Joan Of Arc Kickstarter Legendary Dragon - Need opinions

[bojesphob 1188]

All right, I need a couple of opinions here. I've started this model and I like the progress on it so far. Eventually I want to do a OSL in his mouth like he's about to breath fire, so that will be fun learning how to do that. But, while I have a few things that I can do to continue working on it, two items have me stumped how I want to handle them. First, the horns on his head. I thought about doing a bone look - ie lighter bone colors layered. Only issue is, I did an almost bone color on the shoulders, feet, and tail, and I'm afraid the horns (and subsequently the head) wouldn't stand out. So, opinion one needed: Should I do a darker bone color for this, like start with a darker brown and work my way up? Or, would a normal bone color look ok? Second, the spines on the back. I was thinking about doing a lighter green as the base color (think about lighter pea green), washed with a brown wash, then drybrushed with a light blue on the edges to sort of make it pop. I'm not sold on that. Any thoughts? I usually don't have issues with deciding what colors to do when I'm this far into painting, but I really can't come up with something I think will look good.

 

The darker color horns I was thinking of doing was like what I did with my Ma'al Drakar, like this:

[bojesphob 1188]

one recommendation that I got from a coworker was to go with a rust color sort of like this iguana:

https://depositphotos.com/135512250/stock-photo-extreme-close-up-male-green.html

I think I might go this route, although still up for ideas if anyone has any.

[Kuroneko 6193]

First, congrats on getting that dragon- it's absolutely gorgeous! I didn't back the kickstarter due to lack of funds and I really regret it now.

 

I like the idea of using orange/red for the horns and crest. Possibly dark red at the base and lightening up to orange nearer the tips. Kind of like it was echoing the flames coming from the mouth. 

 

Of course, this is probably because I'm slightly obsessed with doing flame effects on half my minis 

 

 

[LarsM 1829]

As said, gorgeos dragon! And paint job already looking good. 

My vote goes to dark bone for horns and rust color for the spine.. Like the energy out-burst(?) from the fire breath heats up his hole body. And the orange-rust will go really well with the green body. 

[bojesphob 1188]

So, I've been able to get a little more painted on this. I started with painting the rust on the spines, and found that if I used the the technical paint for corrosion from GW before doing the rust colors, and I think it turned out pretty well. Started the horns as well, and found that the a normal brown base to layer up to bone seems to work nicely. Once I get it a little further along, I'll try to get better lighting so the contrast shows up better. Thoughts?

 

[Cyradis 49013]

Good work so far! With a figure that big and detailed, I'd consider doing more with hue and tone variations than just paint-wash-drybrush. You have a big canvas to use and give it more parts of interest. Are the edges of the wings the exact same as the middle, or are they a bit lighter? Do the scales have texture to them? Lots of things to play with on it!

[Glitterwolf 162759]

Wonderful so far!

[bojesphob 1188]

19 hours ago, Cyradis said:

Good work so far! With a figure that big and detailed, I'd consider doing more with hue and tone variations than just paint-wash-drybrush. You have a big canvas to use and give it more parts of interest. Are the edges of the wings the exact same as the middle, or are they a bit lighter? Do the scales have texture to them? Lots of things to play with on it!

 

Yeah, I'll definitely be layering up on the greens a bit more :) Haven't really figured out the best layer color for the underside green, and the bone-ish color on the tail, legs and shoulders I will probably do a layer of the original color on the upper levels, then do a highlight of a lighter bone color on top of that. The face has the highlights and such I'll be looking to do on the rest of the dark green body, so that's sort of the look for the main skin I'm aiming towards.

 

These are the tops of the wings at the moment. Haven't done much with them besides the base, some layering, and a wash.

[bojesphob 1188]

Tried using the flash with the picture, and it seems to have helped a little. Anyhow, have more done: mainly worked on the facial features, including the eyes, and also did a lot of detail work on the castle he's standing on. Castle ended up being a base of medium gray, black wash, highlight up of the individual stones with the same gray as the base, a brown wash, then a lighter gray highlight on top of that. Did a drybrush of the same gray on the edges to make them stand out a bit. Then some details like timbers in the rubble painted brown with a brown wash then a highlight of some gray, then black, then gray on some of the ends/edges to make it look charred (unfortunately at this angle you can't see the timbers).

[Glitterwolf 162759]

Wow!

[Garbosch 262]

This dragon is awesome!

[Warlady 4187]

That is some dragon!  Like what you are doing with him!

[bojesphob 1188]

Thanks guys! :) Due to the classes I'm taking right now, I won't be able to paint on him again until after next week due to mid term exams, but I will definitely update again once I have more done on him!

[Disciple of Sakura 6782]

1 hour ago, bojesphob said:

Thanks guys! :) Due to the classes I'm taking right now, I won't be able to paint on him again until after next week due to mid term exams, but I will definitely update again once I have more done on him!

Good luck on your exams.

[bojesphob 1188]

Finally back into the groove of things, and got some more painted. One thing to note, the green on the bottom doesn't photograph well, even in decent light. There are some highlights on the bottom of the wings and his chest area that I did that just don't seem to want to show in the pictures. Can definitely see them when looking at it in the same light.... Oh well, definitely better pictures when I take them in a bit better lighting area!

 

Still have some touchups to do, and I'll be putting static grass with some pebbles for stones in it to make the base more dynamic. Also thinking of making some mounds/divots to make the ground look uneven as well, although I may skip that part, haven't decided yet. On the front, you'll see I tried to do a scorched area around where his head, and once I get the flocking on it, I'll edge that area with white on the grass as well to make it do a transition between the two. Oh, and these are full sized pictures (I didn't scale them down), so if you want to zoom in on stuff it won't pixilate until you get really close LOL

 

 

Edited July 17 by bojesphob