Five Winners

Liebster Awards / Blogroll Adds

Seven winners, actually, if you include me and John over at Plastic Legions. 8-} John was kind enough to award BftD a Liebster Award (after receiving one himself), a chain-letter-type award going around the miniatures blogosphere at the moment. Cheers, thanks, John!
Here's how the thing works as I understand it:

1. Copy and paste the award on your blog linking it to the blogger who has given it you.
2. Pass the award to your top 5 favorite blogs with less than 200 followers by leaving a comment on one of their posts to notify them that they have won the award and listing them on your own blog.
3. Sit back and bask in the warm fuzzy feeling that comes with knowing you have made someones day!
4. There is no obligation to pass this onto someone else but its nice if you take the time to do so.

I would also like to add a 5th qualification for all my award recipients to keep my motivations pure:

5. Please do not give the award back to the the blog that awarded it to you: pass it on to someone new instead.

Anyway, usually these meme posts pass me by before I can jump onboard, but this one finds me stuck home sick and blogging, and the time is just right! I know it's hard to get noticed in the blogosphere, especially if you're main areas of interest aren't part of the mainstream, and I welcome any concerted effort to jointly spread the word about cool finds. As regular readers may know, I try to do a little more when I add someone to the blogroll by posting a few words and tagging the posts Blogroll Additions so it's easy to to find them all. To my mind, this award is like a glorified blogroll add, and that's not a bad thing! Because there are so many deserving blogs out there, I've decided to only consider blogs I haven't mentioned already.
So, with that in mind that the awards go to:

• Drums in the Deep—I should have added this blog to the blogroll quite some time ago, but no time like the present to make up for it. I'm the first to admit my own blog has a niche aesthetic, straddling several areas of blogging that are themselves fairly niche. So it's awesome to run into a blogger like a Gareth the Grot, someone who seems to be working toward very similar ends. Soon we will be legion! Really cool fantasy figures painted beautifully, adventures underground, etc..
• Old School Miniatures Bulletin—A blog I've been following for quite some time and is overdue for a shout out. If I'm niche, he's nicher, as the focus is Grenadier miniatures. It's not easy for me to pick a favorite miniatures company and harder to go on the record about it, but I will go as far as to say there is no miniatures company I like better than Grenadier and none I feel were as vital to the miniatures hobby as a whole. Dave, the blogger on the Bulletin, keeps the Grenadier flame alive and shares some great takes on these classic figs. Like me, he's also something of an archivist and locates his posts within the particular miniatures range in question.
• Realms of Chaos—Regular readers will be familiar with my long-standing obsession with D&D, but you may not realize that I cut my teeth on Citadel and have all kinds of Citadel projects that have been left to simmer on the back burner. When a blog like this one comes around flaunting incredible projects like his Epic Orks army, especially when I have all the very same lead amongst my hoard, I wish more than ever I could clone myself.
• Diary of a Lapsed Painter—Lately this blog has been an awesome mix of beautifully executed Oldhammer projects and wonderful Citadel ephemera from the golden age. Each post is a rare treat.
• Realms of miniatures—Oldhammer has never looked so good, and to boot here is a guy who attacks problems like a modular gaming table with science squarely on his side.

Also, Plastic Legions has over two hundred followers, so is not in the running, but I've added it to the blogroll and you should definitely check it out, especially if you're interested in LotR gaming or Hirst Arts projects, though really there is a wide range of content. I remember seriously grooving on the Hirst Arts stuff, though, either on LAF or the blog itself.
Finally, whoever started this award thing, despite good intentions, is not so hot at internets and it doesn't appear he or she considered working in a means to aggregate the winners together, which I would argue is essentially the whole point and something that could have been done by harnessing the awesome power of the hashtag for starters. Oh well, such is the internet, all these moments, tears in rain, etc. If you're reading this within a week or two of me posting this, this Google advanced search may help. If this post is staler than that as you read it, try tweaking the search and hope for the best. I may post a pointer or two in a moment on how to help improve the situation for would-be memers moving forward.

The Minotaur

Painted: Otherworld Minotaur

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

We collectors are spoilt for choice when it comes to minotaurs, but this one here from Otherworld is a contender for my favorite. I have two more of these, one of the armored variant and another of this one I have a conversion in mind for. There is no question I am on the side of "feet" in the feet vs. hooves debate that has been raging since the dawn of fantasy miniatures and it's nice knowing a guy like this minotaur here is in your corner. And I'm just as strongly on the side of au naturel in that other debate, whether monsters should bother wearing clothes. Honestly, how many monsters that you know are going to give a rat's ass about clothes? Monsters have no shame, guys. No shame. They never had "the fall" in the garden of monsters and the thought, oh no, god (or some especially sensitive gamer) may be watching me and I better grab a fig leaf. Please believe me when I tell you that's not how monsters think. Their priorities are eating people, and more eating people, which are things they do equally well whether or not they are clothed.

Other Minotaurs

Anyway, as you may know, when I show off a monster I like to give honorable mentions to other contenders and/or pause wistfully and consider another group of the same monster I have buried under lead mountain and will probably never paint. As I said we are spoilt for choice, and a fully fleshed-out roundup wouldn't be a bad topic for a post, but for now I'll say the other contender is the set by Bob Olley currently produced by Cavalcade. (Edit: Awesome painted example over at Drums in the Deep.) Even though I'm probably not as big of an Olley fan as your typical old school lead freak this batch of minotaurs catches my eye every now and then for reasons that I hope are obvious. And, as is the case for many other encounter groups you'll see here, my other unpainted group is made up of crusty Citadel homeboys, lead by a couple multi-part lords.

Oh, and I almost forgot. Though, as I say, I prefer minotaurs with feet, generally, I have both Taurg the Axe and his little cousin, sculpted by Allan C. for the tragically defunct Ilyad Games. If you disagree with me on the feet issue and you could pick one hooved minotaur to put in your corner, you could do a lot worse than Taurg, that's for sure.

So I guess I can't call myself a hard-liner. And I guess there's no reason to draw a line in the sand, anyway. Minotaurs with feet and those with hooves got along just fine in the Warhammer world for generations, where the expression of hoof or foot is clearly due to the whim of this or that chaos god.

Metadata

Manufacturer: Otherworld
Line: DM Series - Dungeon Monsters
Figure: DM6a - Minotaur I
Release date: 2008
Sculptor: Paul Muller
Date painted: 2011

Painting

I wanted to have the painting highlight the contrast between the human and the bull parts of the figure, and to this end I chose a very human flesh tone for the man parts and a a bullish black for the hair and head. This set up another challenge, however, because there are some parts that are sculpted to be hairy on the figure, and others that are more less bare, but even a hirsute man is going to have hair more or less all over—on his back, arms, chest, etc. I tried a very old school technique to get that hairy look, but feel it was only partially successful. I added graphite shavings from a pencil to some matte medium and daubed it on as I had done for a five o'clock shadow or two back in the day. The shavings more less dissolved, however, leaving a more uniform gray than I'd hoped for. I went back and forth with black and flesh paint to work the hair and flesh together to a point where it seemed natural, and am fairly happy with the result, but after the fact I think less gray and more finely drawn, individual, black hairs may have sold the effect better. My other thought was that as a creature spending most of his time wandering underground mazes I gave him too sunny a tan. Now if I make the others paler, however, I might draw undo attention to the fact.

Second to lastly, a shout out to Blackfly who posted up another fresh rendition of this minotaur over on his blog, MadPonies, which is what got me in gear to share my one version. Thought I had MadPonies on the blogroll already, but looks like no. Fixed that.

And lastly, this was birthday present so thanks OpForOverlord! Took me just one year to paint it, and just under another to post it. That's giving it the fast track in my world!

As always, the collection can be viewed in its entirety at flickr.

Giant Weasels in AD&D

Spoiler Alert—My Players, skip this post to maintain maximum fun

The giant weasel is a mean 3+3 HD monster and with its special drain blood attack it should have a low or medium level party thinking twice about crossing them. That is, were it not for its pelt. The pelt, worth between 1000 and 6000 GP, is probably the most valuable treasure any 3HD monster will ever carry, and once your players find this out (and find a furrier who can pay what they're worth) they will be willing to lay a lot on the line for a chance at such booty, and as they advance they may hunt them to extinction as best they can.

The Monster Manual has weasels commonly (~20% likely) guard kobold layers, and, again, if the players catch wind, this fact may have them storming kobold layers long past second or third level. On the one hand this will increase the utility of your kobold miniatures a good measure. However, if you're the type who worries about "balance" and going "Monty Haul" then you need to make some considerations.

In my own game the Challengers faced off against several weasels and a pack of kobolds and pulled off the win without losing a man. And they were savvy enough to take the pelts to the nearby furrier they had heard a rumor about. Sure enough, they then put off long term goals in favor of a kobold hunt close to to home. They haven't managed to come to grips with any more weasels since that first encounter but any kobold gang around the corner means another chance of weasel guards. The question remains, though, whether, if and when they do clash, it will be the windfall the players are hoping for or more trouble (death) than the weasels' potential worth.

And on the question of balance, my approach is that if the players get too single-minded I'd be remiss not to leverage the concept of an upset equilibrium and introduce believable (and yet, hopefully, fun to play) challenges that would arise as a consequence. For example, other, likely more seasoned adventurers would catch wind of the opportunity and edge in on the PC's territory. Or the kobolds or another enterprising monster might exploit the PCs desire for weasels and use them as bait. Or they succeed despite these obstacles, hunt weasels to extinction. Again, problem solved. Overall I'm not too concerned about it.

Giant Weasel Miniatures Roundup

You can see which weasels I went with, those by Splintered Light, sculpted by Bob Olley, but I thought I may as well round up what options you have in case you're in the market and want to consider your options. Essentially, Otherworld and Reaper make some, and there's one for the D&D Minis game in the Aberrations set.

The Otherworld ones are great but initially I thought they were way too big for a 3HD monster in 25mm (the pic above make them look bigger than a tiger, for example). Having seen pics of them painted up on other sites I think they may not be quite as big as this pic makes them out to to look (there is shrinkage between the sculpt and the casting to consider). But size aside, there is the price, which is 390% more than the Splintered Light ones. However, now that I think about it, what about a new breed of greater giant weasels, or should that be titan weasels.... ? (to give you a frightening, only slightly exaggerated demonstration of how my mind rationalizes new purchases even of things I've already checked off the wishlist)

The prepaint figure is wrapped around a stalagmite and therefore a group of them would look like crap. And then there's that unfortunately decision Wizards made back in 3ed to give dire creatures a more evil back story and have spikes and crap sticking out of the skin of all the dire creatures. So the weird spikes would need to be shaved off and smoothed over.

Reaper makes both a "weasel" and a "ferret" and they sell them in variety packs of familiars. Thankfully, if you want a group of just the weasel or ferret you can get them from Hoard O Bits, who hopefully won't mind me nicking their pics in exchange for links back to the shop. These figures are much larger than a 25mm "normal" ferret or weasel would be, but are not quite big enough to warrant the "giant" appellation in 25mm.

The Splintered Light ones, meanwhile, have all the right attributes:

• Good sculpting
• More than one pose, and poses that look good in a group
• Won't break the bank
• Perfect size for 25mm or 28mm (despite being sold as 15/18mm)

I also hugely appreciate that either Splintered Light or Bob Olley had the foresight to a) makes the bases of these large enough that I don't have to base them but no so large as I have to have cut them off and b) add a little texture detail to the base. That's so much time saved.

Running with the Weasels

Painted: Giant Weasels

Along with some friends and foes:

Metadata

Manufacturer: Splintered Light
Line: 15/18mm Animals and Creatures
Set: MISC09 Giant Weasels
Base markings: © SLM 07
Release date: 2007
Sculptor: Bob Olley
Date painted: 2011

Painting

Nothing tricky here. These were fun and quick. I primed in Dupli-color gray and after painting glazed their coats with inks to give them a rich, reddish sheen. The undersides are bright, warm white and I did their eyes basic black with a white glint for that sinister beady-eye look. You can see the legs that aren't touching the ground have some structural support sculpted to suggest grass, but I think it works fine painted gray in my case and can represent dust being thrown up from the dungeon floor.

Previously on BftD

In case you missed the koboldsor want to have a another look.

As always, the collection can be viewed in its entirety at flickr.

And stay tuned for more on giant weasels coming right up!

From the Shadows

Painted: Umber Hulk

Manufacturer: Archive Miniatures
Line: Dungeon Nasties
Figure: 775 Amber Hulk
Release date: 1977?
Sculptor: Nevile Stocken
Painter: Spooktalker
Date painted: 2011

This umber hulk from Archive Miniatures is one of the older, rarer, and more valuable figures in my D&D collection and one I scored for almost nothing at a convention flea market. I have to admit I think the charms of Archive figures are fairly dubious, but I also have to admit that whatever the sculpting prowess on display this may be the most faithful rendition in miniature of the original Umber Hulk design I've seen.

One of the more notable/noticeable features of this figure are the mandibles, sculpted flat against the chest in order to facilitate a one-piece casting. I debated cutting off the mandibles and either repositioning them or sculpting new ones protruding from the jaw as we'd expect to see, but decided in the end to keep the figure stock in order to preserve the specimen. It would have looked a lot better the other way, there's no doubt about it, but nonetheless I think I made the right call.

As always, the collection can be viewed in its entirety at flickr.

D&D Doodle Rises

Unearthed Internets/Blogroll Add combo

There is no better blog-time surprise than to see a favorite blog you consider archive-only rise up and shake off the dust. And he's going off in a new direction with some fantastic Cthulhu stuff. He was due for a shout out here anyway but now I can add him to the blogroll as well. If you're not familiar, you owe yourself carving out at least the next twenty minutes before you head over to D&D Doodle.

Look at the way this guy renders the environment of the game, including a certain keep you may recognize:

And someone who shares respect for the owlbear too:

And in case you're worried my own blog was down for the count, I should be back in action shortly. Got a new computer and haven't got around to getting Photoshop back up. Expect to sort that out in the next week or so.

Unearthed Internets: D&D Diorama by J. B. Waskul Creative Works & Concepts

From the Unearthed Internets file comes a wonderful, large-scale (1/30th) D&D diorama by one J. B. Waskul featuring iconic monsters like the umber hulk, night hag, naga, fire giant, troll, beholder, roper, lich and stone golem. Obviously some love went into it.

Umber hulk strikes from the shadows: Detail from Waskul's diorama

The piece is photographed in details like this. My only regrets are there is no shot of the piece as a whole (which Waskul says stands 3') and it could really use a dusting with a big soft brush and/or compressed air to restore its luster.

Heartbreaker

Painted: Succubus

As Joeksy the dungeon brawler taught us, never trust a hot chick in a dungeon! No time is this more true than when you encounter one of this ilk. Be wary; her charms are deadly.

Not that this advice is going to do you much good, though. With the succubus's array of psionics and spells it's unlikely you'll know what you're up against until you're in her arms and with but a kiss your soul is drained away level by level in as few minutes.

Manufacturer: Grenadier
Line: Julie Guthrie's Personalities
Figure: 881 Succubus
Release date: 198?
Sculptor: Julie Guthrie
Painter: Spooktalker
Date painted: 2010

I painted this one as a gift for my GF but I'm sure she won't mind if I borrow it for a game or three. Meanwhile I have another casting of this sculpt and one of the other Guthrie succubus for when I can get to them. Like most of the Guthrie grenadier personalities these are available now from Mega Miniatures.

As always, the collection can be viewed in its entirety at flickr. And don't forget when roleplaying your succubi to, in the words of Gygax, avoid melee and "use guile, treachery and etherealness whenever possible."

Miniatures Photo Tests

Photographed against my usual dark gray paper backdrop. The paper came from a scrapbook type craft shop and it's a kind that has a white back. This will serve as the control in this little experiment. The pros for this technique are it's quick and no adjustments in post are necessary. The images also have a sort of fancy or cinematic feel imo. They're in the spotlight. The con here is that unless you have a high quality monitor the images probably don't look their best in daylight due to glare. This is mainly a failing of the monitor and not the image per se but all the same I think this is a pretty significant drawback and it's the reason I'm considering other options.

Photographed against the same paper as above but with foil reflectors behind to reflect back light. This gives more definition to the figures and lessens the shadows in the back but adds shadows in the front that makes the paper seem glossy despite it actually being fairly matte.

Photographed against light gray paper with no adjustments made. This looks pretty good to me and the light background means you don't have to worry about that glare issue I mentioned above.
However, without an overlay effect like you see in the tests below the figures have shadows around them and this has always bothered me more when the figures are against a light backdrop than a dark one. This is actually the sole reason I switched to the dark backdrop for this project but the shadows aren't that noticeable now as I'm viewing them in this comparison. After all, the pictures against the dark backdrop have equally noticeable ones.
What do you think: should I go this way or stick with the way I've been doing it?

Photographed against light gray paper with a gradient effect overlayed in Photoshop. The reason for the screen is to get rid of shadows.
I used to use a variation of this technique when I was painting professionally and I like this effect quite a bit. However, this takes time to magic wand the figures and apply the overlay and because of the shear volume of figures I need to photograph this technique is definitely not feasible for this particular blog.

Similar to the above. Photographed against the same light gray paper but with a white screen effect overlayed in Photoshop. This is a popular way to show catalog figures on the web as it's clean and centers the eye on the figures.
Exact same con as the one above. Only takes a fraction of a minute per pic, but it adds up big time.

Photographed against Dwarven Forge terrain. This is my least favorite of the bunch because the terrain creates a distracting uniform pattern. However, it might be just a little unfair to have used lizardmen as they are green and you have green against green. By the way I plan to paint my troglodytes intentionally in the exact same colors as the Dwarven Forge and I'll be sure to get a pick of that but maybe that's neither here nor there./

I mostly did the tests to help myself find the best method but with any luck this is helpful to others as well. Please let me know if you've got an opinion on which way I should go!

BftD One Year Anniversary

BftD turns one today! Thanks everyone who has followed along or dropped in to leave a comment. I knew when I started my initial focus on vintage D&D figs would make it a challenge finding an audience as compared with some of my previous ventures in the Warmachine/Hordes world or even as compared with Necromunda, which is, itself, a fairly niche thing judging from how many people come up to me at a con with something to effect of, "that still exists?"

And I wasn't wrong. It was a struggle getting some momentum behind the blog. I feel as though I'm straddling two communities with the D&D project without the benefit of being able to stand firmly planted in either. And I'm not even talking about the D&D community vs the miniatures community, but rather I'm still on the fringe of even the niche OSR community within the D&D community and likewise on the fringe of the niche skirmish miniatures and old school miniatures communities. It's funny to think that when fantasy miniatures got their start the idea of fantasy miniatures was synonymous with D&D and how nowadays beyond prepaints there is little interaction between what are now two hobbies rather than one.

But I feel like BftD is starting to build up speed now and I'm really glad I've found common ground with many of you and many of you have found a reason to stick around. At the outset of BftD year two my obsession with D&D shows no signs of slackening and I've got a lot coming down the pipe, or I guess that should be up the throat. I'm fairly determined to make what you find here the finest, most comprehensive and most-functional collection of D&D miniatures on the Web. And I also have a bunch of terrain projects to share as well as big backlog pics of Necromunda, Hordes, Warmaster and old school Warhammer fantasy to throw at you among other things. The D&D is actually a latecomer to my list of pet projects if you can believe it. Cheers to another year!

Painted: Kobolds

Minifigs Kobolds

These wretched, nasty dogmen delight in the basest forms of torture, the most unsporting and opportunistic of murders, and ghoulish traps of many an exotic variety. Whatever you do, don't let their cuteness fool you—it's their strongest means of defense!

Manufacturer: Minifigs
Line: Dungeons & Dragons
Set: KL1-5 Kobolds
Release date: 1977
Date painted: 2011
Notes: These are converted. The crests, horns and diamond-shaped back and chest plates were added. A few were given arm and weapon swaps.

A collage of kobold shields. I designed these on paper before transferring to the miniatures and took inspiration from shield designs from our own world. The shields are about 1/4 the size of my thumbnail.

Lots more pics of the finished figs on flickr in case you're interested, including rear views and individual shots.

Here's what I started with:

I took the shots of the plain lead for the Lost Minis Wiki (and they're also on flickr of course).

And here's a size comparison. They're tiny; some of the few I've seen that approach the size they should be. They're about 3' 4" in 25mm scale, where the Monster Manual says 3". Pardon the gloss; they hadn'tt got their dullcote when this pic was taken.

And here's a pic of the conversions I did. Despite being official D&D figures they were missing some key elements I like about the Monster Manual art. I added the crests, embellished what used to be plain, circular chest and back plates, and made horns out of the little dull nubs they had previously. And don't get me started about what a royal pain it was cutting and filing their bases into an oval shape.

More WIP shots are on flickr.

Ok, that's it for now! I actually launched into a long general commentary on kobolds' place in the game and the various kobold figs you can use for 25mm but this is a long one already and the night is wearing on so I will save that for a future post.

Unknown Painter: Amazonia Gothique

Unknown painter is a series of posts featuring figures I picked up that are painted by others. I did not paint these.

Kickin' off a series of posts showing figures in the state I acquire them. Most of the figures I pick up go right in bath of Simple Green ASAP without a second thought. A few, though, have paintjobs worth sharing here even if I strip them in the end. This for kicks and to help in some small way our record of how figures were painted in yesteryear.

This first post is going to set the bar really high, though, so don't think they are all going to be this good. Don't worry, she's not going anywhere near the bath! And in that respect I think she's the first. She might even get a spot in the display case.

Manufacturer: Citadel
Line: Limited Editions
Set: LE15
Figure: LE15 Amazonia Gothique
Release date: 1986
Sculptor: Michael Perry
Painter: unknown
Date painted: unknown
Notes: This was sculpted after a John Blanche painting that appeared on the cover of White Dwarf issue 79. Minor restoration done in 2012.

So you can see the figure is not only painted well, but it's done after the painting. And the shield, while different, is pure Blanche in style.

I really lucked on on this one. I got in line for the Kublacon 2012 fleamarket way too late and with the fire code restricting how many people could be in the room at once it was about forty minutes after opening that I got in. Which means hundreds of clamoring, sweaty gamers passed over this before I came around and picked it along with six Citadel gnolls (which I may share later on) for just $15. A friend was looking over my shoulder trying not to smirk as I made the deal, but I made no attempt to haggle and the woman turned and checked it with her husband before handing them over so I am guilt-free. It was only after I got the figure out of the convention hall that I realized their was a decent paintjob under all the dust. For a Blanche fan like me it was a solid win! The fig and the painting have been favorites since way back in the day.

For those into the old school methods this paint job is instructive and demonstrates what can be done with a technique that relies heavily on washes and glazes. The greens are especially vibrant as the white primer is doing the highlighting work. The stocking looks like it is simply flesh colored glazed with black.

Also, I have to take a little credit fixing up the base. The earth colored foam you see was there already, but sides of the base had sloppy, thick brush marks and bits of debris caught under the paint. This kind of thing ruins a figure for me so I sanded the sides down and repainted them. She also had little holes either side of her tab as the tab is smaller than the slot, and that's another thing I can't stand for. I added a little more earth colored foam and a little static grass, and finished it off with a tiny bit of green foam for contrast.

Prepaint Repaint D&D Green Dragon

Painted: Wizards of the Coast Green Dragon

Showin' off what knobrot can look like if treated like a lady. This is from The War of the Dragon Queen set from 2006. Not all prepaints of of this quality but there may be enough lurking amidst the chaff to make it worth your while to sift through them.

And as always here's a shot for scale:

Manufacturer: Wizards of the Coast
Line: D&D Minis
Set: War of the Dragon Queen
Figure: 38/60 R Large Green Dragon
Release date: 2006
Date painted: 2011

Two tips on repainting prepaints

1. Use a fresh exacto blade on the mold lines and plan to dull it quickly. Factor it into your cost of the figure. You can sand/file it as well if you take great care, but rely on the blade for the bulk of it. It takes some time but is actually quicker and easier than cleaning up a typical metal figure of the same size. I filled a few gaps as well but again, it comes pre-assembled so this was also quicker than a multipart figure would have been.
2. Once you prime, don't worry if the figure winds up tacky. Put it in a box and try to forget about for literally a week or two. That's how long it took this figure to dry out and lose the tackiness. But eventually it did dry and it painted up really nicely after that. I usually put a thick clear coat on my figs before a dullcote and I also skipped that step for this. The paint seems to be firmly affixed and a thick coat unnecessary.

On the D&D prepaint Dragons and this one in particular

There is lots to like about them generally speaking. They are fairly dynamic as they are multipart kits designed in innovative ways in terms of the parts makeup to ensure they lock together tight with no chance of anything falling off. The proportions and anatomy are often a lot more pleasing than metal figures, and I really like having a huge range in sizes. I have a half-dozen or so and most are about this size, which is smaller than average even in 25mm scale going by the numbers in the 1st ed Monster Manual. Which is little ironic given the name Large Green Dragon this one is given and it being intended for a later edition where everything tends to be super-sized and in a range that's nominally 30mm "scale."

If you've seen this figure in a catalog you'll note I just copied the scheme they used on the paint master. Dunno, just really like it, and I have so many thousands of opportunities to get creative I don't mind following others' guidelines now and then. I saw the catalog pic and thought, I'll have one just like that, thanks.

Here's a before shot so you can compare.

And a few in progress shots so you can see what the unpainted figure looks like and the basecoat. I used a mix of P3 Coal Black (this is warm, dark blue and not at all black) and Citadel Dark Angels Green (mine is twist-cap era). Like all my bases this is a laser-cut ellipse base Fenris Games cut for me. It's got magnets embedded in it for easy storage and transport and the texture is Sculptamold.

Several last comments. On my cast (and yours, I bet) the eyes are not at all symmetrical. Don't know if bad sculpting or a molding mishap. But I cut out the right eye, enlarged the socket and reset the eye so it lined up with the other. Took about ten minutes. I'm also think painting the tiny horns on the nose bone color may have been a mistake. Not sure what I was thinking there and I may go back in a touch those up. Or I may not worry about it.

And as always, the collection can be viewed in its entirety at flickr.