For his kids: Short WIP of Fire Dragon [77109], Unicorn [77029], and Arachnid Warrior [77181]

[Pegazus]

This is going to be a really quick WIP, mainly because I'm generally done. I've got another layer of color to put down on the base (the first is drying), and then a wash for the bases, assembly, then clear coat protection. So this entry will probably be wordy.

Last Christmas I was visiting my brother, my two nieces and a nephew. One of things I like to do is go to his FLGS (although he doesn't know it), and it's a really really nice store. Anyway, the middle niece picked out a Bone's Fire Dragon. And my brother said NO! I could have killed him! So I decided then to buy one for her and paint it up. She's under 10, so I'm trying to encourage this sort of thing.

Then I remembered that she's got a sister and a brother. Showing up with a gift for just one wouldn't be nice, so I've got to figure out two more. Thus, a unicorn for her and a spider centaur warrior for him. He's into Spider-Man, so I bought him a spider man. I'm so cute.

However, I knew from the start that I wanted to use the airbrush on the dragon for sure. Probably the unicorn, too. So I might as well do all three, right? I've used my airbrush one time before, painting three model car bodies that the kids and I were doing. So my experience is practically nil. But I've owned a "how to use an airbrush" book for over a decade, so that's almost like staying in a Holiday Inn Express. So this'll be a piece of cake!

So, pull the cars out of the garage, unbury the compressor, pull out the folding table to work from as the garage work bench is covered in other things, although I managed to clear it enough to do all my paint mixing here. That becomes important and fortuitous later.

Let's start with the dragon. Ignore the white spot for now. That's comes later in the story. Using craft paints, did its underbelly and wing membranes in a light yellowish tan, then the body in red covering up most of the yellow in the process, and then black for the spines, covering up a lot of the red. As an aside, I had the compressor up too high in pressure. Figured that out near the end of this little adventure. All in all, at least a good start. Pretty simple to clean up the over-spray areas.



On to the centaur. Black, how can one screw up black? *raises hand* Had the paint too thin to start with, so had to let it dry and what not. But that's no biggie as I've got the dragon spines to paint. I'm telling the individual figures here in a linear sense, but I did use whatever color I had in the brush on every mini that needed it. So I'm glad I found out the paint was too thin on the spider before I destroyed the unicorn or dragon. Solved the thin paint issue, and came back to give it a better coat. Was really having trouble with too much paint (that ol' over pressure issue). So the red spots became more of a red tint. But the spider-side body came out pretty well.

Now, I've got the torso. And since I wanted to have Spider-Man's red and blue worked into him, gotta go with a Drow-ish torso. I contemplated trying to airbrush the hair black for about half a quantum of time. So he was just sprayed all in blue.



The unicorn was much easier. By now, I've solved the pressure issue, and have had a bit more practice and managed to get the blue really well. Purple hoof area and black mane/tail and horn. I also managed to airbrush his little goatee, but then covered it up in blue. Writing this, it certainly seems like a Quentin Tarantino-esque like story. It's all out of order here. I'm very happy with the unicorn. One of the lovely things about airbrushes is the nice fades and transitions that are possible. For my minor skill, I was happy.



Now here's Act Three. I'm cleaning the airbrush inside in the sink, and have it nice and clean. Back outside on the workbench, and I lay it on the side. (For those airbrush lovers, I'll have a little spoiler and tell you to fear not. It's fine.) Cleaning up the other things and I pick up the airbrush again. Inside the cup, the water has extracted more paint. This is frustrating because I've cleaned it several times already and this one color just seems to have found a place to hide. But that's not a big deal. I'll just take it apart and give it a really, really good cleaning.

I've never taken it that far. I've taken the nozzle cap off, but never the nozzle much less the needle itself. But I get that off no problem. And then the trigger comes out. Uh oh. I've now got ever single piece of the airbrush separated save for the air hose fittings. But I needed to lubricate things anyway, so this is no big deal and an opportune time to do that. Everything goes well until I try putting the trigger back in. Hinged with a little stem plug that pushes on the air hose fitting valve. I struggle to get that done.

I get it it, and reach for the other pieces. The trigger falls out and rolls under the workbench. Gigantic dust bunnies and sawdust cows (I dunno, what would you call them?) mingle with spider webs from creatures deceased for decades. I have to re-clean the trigger. This cycle repeats two more times, so my frustration level is pegging the meter right now.

In the middle of this it starts to rain. Pretty hard. It's rather welcome, as things were quite toasty, and so I don't mind. My daughter comes out to relay a question from her mother. Are the windows of the car rolled up? Of course they are, I reply. How stupid do you think I am? This is in the middle of trigger-cleaning-cycle number three. Alone again with my thoughts, I start to have my doubts. Maybe her car windows are a little cracked? I get the airbrush put together, grab the keys and run out into the pouring rain to check.

Yup. All up tight. Now I'm soaked, frustrated as I can be, and ready to clean better. But I want to put her car in the garage now. So I grab the corner of the folding table where all the figures have been drying and proceed to move it over to my car's side of the garage.

The far leg collapses. I watch in horror as my entire afternoon's work slides down the table and onto the floor with the nice abrasive epoxy coating I myself put down.

Sailors blushed.

Luckily, the damage was not as much as it could have been. Another Bones benefit, I suppose. You can see the white spot on the dragon's back leg where it scraped off. There was also another point up on his head that doesn't even show in the picture. The wings showed a few dirty streaks where they played in the tire and brake dust. The spider body had zero damage, while the torso remarkable stayed in the clamp and surfed gracefully to a stop, never touching the floor. The unicorn was like-wise safe, other than a few dirty scuffs on the body which were easily covered with a thin layer of paint.

All in all, a very adventurous day of painting. Got all the damage repaired and as I mentioned in the first of this entry, nearly done.

Edited July 5, 2014 by Pegazus

[Loim]

Fantastic. Can't wait to see where you take these.

[Pegazus]

Thanks! I know I should practice some more before tackling some of my larger figures. Have to figure out what to practice on. Probably just a piece of scrap wood and practice lines. Tearing apart the airbrush taught me one thing. It may say dual action, but I don't think it is dual control. Press down and air comes out. I was thinking I could control the amount of air that way, while pulling back controls the amount of paint. Think I'll concentrate on the paint amount and let the pressure regulator handle the air flow.

So I've got these all wrapped up. Dragon got touch ups on all the colors, covering places that were damaged, over-sprayed, or just plain missed. Dotted the eyes with some gold metallic that I was using mostly on the unicorn. But now that I think about it, the arachnid got more.

The unicorn was much easier. Gave him red eyes with a spot of metallic gold. Sloppily brushed the gold on the horn on purpose. Kinda meh. Now it reminds me of Blucifer. That's the art work that stands out at the entrance of Denver's airport. Blue horse with actual glowing red eyes.

Arachnid warrior is my least favorite. Painted his hair black, along with the sword handle. Red on the shield to gather in more Spider-man colors, then metallic gold for the sword. Probably should have gone silver on that rather than trying to use as few paints as possible.

The dragon and arachnid then got a black wash. I was very happy with that on the dragon, but not so much on the warrior. I'm a bit sad for the warrior, as I probably needed to show him a bit more love by painting it with a bit more care and details.

The two bases were done in a craft paint brown, which surprised me that it took two layers to really color it. Okay, maybe not. I was watering that down, so maybe it isn't that surprising. Quick black wash on the bases and I called it done. They all got a good coat of gloss, followed by a coat of matte. And it really didn't cut the shine as much as I had wanted. Puzzling what happened there. I'll have to remember to not gloss my display pieces as it really isn't needed. If you're wondering, that's an old gaming-mini tip I picked up. Matte over gloss. Theory is that when the matte wears away and you can see gloss, it's time to repaint the matte. Otherwise, you'd wear the gloss away and then be wearing away color.

And now the massive dump of pictures.

First up, the dragon.






Then the unicorn.




And finally, the arachnid warrior.