Wednesday 12 August 2015

Red Dragon [Completed sans base]

Finally ... an iconic fantasy piece is now part of my personal collection. Painting a red dragon was a non-negotiable item in my must-paint-checklist. If I ever were to visit a hypothetical museum display of all things fantasy, you can be sure that uppermost in my mind would be where is that red dragon?  

A mythical selfie ... even dragons are jumping into the social media bandwagon

Initially, I was sorely tempted to paint a less cliched mythical beast, say perhaps a chameleon dragon with hues ranging from green to purple. Apprehension had clouded my thoughts as to how I could ever pull off a colour scheme that was overwhelmingly dominated by a single hue. So for inspiration I looked towards Larry Elmore, a fantasy artist whose works graced the covers of many a book in the genre (Dragonlance as well as Dungeons & Dragons to name a few) that I had read as a child.       

Red Dragon [Completed sans base]
Light ochre, beige, white, purple and pink were used to contrast the reds
Red, red and more red

Using Larry Elmore's dragon illustrations as the foundation to work from, I also referenced more contemporary takes such as the movie version of Smaug as well as mother nature's Scleropages legendrei (super red arowana) and Naja pallida (red spitting cobra). Placed into a melting pot of ideas, these references then gave rise to the colours I used to contrast the dominant red scheme. Some more noticeable than others, they consist of light ochre, pink, purple, beige, white and yellow. 

For a slime-like effect, a light coat of gloss varnish was applied to the tongue
Wings were painted with near yellow highlights to make them stand out from the rest of the dragon

There is a good reason why this piece doesn't have a base yet. And it's not the usual 'I suck at bases' excuse. The existing oval base will eventually be discarded for a larger and more elaborate base once I have thought of a suitable diorama. Moreover, the antagonist (or protagonist depending on your view) for the dragon remains undetermined. While the Kingdom Death Pinup Savior was an early favourite for the role, she is no longer suitable because her paint job is simply not up to par. It's likely another Kingdom Death girl will take her place, either one that has been or has yet to be painted.

One of the more dynamic viewing angles
Side view facing away from the dragon
Dragon sits atop a soon to be discarded bare-bones oval base

If there is one thing I might consider doing differently, it would be to paint the dragon's wing membranes to a hue as light as its underbelly. But in the end I loved the classic look better. 

Top view of the dragon in which light effectively catches the brighter highlights on both wings

One of the marks of a great artist is that he or she inspires others to mimic and improve upon their work. Larry Elmore does all that and more. This dragon is as much for myself as it is an ode to Mr. Elmore whose works sucked me into the world of fantasy. Don't judge a book by a cover they say. Meh! Dragons on the cover opened the door to a wonderful world of fantasy and I'm the better for it.


http://shireworks.blogspot.com/https://www.facebook.com/shire.works

29 comments:

  1. Wonderful job as usual, it will be interesting to see it in a diorama!

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    1. Grazie Luca ... yes it would be interesting to see this dragon in a diorama. I've some ideas but they keep changing. :)

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  2. Looks fantastic ! Great job !
    Greetings

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  3. Looks fabulous. What a wonderful model to display :)

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  4. He's so pretty! Just needs a reclining space marine to make the scene complete :P

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    1. LoL :) Nah ... he (or is it a she) is not that kind of dragon.

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  5. That is fantastic work and it has been great to see it develop through your posts. :)

    Kudos; maximum kudos. :)

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  6. Very nice (though I have come to expect that from you). I agree with Luca, though: it's not really finished until the scenic base or diorama is done as well :-) .

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    1. You are too kind Colgar6. And you are right. The dragon needs a stage to flourish. :)

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  7. Just amazing Kuan ! . Compliments .
    Cheers .

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  8. The wings are absolutely gorgeous. I just love the flow of them and the colors.

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    1. Thank you Greg. Funny thing about the wings are that they tend to catch the light at certain angles and look yellow orange but on other angles look fairly red.

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  9. Wow !! My Dear FeM, I'm totally flabbergasted OO

    Your work is marvellous as usual ^^

    I have a kingdom death pin up if you want ^^

    Serviteur,

    Morikun

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    1. Merci Mori kun. You are very kind. :)
      I'm so tempted but I must resist. It would be greedy of me to take more KD figurines when I have a fair bit that I have yet to paint. ^_^

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  10. Superb, Kuan. You made the right choice with the red wing-membranes IMO.

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    1. Thank you Finch. Appreciate the affirmation on my wing colour choice. :)
      I was afraid they turned out too red. At certain angles they still do.

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  11. Terrific! Love the fantastic colors and this impressive face...excellent job!

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    1. Merci Phil. I wished they had sculpted the eyes slightly bigger though. I kinda messed up the eyes a bit.

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  12. Gorgeous! I agree about how iconic a red dragon is and about Larry Elmore's inspiring artpieces. I believe you've done justice with this one!

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    1. Thank you so much Suber. While there are much better fantasy artwork nowadays due to digital art, I continue to be inspired by Mr Elmore's work partly because I when I was a child he's artwork was found in a lot of fantasy books that I read.

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  13. This looks really great,
    though I would have painted the wings differently. In their current form they look like ... hmmm difficult to say, but I paint non sculpted flames in similar ways.

    For leathery wings (like a dragons) I always try to mimic bats wings.

    http://lpv-augsburg.de/files/Bilder/copy/fluegel_nill.jpg

    Mind you this is me nagging at a top level of skill, as your dragon really looks great.

    I really love the scales on the underbelly and the color-transistions you did on the horns. So great job... will visit your blog more often in the future.

    Btw.: Google send me here btw. because I wanted to know how the citadel paints play with flow enhancers as I plan on switching from Vallejo to Citadel paints as I heard pretty good things about their new range of colors. Any insight into this topic from you?

    Regards Aerouge

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    1. Thank you Aerouge. Don't worry about it. Any constructive criticism is most welcome. ^_^ You did hit the nail on the head when you mentioned painting non-sculpted flames ... in a way, that was what I was trying to hit at but subtlety. It did cross my mind to paint it in a membrane-like way but the way the wings were sculpted meant that wasn't possible, at least for someone of my skill level. And thanks for visiting my blog :)

      As for the flow enhancers, Citadel actually has a technical paint called Lahmian Medium which acts in a similar fashion. I love using it so I have now stopped using other third party flow enchancers with Citadel paints. Both Citadel and Vallejo have their own pros and cons so I love both and use them together with Reaper Master Series paints for most of my projects. Hope this helps.

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  14. Hy Monster... thank you for the reply.

    Yeah that Lahmian Medium is used for glazes as far as I understand... what I was talking about was mixing the Citadels with stuff like Liquitex Flow Enhancer instead of only water .

    As for the wings. I stumbled upon a fairly easy way to paint the leathery wings on youtube:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbEUUGXXrCQ
    used it on several bats and harpies since seeing it the first time, and I am quite happy with the results.

    Although I have to admit that I painted the wings of my last dragon (green/white) with a wetblend from green at the start of its wings (where the membranes connect to the "arms") towards white at the tips. I am quite happy with it but still try to figure out a way of combining the washing method shown in the video with a wetblend so I get membranse AND a colourtransition ^^

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