SDE Royal Paladin [WIP - Armour, Shield, Cloak & Hilt]

As fun as the Super Dungeon Explore miniature project has been so far, the very thought of painting the Royal Paladin board game piece had actually filled me with a fair bit of apprehension. This was because it forced me to face some of my biggest fears in the hobby: painting smooth whites and realistic non-metallic metal (NMM). Both techniques are weaknesses I am working on to improve.

Super Dungeon Explore Royal Paladin (work-in-progress)

Royal Paladin playing card with original colour scheme

For the Royal Paladin's cloak, I used an old recipe (found in White Dwarf #370) meant for a High Elf's cloak. For some reason or other, I have rarely had the chance to work on blending and layering darker blue colours. So although the results you see below show pretty rough colour transitions, it's still experience under the belt. I might still be tempted to revisit the cloak and smoothen out colour transitions as well as add some freehand designs to the fringes. But for now I am just too darn lazy!

Cloak could use some freehand designs on the fringes but still look good without

Putting gloss varnish on the gem embedded on the sword hilt was a mistake

Sword blade will need to be painted using non-metallic metal (NMM) technique

Although I have always tried to stay true to the original colour schemes shown in the board game playing cards, this time around I am taking the sword hilt and blade in an entirely different direction i.e. reddish brown for the hilt (as opposed to gold) and bluish-turquoise for the blade (as opposed to just plain grey metal). Also in hindsight, putting a gloss varnish on the gems found on the hilt was not the smartest thing I could have done as it negated the specific highlights I had painted on them.  

Two fold difficulty in painting armour - getting contrast for white and achieving realistic NMM

Front of the Royal Paladin's cloak turned out better than the back portion

With the Royal Paladin's sword blade still to paint, I have one more shot at getting the NMM to look realistic, or at least better than the armour and shield. I am also still trying to figure out how to blend yellows to look like bleached blonde hair. That and trying to get the correct shade of green for his eyes and skin tone for his face. While the Paladin is the most challenging Super Dungeon Explore piece I have worked on to date, the project remains a gratifying attempt at painting anime figures.