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Hey everyone, remember this five-headed dragon I converted in 2014/2015 ? Well, I finally made a base to put it on display in my bookshelf. All the 17 parts I used are from Reaper. The original hydra I converted was sculpted by Sandra Garrity. Enjoy!

Hello, all! I'm planning to paint Ma'al Drakar as Dungeons & Dragons' Dark Lady, Tiamat. She's going to be, by far, my biggest painting project. Before I start painting, I'm planning some conversions to make her look more like D&D's Chromatic Dragon. I'd love to get any advice or tips that anyone would like to share about painting large models, or any of the other parts of the process. I'll share my plans, and try to keep up a WIP thread about this grand adventure. My first step is going to be pretty drastic, so if anyone wants to jump in with advice, please do. I have WotC's Gargantuan Black Dragon. The forward-sweeping horns are so iconic, my Tiamat's black dragon head (Ma'al's lower right head) should have horns like that. The Gargantuan Black's a perfect scale to use for Tiamat's horns. I'm actually planning to carefully cut the horns off the black dragon, make a 2-part mold, cast a set of horns for Tiamat, and reattach the horns back on the black dragon. Am I out of my mind? Does any one see potential problems with this plan, other than the usual challenges of casting minis, etc? Thanks in advance for any advice, feedback, and encouragement!

OH CURSE YOU GOBLIN! A friend gave me this for Christmas 10+ years ago, and I have always been afraid to paint it, as I had the 'I'm not good enough now' syndrome.... Then seeing Siri's Tia-not, and then Buglips' thread on this beastie, (I mean her Dark Majesty) the 5 little voices have been saying do it, paint it, Ma'al Drakkar will be here in a year... (I need to look Good, in an evil sort of way, for that big guy!) And since my air compressor died tonight, I thought maybe I could kill my Dremel tool to! Going to do prep work tonight, so won't be anything exciting, but I snapped a few pics to show the components. I don't have Sir Forscale, so I brought in his bard, Astrid the Chronicler, to show you all their sheer size... (What is this wench doing strolling around my parts!!) (Ma'al is gonna be scary!) Pics: The Vrock I am working on to show the wing span: This also to motivate me to work on it, so that I can have it ready for the end of the year.... DDS 2 is in the mail to.... Think I might be biting off more than I can get in my mouth, never mind chew... Wish me luck! Gonna need it! (If you don't get back to work, you'll need more than LUCK!) 8) George (Are you finished nattering yet slave? I need to be cleaned!) (coming your Darkness!) Now Buglips has ME doing it! Buglips' post on This figure

After 6 months of painting 4-10 hours a week on this monster, I am finally finished with Reaper Bones Ma'al Drakar 77580. WIP Here: http://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/78573-citrine-tries-to-tackle-maaldrakar-77580/&tab=comments#comment-1668344

WiP, my vastaryous dragon from the Sword&Sorcery board game. Based on the big reaper bones 3 dragon on this forum.... Tail needs to become a bit darker... But happy with the color tones in the different heads and necks. C&C more than welcome... Grtzz

So this holiday break I decided to try starting, and maybe even finishing Ma'al (Reaper 77580), aka Tiamat. I go back to work next Wednesday, so this is a bit ambitious, but at least I am going to use the biggest brushes I can get my hands on! I got rid of mold lines and glued it together on the Saturday before Christmas. This morning I got up the courage and got out the green stuff. I had started applying base coat when hubby said I should document the progress. So here are some progress pictures:

So, it took me 8 days of work, about 50 - 60 hours or so, but I finally finished my first Ma'al Drakar. Very happy with the results, Tia-Not is currently sitting on my entertainment center and terrifying my players. It was as much practice as it was anything else. I based it off this Deviantart color palette. I kept meaning to make an "in progress" thread, but I just didn't get around to it. Not sure if it'd be worth it now that it's done. The base is an 11" diameter wooden base I picked up from Michael's. There's rocks from my driveway, clay, gravel, and crystals from the same craft store. When I do my second one, if I stick with the crystals, I'll definitely splash some color into them. They're a little pale now, but there's no way I'd be able to get the work done on this one. Not sure if I can mention it or not, but this one is something I'm currently selling on an auction site...

The visage of Tiamat looms over the ancient and ruined temple of her rival Bahamut! After 6 months and about 400 hours of work, she is complete! Wow, didn't think it would take me that long. And a few more detail pics.

I saw it at the World Model Expo in Chicago this July and had to buy it even though I was basically base painting my first mini ever. Just couldn't resist. And I said I wouldn't start her right away because she's pretty damned intimidating. But after 2 months of sitting in the box, I couldn't keep her in there anymore. I decided that the primed parts would be painted separately from the body before being fully joined together. Those seams blend in naturally and it would be easier to paint separated. As for the more obvious seams, I attempted some putty magic. Color scheme wise, we're going with D&D's Tiamat.

It took me a little over a month, but I'm calling this beast done. Hard to get a picture of something this big, and the lighting in my house isn't the greatest but I tried anyway. I pulled out the rest of my unpainted dragons from Bones 3 once I was done this one, they look so tiny!

So- finished I think. Resculpted/modded the 5 heads, and then sculpted the base out to match. Thoughts?

figured I'd post to see peoples thoughts on my WIP conversion of Ma'al Drakar to Tiamat. Converted the heads and added the stinger.

Hi guys, i have just finished All the minis from Bones 3, here is my Ma'aldrakar.

Hi guys, I haven't been here for the better part of a year, but I'm back with a huge "miniature". Its the Lysander model from Toscano, more of a statue than an actual miniature model. There have already been at least two of those in the forums, and they inspired me to paint my own. Also I paint to use the minis for D&D, and we were finishing a specific campaign where I needed a Tiamat miniature. Lysander has five identical heads, so I modified them to resemble the five evil dragon types from D&D lore. If you want to know more, please visit the WIP thread here. So may I present to you Tiamat, the Dark Queen of Dragons. I actually finshed painting the beast last December, but just got new photo hardware today to shoot the thing. Sir William Peacekeeper is facing Tiamat and Severin, the Cult of the Dragon's leader alone. Poor fool.

Hey everyone, I received my first paint commission 2 months ago and I was super nervous. At the time I’d only been painting for 5 months and he wanted Tiamat done. Well I finished it up and he was so happy he said that I should post some pics to the forum so enjoy!

So I'm DMing a group of D&D 5E where we've played the Tyranny of Dragons storyline for the last two years now. We're around session 80ish now, and my group is near the end, where I want them to encounter Tiamat herself. As I've used miniatures for all encounters so far, I need a Tiamat figue. When I saw the amazing WIP and Show-Off threads from Sirithiliel last year, I knew I had found the "miniature" I needed. Thank you for the inspiration, Siri. The model is called "Lysander" and is produced by Toscano. It's made out of some kind of resin and is pretty fragile (especially the horns). Wasn't easy to track down the figue, but then I found it on Amazon for 65 Euros including shipping to Germany. I understand that there are versions of this figure that come unpainted. Mine was painted in a nice green/yellow tone. But of course, this is not befitting of Tiamat ;) My plan was to go a little step further than Siri and change the heads, too. My players know the D&D dragons pretty well after a two-year-long dragon themed campaign, and they should be able to identify the typical D&D dragon heads. As of now, I am almost finished with the model. But if you like, I'll post the pictures of the process here. Here we go: Step 1: The figure out of the box I couldn't get the whole figure on camera with my usual photo setup. Will change setup for later pictures The model is about 29 cm high, has a wingspan of 38 cm and a base of about 18 cm. It's clearly not in a 28cm fantasy miniture scale like the Reaper miniatures (eyes are too big, base has mega huge tree under the dragon's claws), but it will do.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, Children of All Ages, Creatures of Every Type, Shade, and Hue, and buglips*the*goblin, I give you.... ME! I Finished Herself this evening, and then Had Her pose for an exclusive photo-shoot. Without Further Ado, The Queen of Chromatic Dragons! I took a shot of the photo set up as well: All pics were shot from 5+' away, then cropped with Photo Shop, Color and contrast corrected as well. It was a journey to get here, and my thanks to all those that looked in on the WiP from time to time, and special thanks to those that commented and encouraged me to keep going! And of course kept Her distracted as well.... George Human Avatar Here

I finally have six fighting CAV armies - some more fight-y than others. Some have enough models with enough variety to meet diverse challenges, and some are just barely legal if you squint right. Case in point? Here's my newly painted Ritterlich army! Notice a complete lack of infantry, aircraft, fighting vehicles, transports, and for that matter, primary squads.* But recon and artillery? Got that *covered*! Anyway, here's a glimpse of my boys in blue. They won't see much growth until next year when CAV KS II gets here, but they will see play because, hey, rhinos right? * As-is, I could only build two legal attack squads, both of which revolve around a rhino and a cataphract with either a recon model or a fire support model to get it up to a full squad of 4. Truth be told, I'm honestly thinking I'll re-purpose some of these cougars as Cougar IIs - something between a Cougar and a Jaguar, just for the sake of variety.

Finished commission for a forum member WIP Thread: http://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/62992-tiamat-wip/

So this is a commission by a forum member (who can speak up if they want themselves known =P ) to paint a five headed dragon statue up as Tiamat! So two photos, first is her fresh out of her bubble wrap and packing peanuts, and second is her cleaned up, primed, and with a few friends for scale reference!

One of the first things I did when I received my Bones kickstarter was to take the hydra, mutilate one of its heads and stick some greenstuff on there to make my hydra into Tiamat. Then I promptly banished it to my shelf of shame and occasionally thought about it for a year. Now, reading Metalchaos' excellent conversion thread, I feel motivated to work on it again and to keep it that I will try to post updates here. I will try to do a little sculpting every day so the greenstuff can cure in-between. I am using D&D dragons as references here. First up, the black head: Some plastic surgery. The black dragon really doesn't have the strong jaw of the Hydra... Two rounds of greenstuff. Still needs a bunch of teeth, frills and spines. Horns as well, of course, but I'm making those separately. The blue head: Here I will leave the spines along the back, they are similar enough. The horns and belly scales still need detailing and it needs frills along its jaw. The red head: Chopped off the horns and reduced the jaw and nostrils. His front teeth (though not the canines) were also removed later. I can keep the belly scales here, which is nice or I'd have to the entire body as well. Still debating about the spines, I will see how it goes with the black head before I cut them all off. Comments and critiques very welcome. I hope yo'll enjoy it!

Hi everyone, it's been a while. So, after reading this topic about an unreleased sculpt from Sandra Garrity, I decided I should give it a try. Starting with the metal version of the Hydra, I dug the boneyard in search for replacement heads and wings. After some trial and multiple orders, I chose the following heads; Ebonwrath's head and neck for the Black Dragon head, Blight Fang's head for the Green Dragon head, Diabolus's head for the Red Dragon, Stormwing's head for the Blue Dragon and the Karamor's head for the White Dragon head. The new heads don't fit the Hydra at all, they have to be rectified along with the Hydra's necks. I thought of using Deathsleet's head for the White Dragon head but its head is attached to the body part and it is sold at $38... I also tried the Dragon of fire head and neck for the Red Dragon, but they were too small. Finally, I chose the Dragon of fire wings since they were the right scale to match the Hydra's body. Here's my progress so far. They say that when you cut the head of an Hydra, another will grow.

Got started on the Tiamat this weekend. Nothing much, but a simple layer of Blue Liner on it. On my way on this! Woo hoo! Going to do a simple paint scheme. Other than the liner, I'm planning on just four other colors, all of which were selected randomly by the computer. Those four turned out to be about what I wanted anyway, so it worked out. I'll reveal the four colors in subsequent videos and posts. Older video hidden for faster loading:

Hi all, this is my first post on this forum and I wanted to share my progress on the CAV bones early bird rewards. So here they are: #1 Tiamat: #2 Cougar One is reposed in a more static stance. #3 Assassin #4 Razor #5 Specter #6 Wight One is also reposed (I'm not a bit fan of the running stance for those ones). #7 Halberd (in a quick and dirty speed painted camo) ************************* I also stumbled accross the templates to build a Hercules Dropship in foam core, and I knew that I had to make it. (It was a fun project with my daughter). Here it is fully assembled: And then with details added and a lot of airbrushing: I think it looks quite cool and makes a nice backdrop for my CAV: Comments and suggestions for improvement are welcome.

My turn to show my trials (and errors) or painting CAV. First up, the Tiamat. Coated with Americana avocado green, sponged with yellow and Oiled Leather, washed with Secret Weapon Sewer Water and then somewhat highlighted (still working on that). Forgot to fill the gaps at the base. Added some sand and some burnt static grass.