The Blue Dragon

   The Blue Dragon is ready and I want to say that I am very pleased with the final result! Now, my Moria forces are stronger than ever before! 

The Blue Dragon

   Having stayed for more than a night to get dry, the base was ready for the next step, the highlighting. For this purpose I mixed Neutral Grey (992) with White (951) and highlighted the whole base, except the shield, using an old brush. Then, I added more White to the mixture and repeated the highlighting a couple of times.

   After that, I painted every item on the base: the shield, the two swords, the war-axe, the horn, the helmet, the leather pouch and the gold coins. I kept some coins from the Red Dragon base to use them for this one.

   It was time for the Dragon itself to get a better look. I washed the whole model with Strong Tone AP Wash and painted the silver horns, nails and teeth with Ivory (918). I highlighted then the body of the dragon with Sky Blue (961). Finally, I glued the Dragon on its base.

   That's it for today! Enjoy!

The Blue Dragon WIP

   As soon as the Red Dragon was ready, it was time for his friend, the Blue Dragon! The later was another not expensive plastic toy for children. Of course, I couldn't leave it as it was painted, with all these silver nails and silver horns!  Furthermore, I had to give it an appropriate oval base to stand on. 

The Dragon toy

   I had a Ziterdes small ruined piece with an animal statue on it, which inspired me to think of a temple ruined base. What did I do? I cut a piece of wood at the proper size and glued white hard paper on it. After that, I glued a light blue piece of super-market food tray over it and grooved some runic alphabet letters on the "floor tiles" and cracks on some "stone tiles" of the rest floor.

The Ziterdes "Watcher of dark"

My wife's contribution of pegs as usual!

Everything stuck on the wooden base

   Finally, I covered the edges of the base and the gaps between the materials with black wood putty, stuck on it little rocks and sand and left it dry for the night. 

Black wood putty, little rocks and sand 

   The next day I stuck some weapons here and there and painted everything grey. Then, I left it again for another night to dry. 

   That's it for today! Stay tuned for more!

The Red Dragon

   The Red Dragon is ready! Let's take a look at the whole WIP step by step.

The Red Dragon

   First, I painted neutral grey and then highlighted with light grey everything, except the trunks. Next, I painted the axes, shield, trunks and coins.

Neutral grey

Light grey

   When the base was painted I washed all the objects on it with the Strong Tone of the Army Painter.

Strong Tone wash

   Later, I decided to give more realistic look to dragon's claws, teeth and horns. Originally they were gold, too painful to the eye! I painted them Ivory.

   Here is the final result. Hope you like it.

Detail of the trunks treasure, the "coins-making" torture! 

"Who dares to confront me?"

   That's it for today! Stay tuned for the Blue Dragon!

The Red Dragon WIP

   Middle-earth has many legends and frightening tales about dragons. They fight with a fury that few creatures can match - a slash of their talons can break any shield wall and a snap of their jaws can bite a man in two!

   Recently, me and a friend of mine bought two dragons from a toy store. They are made of plastic and painted with bright colours, one red and one blue. Mine is the blue one. They didn't stand on any base, as they were not miniatures but just toys for little children.  

   It was time for work! I decided to start with the red dragon. First, I used a GW base as a model to cut two pieces of wood of the same dimensions. After that, we made a drawing and marked the places, where the feet of the red dragon will stand on the base.    

The Red dragon toy

The wooden base

The drawing with future dragon's footsteps.

   Then, I used a piece from a super market food tray to make the pavement and hard paper for the paved road, as well as some plastic trunks and barrels to store the dwarven gold. 

   I needed some golden coins to fill the trunks. First, I cut the upper part of the two trunks with a little saw and then I sliced five spears into small round pieces which would become the coins. After that I glued them on the open trunks. That was a real torture! 

   

Pegs was a contribution of my wife!

   The stones of the paved road are grooved with a pen. Finally, I used sand, little rocks and white glue for the debris here and there. 

The debris

The trunks and barrels

   When the glue got dry, I sprayed the whole base with black colour. 

   That's it for today! Stay tuned for the painting of the base!

Forest

   Forest trees are my new terrain pieces. I had an assortment of them stuck to hard paper bases. A few months ago I bought some  Renedra oval and round bases. Recently a friend of mine gave me some more trees, brand new, in their packages. I decided to re-base the old trees adding the new ones! And here is the result, my forest:  

The forest

The old trees on hard paper bases and the brand new ones

The re-basing

The very high trees

The high trees

The medium trees

The low trees

and my favourites!

   That's it for today! Stay tuned for more!

   Jeremy, welcome on board!