Cinder

[FeniXbane]

She looks awesome fully assembled. I can't wait to see her painted.

 

Thanks for the time and effort of putting this WIP together, it makes for a great learning experience (and fun to watch, too!).

[Kormydigar]

I am quite new to sculpting, and doing the oblisk took some time to get it right. I kept getting finger prints on it. Any suggestions from you sculptors out there? Anyway, I do like the way it turned out.

Plastic is a great method. I always use surgical gloves while sculpting. I keep a good sized finger bowl full of water to keep the gloves wet. The gloves are thin enough to not interfere with the feel of the material, yet leave the sculpt fingerprint free.

[TaleSpinner]

Hey everybody, I'm back!

 

Thanks for all the great feedback since last time. It has been over two week since my last post on this WIP.

 

Excuses:

 

1. I DMed one of the most enjoyable D&D sessions I have ever played, from Friday the 24th through Saturday the 25th. I spent the week prior to that getting ready for the game.

 

2. I never paint more than one mini at a time, so before I get Cinder ready for paint, I needed to get Jolie (AKA: Miss Darby) finished first. Now I can devote all my painting time to Cinder.

 

3. Right after I got Jolie done, my wife came to me with one of those looks on her face and asked, "Why do you always have time to paint your minis, but never the bathroom?" So I spent the entire weekend painting the master bathroom. I swear that room has more edgework than Jolie did! Strangely, my wife didn't think it was a good idea to darkline all of the doors, windows, and fixtures. Go figure.

 

So enough whining.

 

Last night, I started filling the gaps on Cinder. Once again, I used green-stuff to sculpt in the details. I started with the gap at the back of the head. I tried to make it look like three large scales behind the horn boss. This didn't translate too well onto the picture, but I hope you can see it:

 

Before:

 

 

After:

 

 

Next I worked on the left wing joint. Instead of just filling the crack, I concealed it by adding a row of smaller scales along the joint at the intersection of the larger scales. I felt that this made sense anatomically, as it would still leave Cinder protected but allow her joint to flex. Each scale required a surprisingly small amount of putty, and I ended up with left over putty that I didn't have time to work with before bed last night.

 

Before:

 

 

After:

 

 

Before:

 

 

After:

 

 

Well, that is all for now. I'm not sure how much I am going to get done tonight as I am really tired and may just go to bed. I should finish some of the other joints within a couple of days though. My goal is to be painting Cinder by this weekend.

 

Let me know what you think.

 

Take care,

 

TS

[Jabberwocky]

Looking good. I am looking forward to the painting portion!

[House of Dexter]

Really like the work up...nice preppinng and base work...

[TaleSpinner]

Hello,

 

This is the last pre-painting post I will be doing. I just got a new can of primer and I intend to use it tonight, as soon as I finish this post .

 

I spent the last couple days (what little time I had), finishing the scale sculpting to hide the joints. Since I have already described my technique, I'll skip right to the before and after pictures of a few of the remaining joints.

 

Before:

 

 

After:

 

 

Before:

 

 

After:

 

 

Before:

 

 

After:

 

 

There were others, but they were hard to get a photo of and I don't want to over do it.

 

After finishing the joints, I used thinned Tacky Glue to adhere Talus to the area where I want the mountain path to be, as follows:

 

 

So tonight, I am going to give her another once over with the file to ensure that I didn't miss any mold lines (I will miss some, but I try to get as many as I can), swab her down with rubbing alcohol to remove any grease or dirt, and then prime her.

 

There WILL be red paint in the next post, I promise!

 

Have a good night.

 

TS

[TaleSpinner]

Good evening,

 

Well, my old Foquil primer went bad (was coming out all gloppy), so I went to get some more. I can't find anyone in the southern Minneapolis area that carries Foquil!. So after reading the post on primer, I took Flynn's suggestion and bought the Tamiya (sp?) Fine Gray Primer. That went on like a charm. It took two coats on this mini, but it really didn't hide any detail and is very smooth. I am pleased; thanks Flynn.

 

While the primer was drying, I mixed up the red colors I will be using for the main body scales (actually,I decided today that I will need a few more, but I haven't gotten that far yet). I also mixed the colors I will be using for the eyes, since I will be doing them first. As a side note, all paints that I will be using on this mini are Reaper Master Series paints (MSP).

 

Body Scale Colors:

 

 

For the body scales, I used a 6 color progression of Bloodstain Red, Clotted Red, and Blood Red (I used Blood Red because it is brighter than Carnage Red, and I used the other two because they were browner than the colors in the other triad). As you can see, I mix the paints in paint pot strips that will keep the paints fresh for many months. I number each pot and keep a journal of the exact paint mix raitio that I use in each. That way I can always remix a color should I need it. Because I will be blending with some of these colors, I thinned the paint with a 25/25/50% blend of Extender, Flow-aid, and water (normally I would only use water with MSPs).

 

Eye Colors:

 

 

This is, I believe, the Fire Triad mixed in 5 parts. I also mixed up some Pure Black and a bit of Linen White. Not shown is the Blackened Brown that I added after taking the above picture. All of these were thinned just with water. When I thin, I always test the viscosity by wiping a brushful of thinned paint on the edge of the paint pot. I know I have it thinned right when the paint flows quickly and smoothly down the side of the pot, yet is not transparent and watery (this is a very difficult thing to describe; I'd almost need video to really show this, but I don't think I'll go there ).

 

Painting the Eyes:

 

First, I painted a ring of Blackened Brown around the eye:

 

 

Next, I covered the brown and the eyeball with Bloodstain Red:

 

 

I layered in all of the Fire Triad colors:

 

 

And finished it off with a black slit pupil and a white reflection dot:

 

 

Note that I still need to darkline the eyeball, but I will wait and do that when I darkline the rest of the mini.

 

 

Painting the Body Scales Base Coat:

 

Using my largest brush (1), I began painting the body scales with the Bloodstain Red. I was immediately chagrined at how transparent it was, though I really wasn't surprised; reds are usually somewhat transparent.

 

 

It took about an hour to paint the first coat on just the right side of the body. I went to ThePolo's WIP to see how he did it and found that he did the base coat with an air brush . Ok, so not having one of those, I guess I will be spending a lot of time painting red.

 

I then painted the second coat, this covered quite well, but also took an hour, and I am now only done base coating half of the main body scales! (If the base coat takes 4 hours to paint on, how long is it going to take me to highlight each scale with 6 to 8 layers? ). The hight points are still a bit light, even after the second coat, but that is OK because I will be adding 5 more color layers over them.

 

 

 

Funny thing was, I was getting so bored painting the base coat that I actually started nodding off during it.

 

Well, that is all for tonight. I'm going to try to get the first coat done on the other side yet before bed tonight. I am starting to get the feeling that this dragon is going to take me a long time to paint. It's just so BIG! Oh well, it will be all the more satisfying when done (though I may not be able to look at red paint for a while ).

 

Take care,

 

TS

[Sergeant_Crunch]

Lookin' good so far. Keep it up!

[Spatula]

Excellent update TaleSpinner! I'm enjoying the progress and documentation. Hang in thar' and remember to focus, focus, focus...

[Dalth]

It's just so BIG! Oh well, it will be all the more satisfying when done (though I may not be able to look at red paint for a while ).

 

Very nice work. Although myself, I'm in no hury to see you get it done. ;)

[Stern Kestrelmann]

Very cool stuff TS. Looking great. So much work before painting makes this even more enjoyable to watch.

 

SK

[Digital M@]

This is awesome, thank you so much for sharing.

[haldir]

I like the idea of the flip cap for stage painting

 

coolness

 

love what you've done so far

 

RM

[TaleSpinner]

Greetings once again,

 

I just came up from the paint bench. I have been a bit busy since last I posted. I finished the base coat of the body scales, mixed color schemes for the pebbled skin areas (face, hands, feet, and wing forearms and fingers) and breast scales, painted the base coat for both, and then started highlighting the body scales.

 

For the pebbled skin, I decided to make these areas darker and a bit more orange-brown-red look than the body scales. I used Walnut, Blackened Brown, and Intense Brown mixed in a 6 shade progression and added Clotted Red and Carnage Red as well. I think you can see the exact mixes in the journal on the picture, but if not and you want them, let me know and I will post the recipe.

 

 

 

For the breast, I painted a base coat of Blackened Brown. I will then paint over this with a highlight progression of Chestnut Gold, Palitino Gold, and Buckskin Pale. To obtain the colors I wanted, I also added Phoenix Red, Fire Orange, Marigold Yellow, and Sunlight Yellow. The mix got a bit complicated. I hope you can read my shorthand in the photo. Again, if you can't and want the recipe, just let me know.

 

 

 

The following is a picture of Cinder with these base coats done:

 

 

 

Tonight, I highlighted all 6 colors of the body scales to one region of the rump. The following pictures show the before and after shots of this:

 

 

 

I am going to mix a couple more shades in the progression toward orange. This I will use on the body scales toward the belly to make them lighter than those on the back. Eventually, I will brighten and blend all of the body scale highlights using a glaze of Clear Red. I will also be darklining the scales to deepen the shadowed areas and set them off from each other.

 

Now here is a question for all you highlighters/layerers ( ) out there, especially the speed painters. Is it better to do each color of the highlight over all of the dragon's body scales at at time, or to highlight a few scales (as I did above) through the whole progression and then move on to another area? I am leaning toward the latter, but would like your thoughts.

 

Well, that is all I have for tonight.

 

Have a Happy Easter.

 

TS

[Zenos]

Just an observation, your reaper paints are supposed to dry matt, Im also haveing some problems with glossy paint. I find it very dificult to layer with the reflecton off the other layer.