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For the ReaperCon MSP Open this year, I painted the master copy of the White Drake I sculpted for Dark Sword (it will be released for sale in 2022). I decided to do him in glacial coloration inspired by a glacier I saw while on a cruise in AK. For the Sculpting story, click here. For the Painting WIP, click here. Oh, and I won a gold medal for him in the Open category. (Bear in mind that that is a 1" base)

I started Rimeblast a couple weeks ago. She's the first thing I've painted in some time. It won't be anything special (I've got to learn how to up my game one of these days), but it's a start. This won't be a real in-depth thread, just the "end of the night" update after a painting session. Well, that was where I started. I knew that the "white" dragon wouldn't be white. It's not the way things are in the world where Rimeblast dwells. But, this is the Ocean Colors triad (specifically Deep Ocean), which isn't just blue enough. So, after a couple weeks of unhappy-back-of-the-mind pondering I pull out the paints again. This is where I am now. This is better. This is Sky Blue with little bits of Deep Ocean peaking through. I'm "OK" with that. It gives some variation so she's not (quite) all the same shade. I'm thinking I'm going to take a heavy drybrush of Frosty Blue, and then a lighter drybrush of Ghost White, or even Sparkling Snow, to finish the scales. The scutes (belly scales) have received a coat of Foggy Grey which is, I've discovered, very close to the shade of Vallejo grey primer already on it. I'll likely be using Pure White and Sparkling Snow to finish those up--assuming I don't go back and redo them in Rainy Grey. I'm afraid the countershading will be a little too "bright" if I leave them at "Foggy." I'm still not sure where I'm going to take the spinal ridge, crest, and wings. The bones/supports in the wings bug me a bit. I keep thinking that there should only be three or four support "fingers" (like a bat), and there a lot more there. Pardon me while I over-analyze fantasy creature morphology. Thanks for dropping by!

I finally got around to doing some basing on my take on reaper's Gauth, in bones I do not know the SKU unfortunately, but I think it is from Bones 4? Anyway, I tried to paint him up as a White dragon, but I also wanted to keep it interesting, so I highlighted from three different colours on separate parts of the hide, mostly pale purple, grey on the central spines down his back, and turquoise on the belly! Take a look, let me know what you think, c&c's more than welcome!

Time to paint a new Dragon. and whats a dragon without a WIP? This will be My second largest painted Dragon, behind only DDS2. It will slip to 3rd when I get around to painting the KDM Dragon King, that boy is a Chonk. My goal is two months - ie end of the year. otherwise I will have only finished one dragon this year, when normally I paint 3. but white is so boring. lets see what references I can find to spice it up. Ooooh Mamma ! so to translate this into the figure ... mint/pastel green tint on scales, pink in the creases. the lizard above seems to have green around some scales and pink around others. im not really sure how to make that work. time for some rough drafts. Rule of thirds - all white surfaces should be 1/3 or less other colors, this way it should still read as white scales. It could easily overwhelm the dragon, and lose the white designation . (ie DO NOT replicate the too green small lizard on the top.) I don't need back legs on my sketch, patterns will be identical to the front legs. Should I splatter with yellow? - it is either random color shift on scales or urine stains. Paint Colors: Entrail Pink mixed with white for the creases (red liner deepest shadow) Green sky (vallejo) for the mint green, also 50/50 white. (green liner for darkest shadows) Linen white as a base - Pure white for highlights. Snow shadow (blue/white) for shadows on the scales. The wings should be darker on above than below, and more pink , while the upper surface will be more green. Basing - Simple Snow Base. The Dragon needs to be sturdy as it will join the collection that my Mini-Spawn plays with. It comes with a transparent pole, and attachment points to the base. No need to reinvent the wheel. I think I need to sleep on this before moving past the clean-up stage. Comments , Criticism or Suggestions?

In terms of raw bang for one's buck, the Pathfinder red dragon is IMHO one of the most versatile minis Reaper makes. Yes, it looks like a red dragon in Pathfinder (it is after all the cover of the old rulebook come to life), BUT - it doesn't quite so neatly conform to the prescribed D&D dragon models, and so it's super easy and super cheap to get a huge (3" x 3" base) dragon of any chromatic variety on the table simply by painting it a different color. Up next for me: Black, Green, and Blue versions...all in good time. For now I present my Pathfinder Red White Dragon!

After about 3 weeks it’s finally done! I’ve had a concept for a white dragon bouncing around in my head for a while, and I shy away from painting overly in white for the same technical reasons as everyone else, but this completes a loop in painting for me.... My first dragon ever ever was a white (Reaper’s Deathsleet), and I was doing great just to get somewhat clean lines. After about a year and a half, I wanted to give it another try to compare how much I’ve learned. It’s been difficult since I’m not artistic, but learning to paint minis has been a great experience. I just took a picture of my first white dragon and this current white dragon. Sorry for the crappy photos, but I hope you enjoy the frost dragon/albino-ish concept. Please let me know what you would have done differently. Criticism and advice are always welcome! Goodnight :)

I started this project yesterday with Reaper Bones Stormwing after painting a blue one. I intended to paint another in blue to replace the one I gave away, but instead I thought it was time to do another white dragon! My first dragon was white, and I had no concept of painting techniques other than a fledgling understanding of brush control. This was a little over a year ago, so I’m painting this one to do a side by side comparison of how far I’ve come. I reprimed it white over the black, then went Lothern Blue (Citadel) base. I’ve done some gradual damp/dry brushing to work up gray/blue, gray, now hard transitioning into medium beige. Next step is going more into the whites now that the undertones are there. Breast scales are not undertoned, just straight gray. Going for pink/purple/ice blue highlights...almost like pearlescent finish on horns. I’ll figure it out on the wings and breastplates. Advice welcome!!

So my players are soon to face a white dragon, and I have no suitable mini! Therefore, I've decided to make Narthrax the White. TADA!!! All done. You may all be boggled by my superlative skill now. But seriously. I've got this base -- a 120 mil oval seemed like a good size for this figure. I think a standard 3 inch circle would have been a bit cramped. I want to put a hoard on there in the lee of the rock: Thus: This is probably the most ambitious base I've ever attempted. Usually I use pre-made ones, and I do have a rather nice 120 mil oval one from Micro Arts studio that's been sitting unused for two years -- but it would be a TON of work to get Narthrax's perch to integrate smoothly with it, and the style of the base doesn't suit what I want at all. This Narthrax is going to be white. That means COLD. It has to be a snow base, which I've never done before. Furthermore, I want his hoard of coins and jewels to be frozen in a layer of transparent ice, peeking out at the adventurers and taunting them with the difficult of chipping those out of there one at a time. I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to do that, but I suspect it will involve Vallejo Still Water. The trick is 1) it has to look frozen, not wet; 2) it has to be transparent enough that you can see the hoard glittering underneath, and 3) it has to look like a comparatively natural ice formation. As for the coins, the research I've done suggests either a thin round of greenstuff sliced into little circles and painted, or else a bunch of round gold glitter. The glitter sounds like a lot less work, but the greenstuff may yield more believable results. I guess we'll see. As for gems, the one main suggestion I've found is to get one of those bake-a-suncatcher kits that come with tiny plastic beads in bright colors that you're supposed to melt into pseudo-stained-glass in the oven. Those would be about the right size, though not particularly the right shape. If anybody has any other suggestions on either of these, I'm all ears. I'll also need to build up some terrain around the perch. I could do greenstuff, I guess. I've probably got enough. Or just heaps of PVA glue with dirt on, maybe. Dunno, haven't done much of that before. In terms of color, I want there to be a range of intensities of white for him, and sufficient contrast that he doesn't become one big white blob. I'm thinking of the following for palette base coats: Snow Shadow: for body scales and wing membranes. Amethyst Purple: for the ridge of spiky scales running down his spine. Palomino Gold: for his underbelly. And then many layers of thin Solid White building up to a pure white at the edges of scales (and such). I am undecided on what to do with the spikes that jut out of his spine, or the claws on his feet and wings. Perhaps something much darker than the rest -- would Walnut Brown with Gloss Sealer to make it shiny be too much for those bits? I've never painted a figure this size before. And I've got very limited experience with painting dragons -- I did 03664, Fire Dragon Hatchling, 03651 Storm Dragon Hatchling, and the 89016 the Jabberwocky (Bones version). I've never posted pics of any of those -- they turned out okay, but nothing special. The Jabberwocky's base is way cooler than the Jabberwocky itself. So I guess this will be a learning experience in many ways!

Well, I not only finished my dragon, I got her entered into the ReaperCon painting contest, and earned a bronze. I then went and got her professionally photographed cause I knew I'd never be able to do her justice. She's currently displayed, along with the medal, in the place of honor on my mantle above the fireplace. "Good night, Nathavarr. Good work. I'll most likely dump you in simple green in the morning." I am thinking about repainting the treasure on her base in bronze...

This is Narthrax from Reaper’s Bones series. Hate is a pretty strong word so I’ll just settle with saying that I strongly dislike huge+ miniatures. They take forever to finish and use up much more paint than I think. They are unwieldy forcing me to awkwardly hold them in my apparently acidic fingers, stripping the paint on tiny strategic areas. All and all Narthrax has been a pain to paint. I hit quite a few walls and restarted I think three or four times.I shudder to think how I’m going to finish Cthulhu, Khanjira, Kaladrax and all the others. One at a time I guess… But enough of the cons, now for the pros! * Eventhough Narthrax didn’t end up as I planned it in my head, I’m still pleased with the end result. I think the color scheme works. * I’m really happy with how the teeth and the eyes ended up * My first finished dragon! As for the mouth, I tried to shamelessly steal trodax brilliant paintjob (seen here: http://forum.reapermini.com/index.php/topic/69676-narthrax/)but with cold instead of fire. It didn’t quite work since I’m not up to the task of blending but it still looks kind of nice :)

ok this is not my best work but it started out as a bet or a dare. I was helping put the base colors on a group of Bloodreavers and I noticed that my friend had about 15 brushes from citadel and I made a little fun about how if he didn't need to buy every brush on the market he could buy more minis. he asked me how many brushes I had with me and I said 5 but 2 of those are the same detail brushes. I also said I usually just use a wash brush to apply the primer and base colors. I thought he was going to stroke out. he then challenged me to paint a mini with a wash brush. I chose the shadow dragon from the reaper bones line. I have always liked this mini and thought I would do it as a white dragon. I based the mini in snow shadow and washed it in blue ink. next I faded some of the snow shadow and highlighted it with vampiric (not sure if that is even a word) highlights. enjoy and please remember it was done with a citadel wash brush. oh I won 5 Bloodreavers on the bet.

Hi folks, my D&D group is still playing through Tyranny of Dragons (D&D 5E) and soon they will encounter a White Dragon. Other people have posted the Bones Silver Dragon as a White before, so here is my attempt. I painted the mini in April but I haven't had time to take pictures until today. I used a 65mm base, but I don't remember the manufacturer... C&C welcome! [edit] Updated the post with a larger first picture. Now you can see that I didn't do a proper job removing all mold lines... ;) [/edit]

seven days of painting including a Paint club meeting. The figure was taken from the good will box, and heavily warped. Boil/Ice helped mostly straighten the base, but the lean was only fixed when I cut the dragons front foot and propped it up on small stones. This unnamed white dragon will be perfect to throw at mid-level adventures. Not too big, but still dangerous.

Here is Bones Deathsleet. I fixed the ankle issue by pinning through the Bones Barrel into the base. He isn't going anywhere now.

I'm painting up 77026: Young Fire Dragon as a white dragon for an upcoming D&D game, and I was feeling a little frustrated and wasn't making very much progress, so I thought I'd take a few pictures and toss them up here. I still plan to give special attention to his eyes, mouth, and base. I am considering doing the little wing spikes and tail spikes as boney protrusions in a warmer white, shaded to a pale warm brown? I would especially like opinions on the wings: is the shading reasonable? Are the transitions smooth enough? Also, is there enough contrast on the body? His little cheek-flaps seem especially hard to pick out at a distance. Lastly, does he actually seem to read as white, or just pale blue? Colors are Snow Shadow, Ghost White, and Pure White, so far. (And I acknowledge the double challenge of both painting and photographing white is working against any useful advice I might receive.)