VIC9 "Uninvited Guest" -Thief with Alternative Armies Dwarf Bane Dragon

Full View

Back to top

Uninvited Guest

The Visions in Colour showcase is a showcase where several people all paint up the same miniature in our own style. This time it was a thief sculpted especially for the showcase by Werner Klocke. This is the second VIC that I've entered and I tried to think of a good way of presenting the thief model that Werner sculpted, without having to create the entire house. So I thought, "how could I use the house in a suitable setting?"

Well, I came up with the concept of the "uninvited guest". I had a spare Alternative Armies dragon (I think he's called the dwarf bane dragon) and I thought I could present an interesting narrative that is open to interpretation. So, when you look at the piece, do you think that the thief has been caught short by the dragon who owns the house? Perhaps the dragon was in human guise in a tavern and sensed the thief above him, burst through the roof to take the thief on a ride, before dropping him off somewhere? ;^D Or perhaps they are both villains but the thief has just been in the wrong place at the wrong time when our dragon makes his attack? Or maybe he got on the roof to try and sneek up to assasinate the dragon? Its your choice, I know which idea I like best but I think its fun to leave it up to your imagination. Hence the uninvited guest could refer to the thief or the dragon (or both).

Painting

The model was basecoated black. I painted the dragon as a single unit, the house and thief were all painted in bits and put together afterwards.

I used a colour called "rust" from miniature paints as the basecoat of the dragon, with a purple wash, then highlighted to a mix of rust and bleached bone/ purple ink. I gave him some green stripes using scaly green up to scorpy green and also used these colours on the scales to make them look like inset gems. For the belly and larger scales, and spines I used rotting flesh highlighted with bleached bone and white.

I painted the wings in the same base colour as the rest of the dragon, but much more dilute, and I started to build up the membraneous look with stripes across the wings in more watered down rust colour mixed with a bit of bleached bone and purple. Then I used scaly green to build up more colour on the wings, highlighted up to scorpy green, with some rust mixed with imperial purple and ice blue for some patterning on the wings to give it a blotchy purply look in parts. The ears were pained in the same purple/blue /rust colour.

For Victor, I wanted the figure to look quite dark and brooding so I went for a deep brown leather on his trousers and black with purple highlights for his leather jacket. The shirt was painted in a lighter shade of imperial purple and a bit of white mixed together. I used NMM greys for the blades and gold NMM on the gargoyle head. The face is rather pale and shows up nicely against the dark of the clothes, gives him a slighly pallid look- he doesn't like daylight too much and shields his face from the sun with his hood so as to remain anonymous. I also gave him grey hair!

The house was painted with a tudor style in mind- white walls, black wood and thatched roof. The thatch started off with black, then bestial brown, then gradually highlighted to snakebite leather, then golden yellow, then white. I sculpted extra bits of broken building to show the dragon bursting through.

The Plinth is a specimen box - like the ones you get semi precious stone samples in. I basecoated black then sponged on two shades of green- scaly green and scorpy green. I then overlaid some veining in white and varnished the plinth afterwards to make it look like black marble.

Thats it! Finished!

Back to top

Closeup view

Back to top