Kalanzar the Wicked part 2

I finished painting Kalanzar a long while ago now, and forgot to circle back around to show off how I did it and how it looks all finished off.  You did get to see it in the Year in Minis post from back in 2023, but here's a detailed look at the process. 

 

I wanted to keep the palette somewhat limited, both for consistency across the mini, but also for my own sanity, so this was the selection of paint I picked.   

I started with the wings... 

 It looks really bright here... and it is, but this is just the start. 

Then it was off to blocking in the colors on the body. You'll notice the head is missing. I neglected to take work in progress pics of the head, but it was painted separately from the body. 

 There were a few small gaps, but it was big enough to bug me, so I filled them, and sculpted some kinda matching scales to blend it all in. 

More work on the body, deepening the shadows, trying to hit all the highlights. So many scales... 

I regularly plugged the wings into the body to make sure everything was still looking good. I didn't paint with the wings attached both because they got in the way, but also because it was really difficult to try to keep hold of the dragon without them. 

More highlighting...

 

The foam on the base was obviously the wrong texture, so I coated it with mod podge and sand. 

Then I got to painting the lava. Oh, and there's the head. 

And checking how Kalanzar fits on the base... 

 Turns out it needed some extra support. I added some more foam bricks and chunks and then gave them the same mod podge and sand covering.   

 And here it is, all finished up! 

Kalanzar the Wicked part 1

 It's time to paint another dragon! This time I'm going with another of the Bones 5 dragons, my favorite, the red!

Just look at that beautiful sculpt!

 

Out of the bad though, I wasn't as thrilled with it. Sure, it's unpainted, unassembled plastic, but that base... It just doesn't give me the proper feeling that this big dragon deserves. First off, 3" is just a little tight, so digging through my bigass pile of bases, I grabbed a 4" round and... realized it isn't just about the diameter, it's about the height. 

It's a little hard to tell, but the feet aren't really in their slots. There's a little warping, and unless I want to do a lot of work to get it all to fit together, and I don't, I need to scrap the the included base. 

That's better...

 And it better matches the base height of Aganzaraxthe Foul too. 

More to come!

Bones Plague Rats

 Sometimes when I sit down to paint I'm not particularly motivated by anything on the tray in front of me. Usually it's because there's too much stuff on my tray. That happened to me last week, and I decided to do something about it. 

I gave myself a reset. I cleared off everything, shook out the dust and shavings and put away almost all the paints (only keeping a couple whites and blacks), and moved all the minis that were done or weren't going to get worked on away. Then, I grabbed the 2 plague rats and decided to not only speed paint them, but do it with a limited palette. 

I didn't do anything really fancy with them. Mixing the red, brown, and white got me their diseased skin color. A drop of green added to the mix helped to tone it down from the overly bright color it started as.The sores were painted first with the skin color, then pure red, then red mixed with white, then more white added to that. Tiny pinpricks of white on the pure black eyes helped to bring the eyes to life. A wash of the brown with a tiny bit of black helped to line the paws

 As is typical, I still need to do the bases on them, but otherwise, they're done!

Agranzarax from #ReaperMini Bones V

 Friday the 16th my Bones V shipment arrived. Friday the 23rd I took the day off and painted my first mini from the set - Agranzarax the black dragon!

dry fitted Agranzarax next to a glass of whiskey, and a Bones Kassandra mini for scale

As an additional challenge to myself (as if painting a dragon, a BIG dragon in a day wasn't challenge enough...) I stuck almost exclusively to the new paints that came with Bones V. Honestly though, this wasn't a hardship, as the colors that came in it were perfect for painting a black dragon: Black Indigo, Carnival Purple, Wild Violet, and the 3 Oxides (Brown, Red, and Yellow). The only paint I ended up adding to that was Cairn Stone (an off white) and a home made black wash. 

After giving it a good soak in hot soapy water and letting it dry, I dry fitted the parts. I decided to keep the wings and the horns on the head off the figure while I was working on it. They were just too in the way. I also realized that being classic bones material, it was a little rubbery and needed some encouragement to all fit together. 

Specifically:

• I trimmed down the peg on the neck for the head
• I made sure the body was glued into the tail that curls around the tower before worrying about gluing the legs down.
• I glued the back legs, then the front leg to the tower.

Agranzarax with black paint. Conan the Barbarian on the screen behind him

 One it was all glued together (and after I had to go out and buy some fresh glue)I started applying paint. Black Indigo was the base color for the body, and Wild Violet for the wings and the chest scales.

Agranzarax with base colors blocked in, wings and horns seperate

I highlighted the scales by adding some Cairn Stone to the Black Indigo. Some were individually highlighted, others were dry brushed, depending on the amount of detail available. 

Agranzarax with wings fitted in

Agranzarax's wings

To shade and highlight the wings, I used Carnival Purple for the shadows, and a mix of Black Indigo and Carnival Purple for the really deep shadows. To highlight, I added a bit of Cairn Stone to the Wild Violet. Both were applied somewhat carefully in thin washes. 

Highlighting the scales... so many scales...

Then it was time to work on the base. Using the oxides with the black indigo I managed a nice dark grey. I also used Brown Oxide on the claws, horns, and wingtips. I then used thinned mixes of Brown Oxide and Cairn stone to bring them up toward a more bone color. I used the Leaf Bud Green (another new Bones V color) for the eyes, nose, and mouth.

The base still needs a little work, but for 1 day's worth of work, I'm really pleased with how it came out.