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I decided to try the new hotness of the color shifting paints. I am really impressed. I hope you all enjoy my version of the clockwork dragon.

Once, there was an artificer. A half-orc, a genius. He could make creatures of metal and wheels that seemed as alive as any man. His clockwork marvels were the talk of the province, and when an accident in his workshop took his arm off, he built a new arm of girders and cogs, stronger and more dexterous than before. (More of this fellow if you click:) His fame spread far and wide, and one day a wealthy man, a captain of industry, another half-orc, asked him to build a weapon. He had many enemies--competitors, bandits, robbers--and also many people he wished to treat as enemies--unionists, agitators, and the like. "What kind of weapon," the artificer asked. "The unanswerable kind" his patron replied. "Inexorable. Supreme." The rich man had a vision, which the artificer was happy to share, and huge sacks of cash money, which the artificer was also happy to partake of, having very little of the same, and a strong if wildly degaussed moral compass, which the artificer did not have at all. And so the artificer consulted with other specialists, gnomish engineering savants and goblin pyro-sages (who also partook of the fat sacks of cash) to design this Ultimate Countermeasure. It took a year and a day (and, some say, more than one apprentice) but at length the work was done. A steam-belching, boiler-powered fire-breathing dreadnought, an apex predator in steel and brass. The patron was pleased. More: It is said that the Engine of Malice produced had the strength of a team of elephants, and a breath like a blast furnace. It is also said that its brazen talons broke the Bloodgutter Strike a generation ago, and that this is why your parents cut their sausage with knife and fork, because the Butchers' Guild doesn't waste anything and you really don't want to break your teeth on a brass button. It is also said that the Emperor conscripted the Engine to fight the foreign enemy during the Cruel Wars, as it was impervious to the miasmas and poison gases, and could roast whole squadrons in their trenches. It is, notably, NOT said what happened the day it slipped a gear and went berserk. There were very few surviving eyewitnesses and none of them want to talk about it. Questions on this topic remain unanswerable. The Weapon remains at large. (I love the huge wings on this sculpt, but I'll never be able to compete with some of the canvasses other, better, painters have made of them. Also they are very rigid, so I removed them for future projects and took some pinewood derby exhaust pipes I found on clearance, some aluminium fencing wire, and a few eyelets. Gluing them on wasn't the easiest, and I used plenty of baking soda. This wound up looking like horrible overdone welds, but that's all right in context.)

Picked this beauty up cheap a year ago as a FLGS was liquidating some old stock. Now, I have time and a better understanding of some skills. And my love of metallics is a matter of public record. Here's my start on the body: ArmyPainter Rough Iron above, DecoArt Rich Espresso brass on the sides, DecoArt Worn Penny copper below. I'll paint the smokestacks and dorsal engine in steel colors. The legs I'm still working out, but they will probably have much the same metals. I'm trying to avoid golds on this. I'm not sure what to do with those innards. Leather bellows? Leaf springs? A red-glowing internal furnace, as on the box art? I dunno, what do you think? One major thing I want to do is leave Wyrmgear as a drake for now so we can show off those dorsal smokestacks. No wings, just a 40-foot smoke-belching mechanical killing machine. I might mod on an elaborate array of exhaust pipes near the wings, as on a souped-up hot rod engine. Why? Partly because have you SEEN some of the other Wyrmgears here, with the chrome wings and the flawless fantasy landscape painting wings and etc? I can't compete with that! And partly because, while I can't compete with magnificent wing art, I can spatchcock aberrant machines together as well as the next fella, and I want to use those wings for a steampunk flying machine, an ungodly hybrid of von Zeppelin and Lilienthal. I've got some ping-pong balls and Christmas ornaments just begging to be made into balloons for this purpose...

whoo this one took me 10 hours, likely because I am still new at this. Now, I know I could of just painted it as this pretty copper dragon and been happy with that. But this miniature is intended for a random encounter in a D&D campaign where the party encounters the dragon broken up into several dozen pieces then is encouraged to take it home with them and start trying to repair it. Thus the less than perfect paint job, the dirt so on so forth as the pieces are supposed to be dirty. I thought the wings turned out interesting with the black wash.

Splitting this one off into his own thread, in order to reduce clutter in the original thread, and also because he won't be a random rainbow dragon anymore. An employee at a local gaming store introduced me to this model, and shortly after seeing it I pretty much decided I very much so wanted to get my paws on it... So I did! Thing is, I don't plan on doing him up in telltale metallic colours, but instead as more of a synthetic creature with a few mechanical elements. There will be a number of firsts for me with this project... First time drilling and pinning a mini First time painting and THEN assembling a mini Very well might be my first time I start sculpting in a few additional elements in order to have it fully fit my theme (one thought right now is making the engine look a lot more biological) First time removing parts to add back in later (front leg armour plates will block details on the legs, so will be temporarily removed and then added back on later) ^Right out of the box, I had an issue or two with his design. First and foremost, while those wings are indeed rather gorgeous, they go straight vertical, which bugs me, simply because they hide so much detail, not to mention I personally feel that if it's a mechanical dragon it would have been designed to at least fold up it's wings when they weren't in use. Secondly, it would have meant I would have to have another element that's painted and then assembled, and I'm more into assembly first, paint second. Third, all those various extra details along his spine would be pointless at most angles, since they'd be concealed by the gargantuan wings. ^So some clippers came out, a few snips and twenty minutes of sanding later, we have it so I can maneuver the wings, and make use of that obvious hinge... Add in a decent amount of blutak to hold it in place temporarily... ^And we now have a much more agreeable to me wingspan! There's a lot more that can be done with this in my eyes as well, as he could be about to take off, just landing, etc That was last week, and catching up from the previous thread. Now let's get onto the good stuff, aka where we're standing today! ^First and foremost, I drilled three pins total per wing... Two 1mm, and one 1.5mm. Three was probably overkill, but I wanted to be downright certain they'd stay in place. I also though they'd be easier to guide in, but boy was I wrong on that front! Took quite a while to get everything lined up how I wanted it. ^A bit of superglue later, and we have a cameo appearance from Citadel's Undercoat Black, a paint I used to be able to mark just where I was to drill along the inside of where the wing tabs were originally to go. ^Alternate angles showing off his current wingspan, as well as the gaps I'm going to get to fill, and maybe add some additional details into. We'll see what precisely happens, but I already have two different ideas dancing in my head about what to do there, with one being electrical wiring, cogs/gears, and various other things to play up on the mechanical side, while the other one is trying to go with the thought of some sort of liquid latex muscle structure. Second one is arguably riskier, but would definitely convey my idea a lot better.

"It seemed like such a good deal. Braythick Bearhammer the dwarf mapmaker/treasure salvager had been poking around some gnome's antique dealings stall and seen it standing there, looming in the back of the tent. It was massive, a masterwork of engineering, gone to rust and ruin. Still, it could potentially be useful to the dwarf. It did after all have a blade upon its tail, and long legs. It could carry his tools! Yes, it had been a brilliant plan. Something to carry his tools, and any 'rescued' loot he found in abandoned ruins. Something to defend him from the wilderness [and natives of said ruins that might disagree with his right of salvage]. And it had been a steal. The gnome had been desperate to get rid of the thing. It seemed too good to be true! Something like this could save him the cost of hiring lackeys to carry his stuff, of hiring thugs to protect him. It wouldn't need to eat, or sleep, it could guard him while he slept. Definitely too good to be true. And it was. Because apparently it had a few screws loose. Literally and figuratively. It had the attention span of a jackdaw. Braythick did not want the confounded thing to get distracted by a butterfly while he was trying to fight off a mountain lion or troll. And yet, as he unslung his hammer to remind the local natives of his right to found loot, the darn thing would turn around and trot off without a care in the world, leaving Braythick to run in an undignified manner after yelling at it. And most likely, the gnome that sold it was laughing as he counted his coins, grateful to be rid of the troublesome, ancient war machine" Old Show Off: http://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/56248-77177-rusty-wyrmgear/ WIP: http://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/55988-rusty-wyrmgear-wip/ Retitled Clockwork Orange

Painted this quite a while ago, but thought it made a good first test subject for my newly acquired MacroMats. The lighting is a little intense, but you get the idea.

Note that these are the pictures from my phone. I'll be posting up some from my wife's camera tomorrow, but I'm too tired to go through all those tonight. Ever since Stonehaven's Gnomish kickstarter, when they revealed the scout rider, I've had the idea of Gnomes on Wyrmgear (kind of like Temeraire in the Naomi Novak series). And now I finally have it done. The WIP for this project can be found here. C&C appreciated as always, and any suggestions on particular pictures/angles that should be focused on would be appreciated, this is my first multi-figure piece, and the largest by far.

I chose to start the year off with my largest mini yet. This is intimidating since I have been in kind of a painting slump for the last few months (only completed a PC mini and a couple of exchange projects). First I chose to boil and then clean due to a slightly bent sword tail. This may have been a mistake since I got carried away and threw all the parts in and warped the wings pretty drastically. It will have to be treated as a feature and not a flaw. I then let it and dry followed by a quick coat of brown liner.

OK here is another bones I did recently. I wanted it done for a high level game we were playing but never finished it in time. I have seen some of the others on here that have been done and borrowed from a couple. Of course I am not up to there level of detail as I am just getting back into painting. Not saying I will get as good, but practice does help. Also I need better mags to see. It's Strange that the camera on my tablet here picks up so much more detail then I can see with my eyes with what gear I have. Now as you can hopefully see I tried to make it look like it is made of my thrall and adamantium. This was going to be used by my technologist character but now too late. So I will have to hope I can work it in with my gnome I will be playing later. Might put butterflies or some other gnomey thing on the shields. I also tried to make the wings look like they are leather with a weathering look. I used gloss cote on the body and flat cote on the wings membrane. Joe <EDIT> un inverted the last to pics to what they should have been.

My attempt at Wrymgear. I need to get a more neutral background but this is all I have for now. Comments and suggestions are appreciated. Thanks for looking!

So a visit to family near Staunton, VA meant a chance to check out the FLGS there, Dragon's Hoard. The had all the big bones dragons in stock. After careful consideration, I chose the one that interested me most, Wyrmgear. Fitting him together, I see that the legs are a bit uneven: A quick boil and bend fixes that. I also remove the front leg shields for now, to re-attach after they're painted. Looking forward to breaking out the metallics and painting this one up.