For this workbench project, 
Editor in Chief Bill 
was nice enough to let me paint the Parkinson dragon by Dark Sword Miniatures.
The figure is based on a painting by Arlin Parkinson. The model is an excellent representation of the figure in the painting. That being said, the model was a beast to put together. None of the joins on the dragon lined up, and there were large gaps between the rider and the dragon. I had to do some extensive greenstuff work to hide the joins.
There were also some inconvenient mold lines (aren't there always!) that also needed to be sanded and subsequently repaired with greenstufff. To top things off, the rider's lance was badly damaged and was ready to break straight out of the box, and the tassel on the rider's helmet was missing. At $44.99 USD, I was a little disappointed in the quality of the kit.
Once all the greenstuff had dried, I primed the figure with artists gesso. I have read numerous posts about using gesso as primer, and had been experimenting on some of my figures before using it on the dragon. Gesso really works great, and it has become my primer of choice during the long winter months here in Wisconsin.
Gesso is very easy to work with. I use a cheap brush to apply a liberal coat of gesso. Don't worry if it goes on thick, as the gesso shrinks as it dries. Let it dry overnight. You may have to touch some areas with black paint to cover where the gesso shrunk too much.
