13th returned

The 13th Wulfen Lord Modi has rerturned from the unfathomable perils of the Æther with his two Fenrisian wolves! A huntsman loyal beyond measure who has searched for his beloved Primarch in the Eye of Terror for millennia and now, to heed a special calling, returned through the eye to wage war on the foes of his Northern brethren.

The threesome belong to a body of work more than a decade old and it is my contribution to the 1st Invitational over at Iron Sleet.

They take as their point of departure my deep fascination of Nordic mythology grounded as it is in Nordic landscapes and weather. This, I think, makes it a fitting entry in the Invitational - Iron Sleet itself initiated by a group of mad Norsemen working with weather and atmosphere more than anything else.

I began working on the Wulfen Lord and his wolves after returning home from Golden Demon UK 2003. He was intended for the UK Golden Demon in 2004 but I never got around to finish him. Since then he has been lost for almost a decade, probably in the Warp. But a recent spark of imagination and new inspiration from the extremely talented hands of Migsula, who is working on his mindblowingly beautiful Vlka Fenryka, have resulted in the Wulfen Lord and his two Fenrisian wolves going from early WIPs to being finally done and ready for paint.

In 2003 I had built my Space Wolf Lord Odin and his personal entourage of Space Wolf Valkyries in true scale, dwarfing the normal size of standard marines. For the Wulfen Lord I decided to go all in on scale.

As such, 13th Wulfen Lord Modi has been built around a Demon Prince sculpted by Juan Diaz at the turn of the millenium. It has been heavily converted by changing the pose of the original model and adding a large variety of sculpted elements like jewellery, totems, banners, cables, chains and drilled-out skulls. The areas where armour and fur have merged together were all sculpted to show that he, marked as he is by a flaw in his gene-seed and exposed to the perils of the warp for thousands of years, has mutated into a giant wolfman fused with his Astartes armour.

Apart from the remnants of his personal belongings like backpack, shields (the round shield with two interlocking wolves was originally intended for a major Valkyrian Shieldbearer), family emblems and a selection of important battle trophies he is also covered in wolf totems, tributes and seals marking him as the true warrior god he has become. One of the few who have fought alongside Russ himself.

With the wolves I wanted to utilise the idea behind the Invitational in order to emphasize the size of the Wulfen Lord. While the first of his two wolves has been outfitted with a longrange weapon (inspired in part by Neil101s excellent new Envoys of Russ over at Opus Maius) all that remains of the second wolf is a handcrafted Servo Skull still heeding the call of its master.

In his right hand 13th Wulfen Lord Modi still holds aloof - after aeons in the Æther - the family staff of his Primarch adorned with pledges, wows and seals of faith honouring the Alfather (to be added after painting the staff). In his left hand he wields a Lightning Claw, which has merged with his body being one of the few parts of his original Astartes armour still fully recognisable.

The result is a behemoth of man, Astartes and wolf!