Grenadier Green dragon II (9605)

[Kangaroorex]

continuing my quest to paint down some of my metal mountain of dragons is my second Green Dragon II from Grenadier.  I wound up with multiple copies of this dragon (I wont say how many but i still have another in its original box...) so when i noticed that i had primed this one a while ago, i decided to try the painting method from Mocha's painting a Rocky class during Reapercon (thanks @Mocha I am getting a lot of use out of that technique and it has definitely helped me with contrast in everything I paint) of starting with the darkest colors and working up to the brightest.  This is the result of my trial with the dragon of the month series .  I decided that since they liked swamps and other watery environments, i would give her a bed of dry river rocks in an underground cave.  (hey everyone likes a comfy bed but nobody really likes a wet bed!) so i started with the base the miniature came with and expanded from there bringing the rocks out from there.  The first pass had them all a monotone color which left the base looking almost black and white against the green dragon.  Interesting but not what i wanted.  Some colored inks later and we have a nice bed of various colored rocks!

 

She comes out really vibrant with lots of shadow and contrast really nice!  About my only fault is i haven't given much thought to handling a different colored belly scale and how a significantly lighter scale would work given the steady darkening as the light lowers past the widest parts of the model. Oh well, maybe next time.

 

For comparison, this is the same dragon I did about a decade ago:

 

I like both but i dont have to guess about which one will catch the most attention, even though it took far less time and skill.  I am happy to give both of them a home, though i should probably give the older one a new base and maybe fix a few of his chips and dings (honorably gotten eating unwary PCs and their horses!)

 

Hope you enjoy them!

 

[Kuroneko]

Another fantastic paint job on a dragon that I've never seen before! I used to think that I had a lot of dragons until I started posting here 

 

That green really pops out at you, I'll have to check out Mochas class.

[Glitterwolf]

Love them both but the newer one is my favorite.

It's an awesome sculpt as well, I have a soft spot for Grenadier minis.

[72moonglum]

Shows how nicely your talent has progressed over the years!

[Kangaroorex]

3 hours ago, 72moonglum said:

Shows how nicely your talent has progressed over the years!

 

Different views and different audiences.  From an artistic standpoint and attention getting, the newer mini is hands down the winner.  From a perspective of what a green dragon would look like in real life, I think the second dragon is far truer to what you would see if you were the size of Sir forscale and walked up to a dragon in the swamp.  The most important thing that I have developed is the ability to adjust my skill to my audience and to see the difference.  Though, to be fair, I think that my overall skill has improved regardless of how I am painting!

 

This was the first test to see if I could move what I learned from @Mocha from painting Rockys (I have to put those up sometime, they are an real blast to paint!) to other dragons.  the next step is to try it on something else like the bones Roc or a griffon or something and see if I can get similar results there.

 

5 hours ago, Glitterwolf said:

Love them both but the newer one is my favorite.

It's an awesome sculpt as well, I have a soft spot for Grenadier minis.

 

He is much more eye catching and it is so much easier to see her than the older dragon.  I do love the shading effects on the new one. 

 

I also love the old Grenadier miniatures and the dragons in particular.  I have almost all of the three dragon of the month cycles and I am working on painting them so I can show them to the world.  but I have a lot of Grenadier and Ral Partha miniatures in my collection, both painted and bare metal and they are fun to work with.  The artists in both companies knew the limits of their equipment at the time and pushed those limits to maximize detail and poses.

 

14 hours ago, Kuroneko said:

Another fantastic paint job on a dragon that I've never seen before! I used to think that I had a lot of dragons until I started posting here 

 

That green really pops out at you, I'll have to check out Mochas class.

 

The class is awesome.  you get to paint a Rocky from raw bones to finished product in under 3 hours with some really incredible contrast and flash.  She also does a really great job with showing how to do eyes and how to get them to actually look like eyes rather that black and white dots on a face .  I think her class and the one on painting hair were the ones I got the most out of during reapercon. (in 5 or 6 more reapercons maybe the one on NMM will stick and I will be able to master that technique too ) 

 

I really recommend the class.  It gives you a new perspective on painting that you may not have tried before.  The basic idea is to go from your darkest shadows and to build up color to your final highlights, always working lighter rather than the usual method of starting in the middle and working both up and down.  for me the effect seems to be that I get a much richer color and can actually make a darker deeper tone than I would if I were working in both directions from the middle

[Iridil]

I love that you are painting these older Grenadier dragons - I remember yearning after them when they were in the store - 

 

I like both dragons - I think the bottom one will definitely benefit from a new base more in line with the newer one - I love the subtle green and blue

[KruleBear]

Beautiful blends on the head and body. 

[Mocha]

Gorgeous!!  That contrast is just stunning. Well done! I'm so glad our class gave you some new techniques to try out! Thanks for being a part of it :)