Dragon of the East

Hi all

He tried to tempt me at Salute 2017, he did it again at PAW 2018. Finally at Salute 2018, I succumbed...

I literally could not deny the desire to own at least one of Dave Stone's magnificent dragon models! Honestly I have tried and tried and tried not to buy one as they are an investment of funds, time and effort but hell, I'm only human - I ended up mostly trying to stop buying more than one!!

To be honest it was a straight toss up between his brand new Wyvern which had just been freshly painted and this bad boy....

pic taken from Dave's website here

In the end I had to go with the Oriental Dragon, I'd wanted him for so long and even the gorgeous Wyvern model couldn't compete, so I dutifully dug out the £50 from my sorely pressed wallet and handed it to Dave's grinning daughter, who knew she had me beat....

fast forward to this month and in an effort to boost my flagging mojo I decided to build and paint this beauty, knowing that it would make me very happy indeed....and it has.

This beaut of a model is made of hard resin and is massive (I haven't measured it, but have placed it next to some 32mm samurai later).  Really neat casting and only need some minor filling around the joints, which I did with a little bit of Das.  My only complaint, and it is my only complaint is that the brittle nature of the resin meant that I snapped one of the critters moustaches within the first 5 mins.  That was the only mishap and took a few tries at supergluing it back on to finally sort...

I used a grey primer to spray on as a base. I like using this primer as A) it's really cheap, B) it sticks fantastically to any surface son no need to pop your expensive mini into a bubble bath and C) the grey is a really neutral colour so I can go light or dark on it (plus I find coloured primers too confusing...).

After much research (ten minutes on Google) regarding colour schemes, I decided to do a bit of a mishmash of the boxed art colours i.e. I did what Dave did... and a flaming mane of hair, using my fire technique - more on that in a couple of weeks.

I mostly used Vallejo paints and GW washes to paint the beastie.  Below at all the base colours - Joe, take note of the sandstone rocks - no grey for me!!

The highly detailed scaling and features gave me the opportunity to really build up the paint layers, due to the size of the "mini" (ha!) I did this with successive dry brushes and then a final detailed highlight.

I even took the time to practice with some OSL, a technique I'm yet to truly get to grips with...

I love the pose of the model which goes against the traditional coiled viper look of eastern dragon artwork and instead concentrates on the "launching into flight" look - neck stretched and powerful legs pushing off from the earth.

The detail is fabulous, each scale sculpted rather than textured on...

I tried to take some pics with the flash on to show you the layers...

and finally some scaling - yup those are 32mm Bushido minis...

What a BEAST!!

I really enjoyed painting this but now I'm going to have to avoid Dave's stands at the next few shows, else I'll get that bloody Wyvern and then the sea dragon, then the fire breathing beastie...

hope you enjoy

dGG

Wargames Terrain Workshop 2

Hi all

A little while ago I picked up some more of Dave Stone's excellent terrain pieces, this time for my urban boards for use in my zombpoc games.

Not a lot to say about them other than, they look brilliant! You can get them in plain grey resin, as I did and paint them to your individual specifications or buy them pre-painted. I wanted them to compliment my existing terrain so bought them plain. For the gas cylinders, I went on to t'internet and painted them up with a well known global brand. As for the vending machines, I had no intention of naming the brands until I'd painted them up and then they looked like they were wearing utility belts - hence the superhero branding.

I've got plans for all of them, so they will start to crop up in upcoming AARs. Anyhoo the link to Dave's site is below, have a nose and see what you think.

http://wargamesterrainworkshop.co.uk/?product_cat=accessories

Hope you enjoy

dGG

Wargames Terrain Workshop

Hi all

this post is dedicated to some amazing pieces that I picked up at Salute! all three from Dave Stone's wargames terrain workshop.  I chatted to Dave for quite some time at Salute! and he is a thoroughly nice chap and very, very talented.  His stall was heaving with beautiful miniatures and I snaffled some crackers for my zombpoc/modern games, which I will show later and these brilliant items for my Dungeon project...

first of all I got this treasure chest, its a little big in scale but actually fits the bill for the end of dungeon crawl mega prize.  The piece comes in a translucent blue resin in order to make the crystals really work.

All I did was paint the chest and base and added a very light turquoise/white mix highlight to the edges of the crystals before covering in a very generous coat of gloss varnish.

Alicia and Tregar find the treasure of a lifetime!

Next I painted up the "Angel Monument", you may remember me showing more of Dave's graveyard terrain earlier this year and I was determined to get more, when I saw this one i was sold...

Shimmer and Lenore enter the vault of the Demon

All I did with this figure was to paint it a medium grey, wash it in black ink and then add my homemade moss mixture to it and voila!

Lastly is my favourite piece and one that when I saw it, just had to have it! (sorry Jez - it was just TOO shiny)  At just £8 I think it is an absolute bargain and is a beautiful figure both to paint and just as a piece in itself - stand by for quite a few photos of how it progressed.  It can be used of course as a dragon emerging from a well (I also have a dragon piece in similar colours) or as a realistic onamental fountain....

The bottom of the wall is made up of the same translucent resin as the chest, it requires some special painting but all I did was email Dave and he gave me some very useful tips that meant it turned out perfectly (imho).  I really love this piece and it will take pride and place among, what I hope will be an extensive Dragon collection.

Just before I go, I have posted a video or two on YouTube with how I've put together a bridge for the sewer tiles, there is an issue with the sound in the middle of the build where You Tube blocked the use of a song I had playing in the background.  In order to bypass this I was forced to remove audio and fluffed the overlay of music, so it gets a bit rubbish but it does come back for the last segment and certainly where I share how the whole board looks so it is worth sticking with imho. Its all a bit of a learning curve - click on the link below.  The second video is how I made some traps.

https://youtu.be/-0qXBshetBU
https://youtu.be/Z-PZoeI9uC8

that's it for now

hope you enjoy

dGG

Wargames Terrain Workshop

Hi all

I recently placed an order for some Judge Dredd terrain items from Dave Stone's Wargames Terrain Workshop, you can find the website here and I highly recommend you have a little peruse through his stuff!  Anyway I bought the bits that I wanted and they will feature soon enough but as I was flicking through the online catalogue I came across the "Graveyard Section" - ooh I thought I'll see what's what in here and I came across these...

Kerching!!!! I had, at the time literally no plan for these in anyway but I knew straight away that I wanted them, a use would eventually show itself.  So I placed the order and a few days later I received the whole lot.  Now the JD stuff will show up on here when my paintbrush re-engages with the "Big Meg" and her denizens as I've still got tons of stuff to paint up that Bryan "Vampifan" Scott has sent me in his boundless generosity but when I started thinking about my 7TV2e project and the dungeon/sewer terrain i'm building I started picturing underground tombs and boom the pieces were in play.

Sadly due to transport issues the resin had in places broken, some to the point where I couldn't put the pieces back together but these are can be portrayed as just chips in the stone so I wasn't too distressed (I will add this wasn't Dave skimping on packaging which was very good, I genuinely believe the delivery guy kicked it into my garden!!).  Anyway I simply glued the Gargoyles onto 30mm mdf rounds, then simply sprayed all of the pieces with grey primer and then painted them with citadel paints, sorry Joe "Zabadak" but I had to go with the darker grey rather than the nice browns I used for my Bushido Temple, just because I wanted that darker, sinister feel!   

It's hard to see from the pics but the gargoyles got some glowing red eyes just to add some animation to the pieces.

I added some home made moss using flock, green paint and PVA, just to give that feeling of age.  My Queen of the Night - Anabella von Kriekveld stalks through the graveyard looking for recruits.....

The Vargheist lands by the "mourning angel" monument summoned by the dread necromancer - Viktor Gelthelm


Anyway that's it for now, I highly recommend these pieces by Dave, go check them out.

hope you enjoy
dGG