PETER PAINTS: THE RED DRAGON PART 3

Hello! I’m Peter Lee, a member of D&D R&D here at Wizards of the Coast. For the last few weeks, I’ve been painting Gale Force Nine’s new Red Dragon miniature. Last week, I painted the base. This week, I will airbrush the miniature and start painting the chest. Here’s where we stand so far.

When I glued the figure together two weeks ago, I did not glue the dragon to the base. I did not do this because it is easier to airbrush without the base. An airbrush is a specialized tool that has more in common with a can of spray paint than a regular brush.

The metal object above is an airbrush. In this case, it is an Iwata HP-C that I brought about 10 years ago. It’s a double action airbrush. A double action airbrush allows me to use the trigger to control both the paint flow and air flow, providing me a lot of finesse. The paint is fed via gravity through the large reservoir at the top. The airbrush is attached to an air compressor by a long flexible hose. I’ll be using three colors of paint (black, red, and purple), some cups to mix the paint, a dropper to transfer the paint, and some water.

It is easier to make the color red darker, so I start with the lightest shade of red which I have watered down to the consistency of milk.

I fill the reservoir with the watered down paint. The round metal disk to the left of the reservoir is the trigger. I push it down to control the amount of air going into the airbrush, and I pull it back to apply the paint.

I now start applying the paint. My goal for this first coat is basic coverage. It is better to apply a few thin coats than one thick coat. I do not have a good way to hold on to the dragon, so I let the paint dry between coats.

The powerful part with using an airbrush to paint miniatures is the angle you approach the subject matters. Since I’ve only applied the paint from above, the side is mostly unpainted.

I paint the sides of the neck and the head.

I let the dragon dry. One important part about using the airbrush is that it really needs to be cleaned a lot. If you let the paint dry inside the mechanism, you’re out of luck. I try to use the brush close to a sink so I can quickly clean it whenever I take a break or change colors.

After the dragon dries, I turn it over and paint the bottom with the same red shade. I don’t have a good set up for airbrushing, so I’m painting on the floor with some paper down to protect the carpeting from overspray.

I let the coat dry and clean the brush again. Airbrushing is an extremely fast technique compared to a regular brush, but you spend about as much time cleaning as you do painting!

Now I mix some purple, black, and red and start painting the wings. I go a little darker with each coat.

After the wings dry, I paint the bottom of the dragon with a darker shade of red. Since I’m painting from below, the different shades will help me figure out how light falls on the miniature. I also apply a gradient to the bottom of the wings with a darker shade of reddish-purple.

Here’s a front view on the base.

Here’s a shot from behind. This really shows the gradient on the wings. I’m done airbrushing at this point, so I let the paint dry overnight. You don’t need an airbrush to paint the dragon, but it certainly speeds things up.

I want to apply a wash over the figure, but before I do that, I want to put a coat of paint on the scales that cover the underside. Here’s a closer view of the belly after airbrushing.

Here’s the tail after applying some cork brown paint.

Here is the chest and belly.

Close up on the front.

I apply a darker brown wash to the entire figure and let it dry overnight.

I will now highlight the tan scales. First, I paint the recesses of the scales with a cork brown/mahogany brown mix.

I paint a dark red line along the length of the tan scales to help the color pop out better.

I now paint the scales with incrementally lighter shades of cork brown/pale sand.

Here is the chest after the first highlight.

The next highlight has more pale sand in it.

The last highlights are almost completely done with the pale sand paint.

That’s it for me this week! Next week, I’ll continue with the lower parts in preparation for gluing the dragon to the base. If you can’t wait, I’ll be posting my progress on twitter (@minipete) as I do it. Thanks for reading!