Here be Dragons

I've had these dragons for a while but they were never based properly and among the first minis I painted.  It was fun to do a quick update.  Both dragons are from Reaper Miniatures, the Fire Dragon and Skeletal Dragon. 

Basing

The Fire Dragon spent several days and two iterations in LA's Totally Awesome, but the paint did not  did not come as clean as expected. Each dragon will be based on two GW 40mm square bases making each base 80x40mm.

Green stuff combing two square bases.

Green stuff securing the model to the base.

The models were then fully assembled and based. Hot glue is cheap and was used to blend the elevation from the integrated bases to the new bases. Then the basing completed with common sand and PVA glue.

Painting the Fire Dragon

The models were primed black from below, grey from the sides, and white from the top resulting in a smooth gradient undercoat.

The Fire Dragon was painted mainly with Army Painter Speed Paint (APSP);

• Body : APSP Blood Red
• Under belly : APSP Zealot Yellow
• Wings and fins : APSP Hive Dweller Purple

A pink color was added for highlights on the wings and fins. and GW Agrax Earthshade was applied to darken the shadows and details on the underbelly. 

Painting the Skeletal Dragon

The Skeletal Dragon was coated in Games Workshop Agrax Earthshade (a brown wash) and the wings painted with APSP Hive Dweller Purple.

 

HeroQuest Project Reboot - Alternate Hero Models

I decided to reboot my Classic HeroQuest project. When I first got this game in 2012 to play with my son, I decided I would start painting miniatures. And that if I was going to invest that kind of time, I would also replace the 1990's figures with newer stuff...  Realizing that GamesWorkshop was still in business, I bought paint, brushes, and some miniatures and got started.  Unfortunately, GW did not have acceptable proxies for every figure and my set became a mix of new and old figures.

Fast forward to today and my painting skills are much improved, I'm much faster at painting, and willing to do more research and pick things up on eBay...  I'd like to complete this set.

Here are the first four miniatures (all of what would be RED plastic) which are almost ready for varnish.

The Dwarf

This fellow draws inspiration from the dwarf fighter in the video game Golden Axe, and is seen here holding a HeroQuest "Heroic Brew."  "Tilt one back with me dog!!"

Gilius Thunderhead (from Golden Axe)

This dwarf was painted a little while back for games of Rangers of Shadow Deep. He was assembled from the GW Dwarf Warriors box ~2004 which was still produced through the transition from GW Warhammer Fantasy to AoS.

I removed the annoying GW specific Dwarf tokens from the axe and had to re-sculpt part of his right hand because of it.  If I painted him today, he would be a bit brighter, but it really works here. His base needs some updating to match the other heroes.  And I will keep trying to get a better "Non Metallic Metal" paint job on the axe head.

The Elf

This fellow draws inspiration from Legolas (LoTR) and the classic video game Gauntlet (or "Get Medieval"). He carries a bow which is not available in the Base System HeroQuest game so I just re-skin the crossbow as a bow in the game.

Eryc the elf (Get Medieval)

This elf figure can be built directly from the Games Workshop Glade Guard (wood elves) box.

The Barbarian

My Scarlet Citadel (Conan) booknook (here)

For a dissertation on where this miniature comes from see Ampersand's quest for the ideal barbarian miniature on Something in the Dungeon. To recap, this barbarian is a now out of print Hasslefree Young Wolf miniature with head swap from an old GW Space Wolves box.

Clearly the HeroQuest barbarian was meant to be a Conan clone. And if you are a Sword and Sorcery fan and have not read the original Robert E. Howard Conan short stories you are missing everything.

The Wizard

Who doesn't want their dungeon crawl wizard to be a good bit like Gandalf?

My LoTR Dwarrowdelf Booknook (here)

I used the metal Brandle Birchstaff miniature from Reaper miniatures. It was speed painted it shows in the photos, but the colors are bright and the contrast works. It would be worth going back and smoothing out these blues and adding highlights by hand. But honestly it looks spectacular on the table, so I may just seal it and be done.

More views of the group

Bases and Corpse Rats

 

Speed painted the Corpse Rats

Ran a quick set of color match experiments for the bases and came out with a few different to get about the same final result.

The simplest one (third from the right) matches the shadows with 2 parts Highlord Blue to one part Orc Skin (both Army Painter Speed Paint). Then gets a dry brush of an unnamed Reaper paint sample.  A very similar effect is obtained on base four and five using GW Nikolakh Oxide followed by GW Nuln Oil.  And it may even be possible to dry-brush the Nikolakh on the top as it is a very thick shade.

Moving on to the bats and objective markers next.