This is the first Dragon that I've painted in years, and certainly the largest so far.
Gliding gracefully just below the surface of the icy cold waters of the desolate inlets, slinking slyly over the grey, oft snow-covered rocks along its banks or flying silently overhead, Fjord Dragons are majestic, solitary beasts long the inspiration for the masts of Viking Longships. Known as clever and inclined to trick mortal men to seize their livestock, Fjord Dragons are not prone to the greed of their more colorful cousins. Enigmatic, Fjord Dragons will often come to the aid of men in their battles against Jotunkind for reasons known to them alone and just as quickly disappear.
You've seen this Dragon here before, but now I've assembled and painted it.
Assembly on a large model like this is never easy, but this one was fairly straightforward. The model is resin, and the parts have pins that fit into holes elsewhere in the model – but the pins are resin, so doing a lot of test-fitting is problematic because the pins might break off. I assembled all the parts except the horns, which I added at the end.
My first concern after assembly was that there was a noticeable seam where the tail fit into the body. Because of the sculpted texture, I didn't want to do a lot of filling and sanding here. So I did some light filing, and hoped to hide any imperfection with the paint job!
I also filled in gaps where the left arm and leg met the body. This was easy work, but it took several layers to get it right. Fortunately, the gaps were on the underside where they are well hidden.
Although the model was pining for the fjords, what I needed was a dungeon monster. That led me to the idea of a dark paint scheme. I did some research online, and modeled the paint job after a particular monitor lizard I saw. Black prime, drybrush two shades of grey, then a black ink wash. Then I did the spots with one shade of grey, a highlight dot of grey, another wash to blend everything together, and then some corrections to make the spots somewhat uniform. Claws, wings, and neck scales were highlighted with a metallic steel color. The eyes were painted dark yellow with black pupils.
I used an inexpensive wooden base from Dollar Tree, painted black, small enough to allow attackers to approach the monster. The dragon was glued in place, posed as if fighting dungeon adventurers, and contoured into the base with spackle. One of the feet did not sit flush with the base, so I added more contouring, painted the ground grey, added some scenic dungeonesque touches, and flocked with black sand. Added the horns. Everything was sealed with matte clear, then some metallic highlights replaced again.. The base sides got some gloss clear.
I was quite worried how this bad boy was going to turn out, but I'm pleased with the results. The flaws are hidden, and it looks like a close-combat killer!