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so, I was thinking about my WElf army, and wondering what it lacked... painted miniatures? Well, yes, but I know! Something big, scaly and damn cool, so I've decided to add a forest dragon to the troops. Not content on having any old dragon, I fancied having a go at the Winged Nazgul and painting it up nice and pretty.
Hang on a second though I thought, it does look a little wyvern-esque what with only having two legs, so I promptly spent more cash than was probably sensible and hacked together some front legs for her, and added a few more spikey bits for good measure.

Rider to come, and I have to plug some gaps with greenstuff, and add some WElf bondagey type stuff as well, and then onto the painting. I'm thinking a lovely green with gold markings : )

I will admit that seeing How To Train Your Dragon this week *might* have had something to do with this...

Awesome Ideá! I haven't thought about it but the Nazgul dragon looks a bit like a forest dragon when you point it out. I'm thinking green skin,yellow scales and bronze/gold details/barding?
Some small forwest spirits hanging from wings etc would also be nice

Just some ideas I came up with, got a bit to facinated and came up with my own ideal of a forest dragon ^^
hehe sorry for my babling, lookingforward to progress.

I recently read Dragon Haven by Robin Hobb - she does awesome descriptions of dragons, so I'm kinda going from there... I was thinking green body/scales, lighter green/jade underbelly, with gold stripes and spikey bits... gold markings on the wings too

Awww I was going to use the new FelBeast model as a dragon for my high elves. O well at least I can follow your steps so I don't screw it up. How did you get the arms?

I do like the conversion.. my only advice would be to add more fins on the neck.. and a pair of horns on its head, i think..

I was thinking horns... dunno where I'd put them though because of the armour on the head... I might give it a go though. Same for the fins...

FlammingGaunt - I bought another winged nazgul and used the legs as arms (also mean I had spare fins to use. Expensive, I know, but I don't trust my sculpiting skills to do the job!). Chopped off the top of the thigh, and whittled/filed it down into a shoulder shape. Not perfect, but it'll do. I also cut off the back claws and repositioned them as thumbs.

Don't see your sculpting skills short. You did a wonderful job converting those legs into arms; until you pointed it out I couldn't tell!

Nice Conversion may need shorter neck :|

I see what you men about having a shorter neck, but I think that I'd have to do a splice job to keep the asddle, adn I do like the spikey things on her neck... it'll probably stay as it is for now, I like the sinuousness of her. But maybe for the next dragon project? ; ) (lordy, but the majority of the dragon models out there suck! Such lumpy, stactic things - dragons should be graceful and beautiful!)

Quick question - anyone know what plastic GW use for their models? Is it thermoplastic or thermoset?

A couple of stages here:
yellow ink undercoat, and then a thinned down leaf/apple green coat.

Then a wash of Thakka Green

Then a wash of Asurman Blue

re-establishing base colour and then highlights to come, and then markings in gold : )

Very rich greens! makes me feel good

gag you lik eit - I'm aiming for a nice, rich, glowing green that'll contrast nicely with the gold markings. I'm going to highlight the underside, but only up to a mid green, so the gold will be the light tone


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glad you like it, even - MUST proof read posts!

started highlighting up the underside. I'm not planning on going too light. One side coming on nicely.

Unfortunately, I jokingly refered to her as Cabbage to a friend, and now the name has stuck! How undignified!

The yellow blend in very nice with the rest of the skin. Keep up the good work my friend

Awesome conversion, and awesome paint job.

So, in a word, awesome!

And very brave, chopping up two of those kits!

Bravo!

thank you very much : )

still need to smooth out some of the blending and then one more highlight layer I think - same colour but with some bleached bone in it.

Just watched Avatar again - a wealth of marking ideas!

Most spectacular! I'd proudly field a dragon of that caliber in my Wood Elf army.

Really nice work , wish I could paint to that standard..or that I had enough cash to buy a whole fellbeast for it's legs!

Beautiful hopefully tomorrow i'm going to get my nazgul to turn into a dragon.

Blending's looking outstanding on that dragon. You've done quite a job with it. Looking forward to further posts!

RZ

blackhand - I did say I had more money than sense! ; )

Beautiful model, the yellow belly looks great with the green!

The hide is beautiful, the use of inks gives it such a wonderful rich mottled look. I'm stealing it.

feel free to steal - ll the best designers steal ideas ; ) lol
I have noticed that the washes do tend to dry blotchy, which sometimes can be a good thing

starting to think about the finny bits... the plan was to do them (metallic) gold, and to have stripes coming off them onto her body. I did a test on her arm, and I'm not liking it!
So, Plan B: I'm now thinging a light blue/green so that it contrasts and stands out, and where the stripes come onto the body, have a darker turquoise outline...
.. thoughts?
(or, Plan C - stick to the gold idea, but just make it a nice, rich yellow instead of using metallic gold)

Actually i like the contrast. I think it looks pretty cool. I would maybe give it a green or even brown wash to maybe blend it more natually though.

I think the metallic gold looks a bit odd. Imho I think you should either make them dark blueish like you said, or paint them yellow like on the belly. I think it would look better to stay with the colours you allready have used.
Just some thoughts of mine.

after some research today looking at peacock feathers, I think I'm going to go for: a mid/light peacock blue with a green-ish highlight aling the very edge of the fin, with a dark blue core that bleeds onto the body to form a dark stripe... well, I'll give one a go and see what it looks like - I think the simple option of yellow might be easier and quicker though!

First off, that is soooo awesome, I wish you were me neighbour :(

finnan wrote:Just watched Avatar again - a wealth of marking ideas!

How the hell did you survive the first time enough to go back? You must be some kind of Go... Chuuuuuuuuck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

finnan wrote:the best designers steal ideas

Shakespeare anyone?

lol Avatar's okay - plot is Dances With Wolves in space, but it's pretty nonetheless.

as for neighbours, moving back to Oz is always an option - I have dual nationality ; )