Monday, December 19, 2011

Dragon Bust - Maybe, Maybe Not....

At this point I've come in with the start of some blended blue shading to help tie the colours on the model together. I'm not entirely sold on it but as there's a LOT of highlighting and shading still to do I'm not going to panic.

Yet.

I've done a few layers in the mouth with a heavy wash just to help me identify the pits in the surface. The interior of his mouth is heavily textured and I didn't want to be hunting for the details.

Unfortunately you can see a big blob of flesh paint on his lip that I totally missed. But, again, I'm not going to panic.

Yet.

I just need to focus on the aspects of the work I still like and continue to build on that.

And I can always panic later.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Dragon Bust - Base Colours

I made some time today to airbrush the base colours. This photo doesn't capture it well but the blue goes from almost white to almost black to create a sharp visual contrast and give the impression of gloss.

I then taped up the blue neck scales to protect them.

Using my inspiration photos as a guide I went for a deep brown on the scales.

Strong contrast on the face will help draw the eye to the important part of the model and away from the display plinth.

You can see in this pic how the scales fade slowly to black at the base of the neck to help draw the eye forward to the face. I will add additional contrast by hand in the next steps.

Friday, December 16, 2011

Dragon Bust - Inspiration


A few weeks back I picked up a 24" vinyl AD&D dragon kit at a local swap meet. There was nothing I couldn't love about a giant dragon kit... until I tried to put it together. The quality of vinyl kits is more miss than hit and this one was no exception.

And so I cut off its head. Er, cut it shorter.


I also cut off roughly half of the neck and sanded it flat. The head also has a coat of DAP sandable primer on it and isn't mounted to the plinth yet. The plinth is one of my 2" resin cubes with 6 coats of black, 1 coat satin and 3 layers of gloss with a bit of sanding between applications. It's shiny. And black.

But a project is only as good as the inspiration - and I found the perfect images in the form of a spiny blue lizard!

And if there's a better inspiration photo for reptile eyes then I don't want to know about it!

Stay tuned....