fectin

I know, right? Their minis will be unrecognizable by the time they get there! To say nothing of how space will treat their paints...

I had that same problem a while back. This is what solved it for me: https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-ettercap-60969 I'd rather have had a spiffy Reaper one, but needs must...

That makes sense, both for starting and stopping. But I did find them really inspirational. I only started hanging out on this forum at all because the challenges were such a compelling concept. It also gave me a great excuse to paint DDS; not only did I have much more fun doing it with the constraints than I would have otherwise, it actually got done instead of sitting half-finished for years. It also got me in the habit of painting for a good long time, which meant that much more than just the challenge piece got finished. So, not arguing with anything you said, but I really hope you don't think they were a waste. At the cost of a few pixels, you got me doing more and better work, and enjoying it much more, and I doubt I'm alone in that.

What is going on with those bases?! They're gorgeous.

Nice!

Here's one solution: http://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/78100-my-dragons-dont-share/&tab=comments#comment-1656311 I got busy and haven't tried it, but it sounds good.

Huh. That seems surprisingly easy for such a good result. It looks great!

Very nice. I'm a fan of mohawks for bald minis. How did you get the hair texture?

That's just outstanding. Death is especially jaw-dropping, but they're all fantastic.

I'm always inspired by the the minis posted here. People who are skilled are an inspiration to improve; people who are just starting out are an inspiration to try things in the first place ("if she can make something that good, maybe I could make something !"). People who show off different paint techniques, or bashing techniques, or basing, or whatever are a constant nudge to go try new things. I hope everyone keeps showing off because of that. Regardless of how good you think it is, I'm always glad to see what folks are making. So in the spirit of trying to give that back, here's something that turned out okay: This is a great model designed by mz4250, which I printed out and painted. I talk about it a little more in the WIP thread (here: http://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/83295-mz4250-pyrohydra/ ), but this was something I tried to pull together quickly to support a game. It worked great for that; far better than my usual "pretend this ogre is a hydra," but I think it turned out okay overall too. I don't see that many printed models show up here, so this is evidence that it can work!

Alright. I finished this up. Didn't put a lot of additional care into it, but I think it's still an improvement. Finishing touches were adding the teeth, adding a paler belly (drow skin highlight), stripes+ridges, clearcoat, and basing. No progress pictures because my phone was upstairs and I was too lazy to go get it. The stripes were the only interesting part. I used an ancient bottle of nightmare purple (which is somehow still good!) to paint the ridges. Then I mixed the nightmare purple with drow skin, and put a stripe centered on each ridge. Just a rough triangle coming down on each side. I did not try to blend them into the ridges. That looked ugly and left obvious hard transitions between the ridge and the stripe, and the stripes contrasted too much with the base skin. So I fired up the airbrush and mixed up a batch of drow skin+wash medium (mostly water with a little bit of flow-aid), using more medium than I would usually use water. I put a couple coats of that lightly over the stripes and over the belly transition, and let it build up slightly at the base of the ridges (where it smoothed out the rough transition. The clearcoat was to add gloss. It looked weird with a matte finish, and I thought it needed to look more salamanderish. That shows up poorly in these pictures because of the reflections, but if you compare a non-reflecting area to the earlier pictures, you can see why I'm much happier with the glossy finish.

Congratulations and well done!! Overall, it looks great, but there are a few elements that especially stand out to me: The armors all look real good. I think it's the way you washed them, but the leathers and the metals both look great. The terrain is great. I know it's just weathered rock, but it's hard to do that well so it doesn't look bad and also doesn't draw focus. Also, I doubt that anytone who hasn't tried this challenge will realize just how hard that is to do with a size zero. Color schemes. I like how each hero has their own color, but it still looks natural. The dragon scales look great. That's how I wanted mine to look and I couldn't make it happen. I love how some elements of this are always the same. The elf always ends up with shiny kneepads. Sir Purple always ends up purple. etc. :D I'm very impressed. Also, a few bits of advice, just from my experience (regrets): The dragon WILL slowly fall forward over the next few months. You need to do something about that. Now that the challenge is over, clearcoat those suckers. You may want to leave everything as it was when you finished; you may want to tidy up the details. Either way, make sure you preserve your hard work. (also, dull coat can make the stone look less shiny)

Well done and congratulations!!

Looking good! From where you are now, it looks like you just need to stay on the rails and this thing will be easy-peasy. Nice work, and finish strong!

Dang, nice work! Remember, they have to be done, not pretty. Once you get the painting mostly done crudely, you can think of everything past that as improvements, not tasks standing between you and completion. (it worked that way for me anyway...) You've done the hard part already, you can definitely finish this out! One more day!