Saturday, February 04, 2023

Lost Mine of Phandelver - Green Dragon

 



This is an awesome model of a large dragon (it sits on a 2" base - so tactically it's large - I think that makes it young adult).  This is part of the 3D Dungeon Labs Etsy shop purchase.  I'm going to scale these models with Poor, Average, Good, Excellent in a couple of categories.

Sculpt: Excellent - one of the better looking dragons I've seen and matches what a D&D green dragon should look like.

3D Print: Excellent - well done - clean

Fitness: Excellent - has the proper large base, model matches expectations

This model represents my first attempt at airbrushing.  After receiving the gift of an airbrush, I spent the month of January reading websites and watching Youtube videos.  Then I grabbed the biggest model that was pertinent to one of my current campaigns.  One of the campaigns is the Lost Mine of Phandelver and I had purchased a complete set of miniatures - we started the campaign in a new local game store in Cedar Park, Texas that unfortunately after a few months didn't make it (I understand there was a lot of drama in the ownership group - not for a lack of interest by customers).  We had just arrived in the campaign at the deserted town of Thundertree - so go big or go home - I grabbed the winged beast and started spraying.

I used basically the same techniques I would have used if I had painted it by hand.  I started with a black primer.  Then dark green to a light green layers and eventually mixing some white into the green for the final highlights.  I then hit the belly of the beast with Rotting Flesh as it's a cream color with just a bit of green in it.  Here's a film strip of a couple shots I took along the way...


When I was done airbrushing I came in and tagged all the claws, including the ones on the wing ends, with Bonewhite.  Then finished off the base with basic black - the art design language I'm trying to replicate here is equivalent to a D&D pre-painted mini.

A note on paints... I purchased the Vallejo Game Air paints because they are a 1:1 match for Vallejo Game Color paints.  While I could have diluted in various ways the Game Color paints (and everyone has an opinion on what the proper mix/ratio is of all sorts of various ingredients), it's just easier for a beginner to open bottle and go without having to worry about mixes.  BEST DECISION EVER!  As I was working my way up from dark to light I didn't even clean the airbrush - just kept adding more paint of a lighter green.  The first time I cleaned the airbrush was when I switched to the Rotting Flesh.


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