Showcase: Soulblight Gravelords Vargskyr (inc. painting guides)

To bolster my Soulblight Gravelords warband for Warcry, I’ve enlisted some bestial support in the form of a Vargskyr. This iconic model is one of my favourites from Warhammer Quest: Cursed City, and it pairs wonderfully with my Fell Bats. In this post, I’ll share pictures and explain how I painted the body and details of the Vargskyr.

Cursed City was released quite some time ago (definitely check out Garfy’s post on it, he has painted all the models and created tutorials for them!). I secured the Vargskyr back then because I thought it was super cool and loved its strong silhouette. But now it was finally time to bring it to life with some colour. For our planned Warcry Triumph & Treachery multiplayer game with Garfy and Dunk, I needed a heavy hitter.

Those who follow me on Patreon know that I had a mishap while I painted the Vargskyr (I regularly post WIP pictures directly from my paint station there). I accidentally dropped the model and one of the fingers on the right hand broke off, and of course, the piece was lost. I tried to resculpt the finger with Green Stuff, but I’m not very good at sculpting, so I set the Vargskyr aside for a while and painted Sister Tariana Palos instead. Meanwhile, I tinkered with a solution and eventually repaired the model by taking a Blue Stuff imprint of one of the other fingers, then casted it with Green Stuff wrapped around a piece of wire. After some smoothing, the result turned out surprisingly inconspicuous and is quite sturdy.

Painting the Vargskyr

To paint the model, I used the same colour palette as for my Fell Bats but applied slightly different techniques. Completely black models can sometimes look a bit dull, so I used multiple tones to add interest. I chose a cool blue-grey for the body and fur, and a warm grey with reddish glazes for the fleshy parts like the face and membranes.

I primed the model black, then applied a zenithal base coat with AK 3rd Gen Anthracite Grey using the airbrush. After that, I drybrushed with Thunderhawk Blue and Warpaints Fanatic Uniform Grey and washed everything with Pro Acryl Black Wash diluted with some Contrast Medium. Lastly, I added manual highlights with Thunderhawk Blue and accentuated the fur with WPF Uniform Grey.

For the additional details, I followed the colour recipes you can find in my post about the Fell Bats:

If you’re reading this, I have already returned from London and our Warcry afternoon is behind us. How my Vargskyr fared against Garfy’s Stormcast Eternals and Dunk’s Chaos Legionaries will be revealed in a future post when I give a detailed introduction to my Soulblight Gravelords warband.

Feel free to leave a reaction, or drop a comment below, I’m also happy to answer any questions on our friendly hobby Discord server. Thanks a lot, and happy hobbying!