That is a beautiful model - I saw it (that top picture, actually) in the book that got me into painting miniatures.

I saw someone had converted a dragon out of a carnosaur model. I liked the look of that far better than just about any other dragon I have seen (In plastic, resin or metal at least.)

If you're into non-GW models there are also...

https://www.heresyminiatures.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=54&products_id=260

http://www.fantization.com/dragonwridingbasket-resinx1fig.aspx

...a few other options. (More than just those, obviously.)

The Heresy Dragon is gorgeous, but the wait time . . . .

The Forgeworld Fire Dragon is a thing of beauty and is the best looking Dragon mini I've seen. Now where did I put that spare £145  :cry:

Tbh any of the FW Dragons are cool even the £40 warp fire one looks good
and the insanity of the chaos dragon wow
http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer/Warhammer_Monsters/EMPEROR-CHAOS-DRAGON.html

Nice to see such good dragon knowledge guys!

The Emperor Dragon is indeed an old school beauty, never seen one in the flesh though. The enormous Imperial Dragon (aka the Chicken Dragon because it was the size of a real chicken) is practically mythical, I have seen ONE for sale on Ebay for £1000 - I might have been tempted at £300! ;) The Great Imperial Dragon is a nice model of an ugly dragon, rather than an ugly model, if you see what I mean.

I have a large collection of 50 or more dragons, including the Great Spined Dragon and Kegox (the original Citadel 2 headed dragon), which are two of my favourites. In fact, I paid for Kegox by selling my "spare" Gt Spined to the guy who is now trying to sell it on for £225 (double what I sold it for... I sincerely hope no one is daft enough to pay that for it.

Many of my dragons are from the 1980s Grenadier Miniatures range, which are a little crude by modern standards but have lots of character. For my Imperial Dragon I am using slight conversion of Teronus the Ultimate Dragon

My Dragon, painted black and drybrushed white to bring up the detail:


A crudely coloured picture following the Photoshop tutorial:


And once you've made that picture changing colours is easy!



Not sure about using these colour schemes on my model, but I think the fairly small effort to try out the colours digitally is worth a go!

I really like the orange/gold one.   :-)

You didnt have to drybrush it white!  Photograph it in good lighting, then in photoshop add a few level and curve adjustments to the image and you lift out all the detail that you needed. 

Although you could probably paint the whole think with ink washes now . . .

I still like the blue - that last one looks cool for a Middenguy army.  :mellow:

Don't care for the first one. Too... spiderman.

If you did the gold, I would go for metallic paint and washes. I think it will look better that way. The Phn0toshopped image looks a bit more desert reptile inspired.

I like the Spiderman dragon  :smile2:

Grutch, I'm sure you are right but I'm a total beginner with Photoshop. And I did think the white might help with painting, as Darknight says.

Yeah, Spiderdragon was my first stab at Blue and Red Altdorf colours. I much prefer the dark red / blue grey version, and it does look like a fire breathing dragon.  ::heretic::

The orange one is meant to be gold, I don't know how to make it look more metallic. I quite like the idea of a golden dragon but I'm worried all that metallic paint will end up looking naff, and I'm not going to make this my first attempt at NMM!

I do like the blue one lots, but I can't help thinking that the Imperial Dragon shouldn't be in Middenheim colours :(

Quote from: Shadespyre on July 07, 2012, 11:01:46 AM
The orange one is meant to be gold, I don't know how to make it look more metallic. I quite like the idea of a golden dragon but I'm worried all that metallic paint will end up looking naff, and I'm not going to make this my first attempt at NMM!

That much NMM would definitely be an expert level undertaking!  :ph34r:

I think the GW washes work very well with metallic paints, though I admit I havent tried an entire dragon that way. (Tempted to try one myself, now that we're discussing it.)

I've decided to go for gold!

I really had no idea how to start, so I've kicked off by putting on a base coat of browns, because I thought the metallics might cover badly over a black undercoat.



I've used Vermin Brown and Tausept Ochre, which are similar tones to Dwarf Bronze and Shining Gold, which I think will be the next colours on top - I'm making this up as I go along, which is fun and scary in equal amounts! Comments and advice are welcome!

It's taking a long time to do each coat of paint as it is a huge model and weighs so much that I can only hold it still in one hand for so long.

Looking good! I would recommend a heavy overbrush with the first metallics, and then mix in some silver and do progressively lighter drybrushes. Then, do some ink washes - you might be able to do the whole model with the same brown wash if you don't go too far on mixing silver in.

I actually find that metallics tend to go better over black. (Or did, haven't tried the new ones). That said, I would try a bit in a small out of the way spot first to see how you like it before committing to painting the entire model. After that, if it's to your liking, have at it!

Looking forward to seeing more.

Inspired by this thread, I've started work on my own Great Imperial Dragon. My early attempts to strip the figure revealed that it the original owner had managed to cover it mostly in a thin film of superglue, which made the stripping a right pain in the neck. During many hours of patiently and carefully chipping away with pins and knives to remove the superglue, needless to say the tail and wings detached themselves from the body. At the time I didn't mind too much, because this let me get into the joints to remove the excess glue in there.

However now I've finished with the stripping and want to reassemble it, I see why there was so much glue everywhere in the first place. The wing design is really not all that compatible with the body and I'm going to need a hell of a lot of green stuff just to get them into the right position to glue, let alone fill the huge gaps. The tail is a little better but I suspect will probably still need pinning.

I was hoping to get it assembled and undercoated by the end of the day, but nuts to that. I'm putting it to one side before I throw it out of a window in a fit of pique.

Quote from: Deuce on July 15, 2012, 02:47:36 PM
I'm putting it to one side before I throw it out of a window in a fit of pique.

If you do throw it out of the window, please throw it into a post box with my address on it :)

I work in a chemistry lab so I have some awesome alternatives for stripping paint, but they are all things you cannot try at home...  ::heretic::

If the fit is that bad I would seriously recommend pinning it together before you apply the GS. In fact, I'd recommend that with any old school Citadel model... my dragon is pined together with long pieces of 2mm brass rod, and I can swing it around by one wing or the tail without any worries.

These old models are hard work, but well worth the effort in the end! I shall be going back to mine again tonight now I've finished Balthasar Gelt.

STOP PRESS:
I just scored a Great Imperial Dragon off ebay for £25!? Okay, it's £25 I don't really have, but bargain or what!? :eusa_clap:

That's pretty much what I paid for mine - I hope you have less trouble with yours!

Dragon update:

I drybrushed a heavy coat of Dwarf Bronze over the brown, tidied up the ochre, and then brushed Shining Gold over both areas:



The upper areas change shade a little with viewing angle, which is interesting. For the next step, possibly a wash or two and then some scale edge highlighting with Burnished Gold? I'll think about it for a bit. Perhaps the next big decision is colour of the wing membranes. I've been thinking a pale non-metallic colour, but I also think a dark contrasting colour ( deep red?) might work. I also like the effect where the gold paint has picked up the texture of the wings, which I might use.

Similarly, any thoughts about claws and horns are welcome!

Here's Karl Franz in the saddle, gives an idea of scale, plus his own colour scheme. I stole the back banner off the WizWagon / Waltar kit.



On the subject of gold, if you haven't seen my experiment with gold plated Citadel miniatures, you need to check out my Empire army diary!

Quote from: Shadespyre on July 06, 2012, 08:28:10 PM

I bought that Dragon in 1990 for £16 new.

The wings were so heavy in hindsight they needed pinning, but I didn't have the know how, so kept trying glue!!!

urrrggg

Looks great so far!

Red claws would look cool I think.
For the wings I'm seeing either dark brown or beige.