PETER PAINTS: THE RED DRAGON PART 2

Hello! I’m Peter Lee, and I’m back with another installment on painting Gale Force Nine’s Red Dragon miniature. Last time, I glued all the pieces together for the red dragon. This week, I paint the base.

Right now, the dragon and base are separate pieces. I willeventually glue them together, but it will be easier to paint the base and the underside of the dragon when they are separate pieces.

To start, I will paint the base. Here is a picture of the base from above.

The first step is to paint the ground. I start with a mixture of brown and black paint. I prefer using a palette, as it gives me better control over the paint. I always add a little bit of water to thin down the paint.

The first part is getting a basic coat of paint over the ground parts of the base. You’ll notice a bunch of coins on the base. For now, I can ignore them; I’ll pick them out later.

Here is the base with the dark brown coat on the ground.

I then mix up some dark grey to paint the wall. The dragon feet are painted dark red, and the wood pieces are painted grey-brown. I leave some small details unpainted; I’ll paint those when I start doing details. Here is the base after the final base coat.

At this point, it’s ready for a wash. My wash is a mixture of Tamiya smoke, inks, water, paint, and acrylic floor wax. The most important part is Tamiya smoke, as it has an interesting consistency that makes it really easy to apply thin washes. (If I am applying a wash on a lighter color, I use Tamiya Clear to get a similar effect.) 

I then wash the entire base and let it dry overnight. At the end of the painting day, I always wash my brushes with soapy water and try to recreate the point of the brush. The brushes last longer this way.    

Here’s a shot of the progress so far.

I start drybrushing the base. Drybrushing is a technique where you get a little bit of paint on your brush, and then get most of it off. You then run the brush over the surface, and the higher parts get a little bit of paint on them. It’s a technique that is best for rough natural surfaces, like fur and ground.

Note that the technique is really hard on brushes. Once you use a brush for drybrushing, you really can’t use it for detail work. I use my biggest brush for this model.

I drybrush the rocks. I use four mixtures of paint, each a lighter brown color:

·        mixture of mahogany brown and cork brown

·        cork brown

·        mixture of cork brown and pale sand

·        pale sand

I put slightly less pressure on the brush with each coat. This results in the highest points being lightest in color, which gives it a natural look.

I do a similar thing with the grey wall. I am now done with drybrushing. Here’s a closer shot of the base after applying the grey paint.

See all those little disks? The base is covered with the dragon’s treasure, a pile of gold coins. At this point I have a mixture of metallic gold and dark brown paint that I use for a base coat on the coins. This involves a finer brush with a good sharp point.

After a little more than an hour, I’m done painting the coins with a dark gold base coat.

The highlights are faster, and here’s the base after picking out the coins with medium gold.

Finally, I pick out some coins with a bright gold. Here’s a closer shot. I also start painting details like the terracotta pot.

I paint the cauldron with a mixture of black, grey, and metallic paints. You’ll notice a few gems spilling out of the cauldron. The gems are the most complex item on the base, so I’m going to go into a little more detail in how I painted them. I started with the largest gem, which I decided to paint blue. I start with a basic dark blue coat. I then use shades of blue, grey, and white to paint individual facets. Finally, I paint the border of each facet with brighter blues and whites.

I paint the rest of the gems in a similar method, except I use greens and purples. I avoid red to make them stand out – enough of the final miniature will be red, I don’t need to add any more! I also paint the wood parts with progressively lighter grey-brown shades.

Finally, I paint the dragon’s feet with successively lighter shades of red and I apply another thin wash over the whole base.

That’s it for this week. Next time, I’ll start airbrushing the dragon!