Mori VS Ma'al

[Morihalda]

Alternative Title:

How Morihalda Achieved Maximum Distraction from 14 Other WIP Threads: A Story.

 

Chapter One

6 November. I saw an absolutely gorgeous snake at the museum and thought, "Wow, that would be an excellent dragon pattern. OH WOW Ma'al could be five different reptile patterns!!" I'd been wanting to do a skeletal or blacklight theme for him for forever, but I decided those would be better suited on a smaller dragon.

 

I spent some time that night researching snakes, lizards (and the occasional amphibian), and habitats before settling on some patterns. I spent a few more hours cleaning up mold lines and convincing myself that I don't need to resculpt these perfect heads!

 

Red - Fire Skink
Black - Lace Monitor
Green - Green Iguana
Blue - Blue Tree Monitor
White - Blue tongue Skink
Body - Fire Skink

 

This Boelen's Python didn't make the cut since I settled on lizards, but look at that good son! He's going to be my black dragon one day. 

 

The red fire skink will be inspiration for both the red head and body. It has so many amazing colors that will help bring all the faces together. I'm thinking the wings will be muted on the underside to match the black and white heads and more fire skink on the top. This means the black and white heads need to be the middle level heads - there's a beautiful curve from them leading to each wing.

 

My tentative color blocking. Good enough for an art gallery, yeah? 😉

 

Chapter Two

7 November. I spent over three hours this afternoon pinning, gluing, and green stuffing specific sections. The wing gaps and one of the legs are pretty rough, but the head scales perfectly cover the neck scales! Almost like it was planned.  

 

Chapter Three

8 November. I am still prepping. There is still barely enough done to warrant a forum post. All I have to show you are stabby holes in my hands (yes I will be using a holder/lazy Susan when painting, but I need all the angles while sculpting). Either I got one that was a little uneven or I'm just way more picky than some folks, but I have had a ton of gap filling to do for the legs.

 

How did some of you do this in 7 days?! Someone send me rations and supplies to survive!  

 

Edited September 19 by Morihalda

[Morihalda]

My phone is really awful. I'm sorry, friends. I have a webcam that I'll be setting up to take better photos once I can get this old laptop behaving. But here are some gaps I've been working on. I like adding little scales in between to better blend the pieces together.

 

Because these lizards prefer rainforests or temperate climates, I decided to go with an Australian rainforest theme for the base. I really want to add part of a waterfall!! I did a quick little digital overlay to test how it would look. :D I've never done water basing before. I'm excited to try it! The bottom right two images were taken in Queensland's Daintree Rainforest.

[Cyradis]

I absolutely love your reptile theme. YAY scaly critters! Paint the monstrous min!! GO MORI! 

[Pegazus]

Love the waterfall. Going to steal that so hard. Eventually. 

[Chaoswolf]

This is going to be SO COOL!!

[Sylverthorne]

AAAAHHH!

… I was wondering what all the lizard and snake photos were about in the Discord... this is going to be AWESOME!

 

*quietly sets up the tea bar and settles in to spectate*

[Kuroneko]

This is going to be epic....Really looking forward to seeing your progress

[Warlady]

Eager to see what you do!

[Glitterwolf]

As you might have noticed form my Lost World project I love reptiles and I also use nature for reference.

Lizards, Snakes, Topical Fish and Birds provide many beautiful examples for painting minis.

Good call!

 

I love the waterfall idea!

Awsome project, good luck!

 

TIP: for a piece like this don't use the liquid water effects.

Use a paste like Vallejo Water Effects.

Edited November 9, 2018 by Glitterwolf

[Rigel]

Genius!

[Morihalda]

On 11/8/2018 at 4:31 PM, Pegazus said:

Love the waterfall. Going to steal that so hard. Eventually. 

 

Steal away!  I vaguely remember starting a thread a long time ago full of ideas that I had but didn't have time for haha. 

 

18 hours ago, Glitterwolf said:

As you might have noticed form my Lost World project I love reptiles and I also use nature for reference.

Lizards, Snakes, Topical Fish and Birds provide many beautiful examples for painting minis.

Good call!

 

I love the waterfall idea!

Awsome project, good luck!

 

TIP: for a piece like this don't use the liquid water effects.

Use a paste like Vallejo Water Effects.

 

Thank you! I appreciate tips for all of these things, especially water effects!

[LordDave]

this is exciting.  you are going to kill this!!

[Morihalda]

13 hours ago, LordDave said:

this is exciting.  you are going to kill this!!

 

Ahhh thank you! Did you ever post yours to the forums? I loved seeing it on FB but I didn't see it here.

[Morihalda]

Do any of these parts look sufficiently mossy to y'all? I am requesting texture help - I know that the edges and placement of the moss will help sell it but I want to get the texture right first.

 

In other news, I'm done rescaling and gapfilling body! Yay! 

[Morihalda]

I tried making the moss a little lumpier and softer. I'm not fully settled on it yet, but I suspect that it will read better once it's been painted and in the proper areas. I'll be spending a ton of time on the base over the next several weeks. Lots of little things to sculpt! I'm really excited about it. 

 

After about 11 hours, I've finally finished gap filling and cleaning up! It was lots of little areas like this. If I did it right, you shouldn't be able to tell which scales got added....

 

It took another hour to prime him. His heads and wings have been lightly tacked on so I can get an overall view of him. He's also not attached to the base.

The next step is to ask friends for help before adding the white primer. Where do you think the light sources are? I'm thinking that I should do at least two different spots.

I've also gone around a few Ma'al threads and searched for lighting ideas there too.

 

Dragon Prep: 11 hours

Dragon Painting: 1 hour