Cool Dragonborn Wizard!

Cool dragonborn wizard!

This was a great mini, I got to play with drybrushing metallics which is always fun, and I've been looking for a chance to play with layering red on robes a bit.

That coat trim was kind of a pain to paint, especially since it was a yellow going over the dark red I'd already painted the robe with. I like how it came out in the end tho, worth the effort!

I tried out using some colourshift paint for the orb on the staff, with a painted gradient under it. It worked ok, but the overall colour is a lot less striking then if I'd just painted it with a bright, regular paint. Still, its got a kind of cool effect, I might play with that more in other minis I think.

I'm also really happy with how the base turned out, only for it to mostly get covered by the mini. Tried out painting the cobblestones a variety of colours and tying it together with a wash and drybrush in the end.

This mini is Zuldikis DragonBorn Mage by Miniatures Blueprint

WIZAR!

I tried painting this mini with a bit more focus on lighting than I normally do. Most of the time I'm just hitting the upward facing surfaces with some highlights, but this time I went for trying to highlight as if he was facing into the light. I'm not sure it totally works, but I'm pretty happy with how it came out all the same.

I also got to play around with foam a bit making the rock for him to stand on, which is always fun.

This mini is Allanor by Lunaris Figures.

Dipping my toes into dioramas with a thief on the run from the slightly too-slow guards :)

I had a lot of fun putting this together.

It was a bit of a challenge painting to make the scene look like nighttime. I tried desaturating my colours a lot, and mixing my highlights with blue-white to try and get that lord of the rings, 'its night because the light is blue' effect. I'm not sure I got it quite right, but I'm still happy enough with it.

Doing some foam carving for the bricks was a nice change from just printing everything I paint. Its a little rough in places, but learning new skills is always worth it.

The real hard part though was wiring the LEDs for it. I got some flickering candle tea lights to resolder for this (though unfortunately the flicker ended up quite subtle). Glad I got a fair few more than I needed, because I broke the circuit boards for four before figuring out my solder iron was set too low for whatever solder they had on them. Then I yolo'd soldering the LEDs to some wires and realised I'd misunderstood how the circuit boards had to be attached and uh. Adapted. It all worked out, but I can't say it was neat. Fortunately, copious amounts of hot glue cover a multitude of sins.

Behold my solder sins:

The guards in this piece come from Town Guards Bundle by TytanTroll miniatures.

The thief in this piece is from Adventuring Party by Across The Realms.

BEEG undead dragon! (I gotta stop painting dragons, I only have so much shelf space 😭)

The model is Undead Dragon by Clynche Art on MMF.

I ended up painting this one one and a half times since I started doing a black base and working up with reddish purples for the flesh. It looked ok, but a bit too cartoony for what I wanted.

So I started over with a dark red base, added brown, green and blue splotches, and then dry brushed black all over, which I think looks a lot more like rotting flesh! It was a lot of fun working on those colours though!

I just did a mix of an off-white, bright green and brown for the bony sections, followed up by a burnt umber ink to get that old bone look, and to help blend between flesh and bone.

The horns, teeth and claws I struggled with a bit, before deciding to do dark silver+dirty down rust+drybrushed dark silver. I really like the effect of rusting horns for an undead dragon, but I do worry that it is a tad lacking in contrast, with all the other dark reds and blacks going on here. I considered redoing it with a tarnished bronze look, but tbh after having already had this on my desk for over a month, I was ready to just get it out of the way so I could move on to other minis.

I'm also still messing around with camera settings, trying to get nicer pictures, but it's a bit of a process since I don't super know what I'm doing. Getting everything I want in focus, especially on a mini this big, is hard and I didn't really manage it in the end. It's fun to play around though, even if there's a lot of "is it better with setting A or setting B? hmmmmmm" repetition.

Another figure down from my pile of shame!

Never really watched Hellboy, but he looks really cool, so now he's on my shelf :D

Also, he was an excuse to try and get a process for leather down, which I've been playing with for a bit. I really like how it turned out, though I could definitely work on making it a bit smoother.

This model is Hellboy - 30 CM model by Printed Obsession.

I'm holidaying at the beach, so of course I painted something in a snowy theme XD.

Pretty happy with this result! Probably could be a little cleaner in spots, but for a one day paint job I'm not complaining.

In particular the icy base turned out way better than I expected.

Big thanks to @dropattackbear for sharing his paints when I forgot to pack my metallics XD.

This model is Skadi the Barbarian by Twin Goddess Miniatures