Grenadier Fire Elemental

Today I have an oldy for you, and proof I haven't forgotten about the project that inspired this blog, painting my old school D&D figures.

This is a Grenadier Fire Elemental from the Wizzards and Lizzards W32 Elementals blister pack, from before 1977.

It one languished for four years or more unfinished close beside the vampire and Nurgle herald shown recently. The reason is I did something stupid priming it, and under-primed it dark gray before lightly priming it white. In order to make flame successful like this it has to be white, white white all the way through. I knew this, and had plenty of experience painting flames. I must have been thinking I wouldn't do the more contemporary and convincing way to paint flames shown here, with the lightest on the inside and the darkest reds at the tips of the flames, but I would do it old school. But when I went to paint it I decided to do it this way after all, and by the time I realized I needed to have primed it white with several more coats I was already well into it. It cost me literally hours of frustration to go back and try to get the crevices white enough after the midtones were already done. I eventually solved it with thick modeling paste made of marble dust and binder, which is super opaque white. But had I just primed it white it probably wouldn't have taken more than two or three hours total. D&D figures were supposed to be the free and easy ones I painted to relax with!


Painting flames is really satisfying in the end, and fun during too if I make sure to prime fully white. Flames can be a crowd-pleaser too.

One thing I really like about this figure are the tiny little flames I made from green stuff (actually, brown stuff) that blend the figure into the environment. That was time well-spent at least.

For those interested in my D&D figures, an update here that I am in this enormous years-spanning project where I focus on one task like basing, mold lines, assembly, etc, for weeks at a time, and I over the past few years I've primed several hundred D&D figures waiting to be painted, and there are several hundred more in earlier prep stages. Meanwhile, though, on the assembly line these days is mostly Oldhammer and historical figures. It's hard to even find the time to post just the finished ones, but I might start posting some of my workbench stuff to help motivate myself, maybe more on a Twitter feed than here. Does anyone here have a twitter feed they use for posting miniatures, especially WIP shots?