail on these Bones figures was crisp enough to make dry brushing their fur easy

What else is on my desk? I have my next batch of orcs about halfway done. I've also have four bases of elephant grass terrain for my 28mm Vietnam games that you will see shortly. All they need is a final matte spray coat. So, looks like my blog posts for 2026 are finally underway!!

MINIATURES Acquired vs. Painted Tally for 2026

• Miniatures acquired in 2026: 6
  
• Miniatures painted in 2026: 6

TERRAIN Acquired vs. Painted Tally for 2026

• Terrain acquired in 2026: 0
  
• Terrain painted in 2026: 2

SCATTER Acquired vs. Painted Tally for 2026

• Scatter acquired in 2026: 0
  
• Scatter painted in 2026: 0