Forgeworld Fire Dragon - Trogdor GD2004 Open Category Finalist

Trogdor full picture

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This was my entry to the Open Category at the 2004 UK Games Day. I actually bought him at the 2003 Games Day. It’s a Forgeworld fire dragon, which I have affectionately nicknamed “Trogdor” (after the Strongbad cartoon). He is in his lair which is in the process of being invaded by a party of dwarf miners who have been folllowing a gold seam to it’s source. Unbeknownst to them, someone else has already found the gold and claimed it as their own!

This was a major undertaking to say the least! It took several weeks to dry fit all the parts, clean, drill and fit every single spine and the wings were a nightmare to pin. In painting him, I had the thought to try and do a lighting effect from the flames coming from his mouth, with the back portion in darkness to give the impression that he is underground. I didn’t just want to do another pure red dragon so in deciding the colour scheme I looked to real reptiles and settled on a predominantly red and blue scheme for the back and a lighter underside. I also phased the blue to a dark green towards the legs.

In hindsight, this caused me loads of problems when trying to visualise the way the fire would affect each colour and were I to do this again I would probably start with a more solid and neutral body colour such as a mid tone grey. Having said all of this, the fire really came off well and looked very dramatic in the cabinet on the day. Overall, he took me around 8 months to complete.

The fire is created with the use of water effects painted with acrylics. In the scene he is breathing fire on a hapless dwarf (the first of the party to reach his lair) who I have converted into a charred skeleton on the top half. This piece really needs to be viewed in person, as the difference in scale between the dwarfs and the dragon make photography difficult. The lair is scattered with debris such as treasure piles and remains of his last few meals…

Trogdor made first cut straight away, but in 2004 there was only one prize in the open. It’s a shame because there were some really great entries, which didn’t get any official coverage.

Trogdor at Games day

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Close up of the Dwarfs

Here is a close-up of the party of dwarfs, which I tried to give the impression were travelling through a tunnel, just below Trogdor's lair.

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Hapless Dwarf

This is a close-up of the dwarf who is being burninated.

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