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Way back in May, I finished a Lava/Magma elemental that I teased as being a practice piece for something larger. It’s been longer than planned, but I’ve completed him, and I’m 99% happy with the results. I introduce the fearsome Marty the Lava Dragon. And one last one with his little buddy for comparison. There are definite differences in how the lava effect played out on the sculpts. I like them both for what they are. Colors used: P3 Heartfire, Magma Red, Walnut Brown, and P3 Coal Black (barely there in the very blackest areas). Technically, I also used Pure White as a base coat and later a couple times when I messed it up badly enough that I had to start over.

Painting my friend's Narthrax up as Cypheros, my lava dragon

Sing the song! "I'll be there for you...!" :-) So, after the completion of their awesome campaign, Rachel, Monica, and Phoebe were booked on a gig that was simultaneously more serious and less comfortable. These three took forever to paint-- I experimented with implied lighting from the magma, but am less than pleased with the results because they don't look like the lava is lighting them at all. Instead, the shadows I attempted to paint on the facing-away sides just seem to look muddy. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

Painted up for a good friend of mine, a 'quick paint' of my character Cypheros the lava dragon (quick paint only because it took about 3 days )

This is an earth elemental mini of unknown origin. I've had him for years, but never thought about painting him (or any of them really) until recently. I like how he came out, except that the varnish made him really pale. D'oh! The original base for the mini was really tiny, making him prone to tipping over in gameplay, so I wanted a bigger one that was heavier and reflected his 10x10 space. This one is mostly glue and rocks, so it seems plenty sturdy. :-)

Ever since I painted the Large Earth Elemental I thought about doing one up as a Magma Elemental. Pretty happy with attempt. Decided to remove the dinosaur bone from shoulder and make more volcanic. As well as make little volcanos on its back and finger tips.

So, I'm posting my VERY LATE Secret Sophie Project now. Please enjoy it! GF

This was one of my Secret Sophie gifts. I've decided to paint him up like a magma sub-species. They dwell within lava and volcanoes, and freely burrow and swim through the magma without harm to themselves he's far from finished, going to add some more black along the spine for sure

A Pathfinder Red Dragon I "speedpainted" sometime in mid-to-late 2014. My wife and I took Wappel's Shaded Basecoating class at Reapercon last year and I've been trying to familiarize myself with the style since I am somewhat impatient and don't like spending 20 or 30 hours on a single mini. This was one of the pieces I applied the technique to. It took me about three and a half hours, two of which involved repeatedly trying to make his stomach not look like complete and utter crap. The premise is a pretty simple one--Wappel advises starting dark and working light, but the rationale is that the surface is dark by default and the light is applied to the surface. With this guy, the light is coming from inside him, so start light and work dark. I started with the most hideous fluorescent yellow basecoat ever. Seriously, it was awful. I could barely tell what was painted and what wasn't. After that, it was just successive layers of darker and darker paint. I did a lot of wet-blending on this guy, and when that stuff dried, a lot of drybrushing--not that you can necessarily tell--it was one of my first real attempts at wet-blending and the demarcation between colors is still pretty obvious in places. I had three somewhat contrasting methods to my madness--first, joints should be lighter, and solid things cooler. This usually meant the edges of scales should be dark and the bits between them light. Second, bits further away from the "core" of the dragon should be hotter and more fluid, so the hands and tail and frill ended up light. Third, the places where he'd need a lot of structural strength, like his torso and the arm-bits in his wings, should in general be darker and cooler in implied temperature. Some of this runs a bit counter to how Wappel approaches it, and it contradicts its own logic in places. I like how it turned out anyway--at least when I don't have my glasses on! The lava effect on the base is kind of pathetic, though, I have to say. (Side note: in the interests of disclosure, I didn't notice initially that one of the lights for our lightbox fell off when I took the picture, so I did a bunch of brightness/contrast/saturation fugging with these photos to make them look like the real thing does. They are reasonably close now! But yes, there was some postprocessing.)

One of my first painted miniatures, done up as my magma dragon Cypheros. I could probably do better now, and have been tempted to repaint him