I’ve done a little bit of research in preparation for painting the Dreadnought as I like to spend a good chunk of time working out what I’m painting and how. The first decision to make is what colours to paint the dreadnought. In principal he’ll be the stereotypical blue grey colour that is universally recognised as being a Space Wolf although unlike the Games Workshop Space Wolves it will be more grey than blue as a nod towards the grey pre-heresy colour scheme. If only the other decisions were as simple as that!
I need to somehow inject a bright colour or two onto the whole piece else it’s going to be a largely bland, grey blob from a distance. My initial thought is that I should paint the shoulder and knee pads in the same way that a regular Space Wolf would be painted. There are a couple of problems with doing this. Firstly, Space Wolf dreads don’t wear pack markings (all the studio painted ones are the same colour all over) and secondly they would technically wear the “The Wolf That Stalks Between Stars” logo – which has a black background and a large expanse of black really isn’t going to look very good.
The metals are going to need some careful thought too. My gut feeling is the exposed exo-skeleton should be painted in an “antique steel” effect to represent the fact that the metal has been around for the past 10,000 years but not deteriorated. This is going to require a number of different washes applied and very minimal use of brown washes to give the effect you can see below (this is a real picture, not a painted piece!)
Antique brass will also be used on some bits of decoration, but will largely be kept to a minimum as I want to portray a functional dreadnought but one that is not revered in the same way as others.