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Yeah, good job on the base! I too was disappointed, I may end up doing this.

Nice work man. I was a bit surprised he is on just a solid square. But I have been making use of my recently arrived Basus dungeon pad to improve the look of all my bases and he will get the same treatment.

Aw, cheers lads! That's very motivating and encouraging!

Theo: That's a good idea, the coins. I will have to see if I can manage it - I dunno if I have any appropriate plastic rod, but I do have brass rod that could potentially work.

If you guys do your own bases on there, be sure to post them on here- I'd love to see them!

 Theophony wrote:
Base is looking great. Might I suggest taking some plastic rod, really small, and cutting little slivers around on the base. Paint them up as gold from his treasure trove.

That's a nifty idea. I may have to try that myself.

Nice work on the dragon's base. I've done similar myself on different models using little cobblestones cut out of thin (cereal box-type) card and most recently on the same Large Ravenloft Dracoliche model you've got there by drawing lines in wet acrylic putty. I think your method probably looks better than both, though it also looks like a lot more work!

Very cool to see the whole Ravenloft set painted up as well - and I can't believe how quickly you've blasted through Descent, and Dungeon Saga to boot!

I was going to try the thin card approach, but I was worried it would lack depth compared to the rest of the set, so decided on the milliput pretty much spontaneously when I saw it for sale at the FLGS.

I got the Descent stuff done in I think...May/June of last year? It was a bit irresponsible because I was supposed to be getting ready to move house, but I did charge through it quite quickly due to the motivation of getting some actual gaming in.

I'm pretty pleased with myself on Dungeon Saga. I'm fast when I am motivated by a project, the problem is that I have typically done lots of horde armies in the past and I tend to suffer burnout. Last year I found the board game mini approach worked really well for me as it's lots of small groups of simple but different miniatures rather than the strain of painting 40 near identical night goblins.

Looks like that's going well.

I like theo's gold idea. If you don't have the rod but do have greenstuff you can also cut the slivers from a really thin roll that's been allowed to cure.

The roll of greenstuff idea is good - I will have a think on it...

I might do the base and see about adding treasure piles afterwards.

I like the gold idea - I reckon the thin roll of greenstuff would be a bit easier to cut/work with than card, though your coins may be a bit less uniform if that matters,

Yeah, I think I'm going to go for the GS roll and also try and sculpt some gemstones and a crown (the fluff for the dragon in DS is that he's got this crown that mind controls anyone who looks at it, and that's where he gets all his minions. It's supposed to be stuck on his tooth, but it'll look better on the base.)



Got 5 more doors done, so that's 20 of 30. They're pretty tedious to do so I try to get them done in between the expansions, which are more fun. Keldan is also there - a bugger to assemble and his left hand sword will fall off in a stiff breeze, which is going to bug me no end. His right hand sword is bent, but I straightened it in hot water. Glad I didn't go in for more resin honestly - lovely detail on the mini but he's too fragile and brittle for my tastes. Gonna prime him, the Dragon, the halflings and Paladin, the Naiad, the Bartender and Blaine now. I will do the treasure piles later and attach them to the base after I paint them.

The doors were a bit tedious. I thought the barrels were worse though. Not bad, just a bit boring.

Looking forward to more.

Okay, so here are the base coats for the Dragon.



The back scales are PP Coal Black, and I like the bluey greeny ness of them, so I'm happy with them.

The belly scales are GW Skavenblight Dinge, and I'm gonna highlight up to light grey on there.

The other scales are PP Cryx Bane Base. I am planning to highlight them up with a few lighter shades of green, but I'm a bit worried because the contrast on the shades I have is pretty high - the next brightest is Waagh Flesh, which you can see on the wings. The plan is to highlight the skin up two more steps and the wings up two more as well, with progressively lighter shades, so the skin is a bit darker than the wing membranes but they are linked. I hope it comes out alright - I guess if it's too bright I can wash it down with a darker wash.

Horns and teeth are GW Gothor Brown gonna highlight up to bone and then wash.

Sorry about the shine in the photo - need to set up my diffusion paper stuff.

Whoa - that was quick!

Heh heh heh.

Well, I don't have kids and my fiancee is enjoying a quiet day today, so I can get a lot done. Another couple of hours work got me this far:


Now I've washed the teeth, horns and all that Earthshade, the scales on the back and body Camoshade, and I'm just waiting for that to dry. I might give the belly scales a Nuln Oil was in the morning, but then it's just base, details, and correcting any mistakes. Pretty happy with how it's coming along. Just a whole pile of drybrushing and washes, like everything I do, but it's good enough!


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And he's finished! He's a bit of a pain to photograph because he's so big, but hopefully you get the picture. There's some purple ink drying on his gums and mouth there, but I doubt it will distract much from the overall effect. I'm pretty happy with how he came out.







The turquoise back scales were a bit of a last minute decision, I was going to do the belly and the back the same colour. I'm really happy with how it looks now. The base also looks pretty good painted!

I didn't like the mini, but as usual, now that he's painted I love him.

That dragon is fantastic. I can't believe you got such good results so quickly. Also, your milliput flagstones turned out great.

Damn, you kicked that Dragon out very quickly! As Josh noted, he flagstones turned out great as well.

Awesome dragon!

Excellent work!

Cheers guys! This blogging malarkey is very motivating. Normally with big centre piece models like that I get nervous and put them off for ages, so I'm happy with myself for ploughing through him over the weekend. I'd say it was a total of 5 hours of painting, it was just lucky enough I had a fairly free day to do it in.

Heroes are next, hopefully I can get them done in a reasonable time too.

Last of the stone furniture and the last non-Dungeon Journal heroes!




I like the halfling and the naiad a lot more than the paladin, I must take some more shots later as the auto adjust sort of washed the colour out of this one a bit. Might do some "action" shots with the Dragon

Next, bookshelves, doors and weapon racks. Not the most exciting, but once they're done, I've finished everything except the Dungeon Journal stuff!

Huh, I thought the paladin was kinda neat and the halfling was kinda tiny, myself. I like what you've done with everything. The Marble is pretty neat, especially on the sarcophagus.

Thanks!
My paladin has a bad case of the meltface unfortunately.

He's pretty good as a generic Paladin, but female halfling rogues are a bit rarer!

This is true! I'm not sure if mine has a melty face or not. He's better than the worst of the MA stuff and should have face details even after a rattle can primer, but not anything terribly deep.

OK flicking through this has got me even more interested in this Saga lot, that dragon is looking good for what it starts as, the flooring makes all the difference in the world, great job.

Wow, you are much further along than I am. I like the marble effect-- I may have to steal that idea.

Camkierhi: Cheers! The dragon is one of those "better in person" models.

Josh: You're catching up - I had a 2 month head start

The marble effect looks pretty cool. It's hard to see much of the heroes, though because of all of the visual noise from the DS tile underneath.

If I can make a suggestion, unless you're doing "diorama" type photos or a vignette, photograph the models against more of a neutral background like a piece of white paper. Makes it easier to see the details.

Yeah, they do look a bit crappy now you say it! Hmmm. I like the grey background more than the white - I think it reflects the light in a better way somehow. But I will try and make a more neutral base for them to stand on in future.

Speaking of diorama shots,


I also tried a shot of the Abyss guys standing on the giant lava tile, and the Orcs on plain stone. They didn't come out very well so I'll leave them in the gallery in case anyone is really interested.

Managed to spray myself in the eye with my brown spray and fall down the stairs when I went to spray my bookshelves and weapon racks. Luckily the spray can nozzle was the only damage!
Glad it wasn't witnessed

Oh gak! Hope you're ok. Spray in the eye is bad news. I got hit by a wing change while using Testor's Dullcote the other week and it wasn't fun.

Dragon is actually big enough that he can get by inside the dungeon.

Injuries suck, dragon and friends do not! Gonna have to make myself a backdrop for the fantasy photos too.