The Eternal Court of the Carmine Rose

[Shadespyre]

Thanks for the positive feedback, I never feel confident on colour combinations so this gives me confidence to follow this path.

As for the base, the bit I did all the work on can't be seen in this picture Let me tell you taking a Dremel to an expensive resin model is nerve racking stuff! :|

 

[Dragonet]

Great to see you still plugging away at this project, and that you've nearly reached the end! Inspiration for flakier hobbyists such as myself!

 

[Borgnine]

Now that's a badass model! The colours are looking good And a green or a turquoise mouth? That must look pretty exotic, I need to see it to believe it

 

[Shadespyre]

Well, here's your "exotic" mouth, what do you think?

Apart from repainting the tongue, the whole model got dark washes and then drybrush highlights. Plus some brush highlights on the grey, and some base coats on the details. Will probably push on and finish the painting of the base next. The grey parts will get a paler highlight, but I want to keep it quite dark. I think a brighter red highlight on some of the large, spikier scales. Horns and claws probably fading to dark tips. It all feels under control

Done some work on throne and rider, the throne doesn't fit so well so I need to hack around at it a bit before finishing off the paint. The rider, Elspeth, is a mass of detail so I expect that to be a long job...

 

[Devour the Cabbage]

Oooh that is a damn nice looking model and loving how its going, I must admit looking at models even close to that size makes me baulk, I've yet to even put a brush in the general area of my zombie dragon :/ The only bit that I'm not sure about is the tongue though, I like the choice of a blue but maybe a bit too bright for my taste seems to be a bit too much of a focal point at the present moment.

 

[Borgnine]

It's looking great! That blue tongue reminds me of blue tongued lizards, that's completely believable for me and a great focal point! Your ideas for future steps seem solid, some scales would definitely benefit from some additional highlights. For the claws I would consider doing it in opposite direction, light tips, dark bases - that would bind them with the dark body in my opinion. Either way, a great load of good and ambitious work you have there I'm waiting for more!

But I still think the sculpt itself has too small wings

 

[Shadespyre]

Hmmm, that's a thing to think about... in the meantime, a bit of work on the mouth, on the base and adding the throne...

 

[Farmer7574]

@Shadespyre That's coming along really well, mate. Great work.

 

[Devour the Cabbage]

Well I stand corrected the tongue with the extra work on the mouth, also that lizard! Looks like its imitating a plant with its tongue.

 

[Shadespyre]

Well, I toned down the mouth so it's less of a distraction. Also. the rider will definitely draw the eye as the main focal point once she's installed.

Updates - mostly working on teeth and spines and claws, and also on the plant life

I'm still thinking black tips to the spines and claws, I think it'd emphasise the pointiness?

Every time I look at the model I want to add all the plants and leaves and so on to the base, so hard to resist! Also made progress on the rider, maybe some WIPs of her tomorrow. Bound to need your input on her!

 

[Shadespyre]

WIP on Elspeth herself

This is at base coat + washes stage. Expect the yellow to end up more of a creamy colour I think. Not sure what to do with the black leggings and shoes yet, or the trimmings of the red gown. And obviously her skin tones will be much paler. But you get the idea.

 

[Farmer7574]

@Shadespyre I'm liking the progress so far. The toning down of the dragon's mouth has worked out well and the whole thing is coming along nicely. I've never gone for dark coloured-claws but I think you're on to something there.

Regarding the rider, I'm not a fan of the yellow but as it's going to end up a creamy-looking colour, I think it's a great choice. Nice work so far!

 

[Shadespyre]

Thanks. I think the mouth draws some attention to the dragon's head, and the rider, which is really what you ought to be looking at. Purple was a more obvious choice but I think would have faded into the background a little. She's probably a bit bright in this picture because of camera flash. I've gone for the yellow brown base because I want the colour to not look like the bone or claws etc elsewhere on the model, although I will certainly be using Bleached Bone paint on the finished product. Also I think it'll tie in with the gold accents.

 

[Shadespyre]

Got a lot done on this tonight - no more WIPs, the next pics you see will be the "is this finished? I hope it's finished!" pictures! :|

 

[Borgnine]

I stand by my own opinion from earlier, lighter points on the horns look cool. Elspeth herself looks good, anything I could say was already said. I also read stuff you wrote in the other topic, so now I'm waiting for some photos. Various shades and/or textures of red are always good, there's no such thing as 'too much red' - keep that in mind for the upcoming competition

 

[Shadespyre]

Okay then - here we go. As usual, I'm calling this finished unless someone has a compelling edit (or I spot something in the pictures)

Teasers first...

 

[Shadespyre]

And big dragon pics

 

[Theerteen]

Woh, never saw that one before, and it fits perfectly in your army. Well done Shade, the colours of Dragon, Rider and Base really work together!

 

[Borgnine]

They look glorious together! Bloody well done Green makes for a great accent around her, the color scheme is really good. Various shades of red on her robe, her legs, the dragon's scales, that also looks great. I would add perhaps some recess shade on her robes, as it looks pretty flat now - or make the gradient on claws more 'spiky', if you know what I mean. Lines that imitate ridges along the claws. Other than those tiny things it's a wonderful piece

 

[Shadespyre]

Thanks @Borgnine , very happy to have your praise and your critique. I think the picture has probably washed out the shading a bit, but I do tend to underdo it. You can see a little bit of "spiky" gradient on some of the horns, which is what I intended, but the paint I used was very thin (to keep a smooth finish) and the effect got a bit lost. I'm probably too lazy and too happy with the model to go back and change it now!

@Theerteen This is the Forgeworld Carmine Dragon, which is actually an Empire model not a Vampire model! The rider is the head of the College of Death magic, I think. It's one of the first models I bought for the army, precisely because I could potentially use it in my Empire army too... and pretty much the last I've painted.

 

[Theerteen]

and pretty much the last I've painted.

That isn't something nice to hear

 

[Shadespyre]

@Theerteen It's been 4 years and about 480 models (an accurate count needs to be done when I work out how to pack away this lot for transport!) so I think I'm probably allowed a break? Plus I've got fans of Space Marines who have been waiting patiently since Jan 2016 for new minis to look at!

 

[Theerteen]

A break is totally ok, but that sounded so final Your whole army comes together so nicely and cool, take your time to refill movitation batteries! I'll start my Blood Angels in May, so I'd really like to see your takes on some Marines too. Just don't vanish here like too many others :!:

 

[Borgnine]

So you say it's been 4 years between buying it and painting it? She must have become quite impatient in that time Also, what about the "1x surprise!" ?

 

[Shadespyre]

@Borgnine More like 8 or 9 years I think. I bought the model when I was re-painting my Empire army, which was a year or two before the hardback army book came out.... as it takes me 4 years to paint an army,

I hoped you'd forgotten about the "surprise", it's somewhere on my desk waiting...