Draconis: Spring Clean 2025 (Oldhammer) and Onward

3rd November 2025

Another mini that I designed (Eldritch Foundry) and a friend printed for me. This character is a female Bosmer (from Elder Scrolls), but themed around the Mandalorian.

I wanted to go for smaller hand crossbows, but they were continually clipping through the arms, so went for slightly larger ones.

Gave her a green cloak, highlighted up by adding pale sand, then washed with nuln oil, and given a final drybrush. Laid down some earthy tones for the clothing, and gunmetal for the armour.

I neglected to get many pics here. Belt was picked out with a dark grey, fur edges with ivory, washed agrax, then highlighted with ivory followed by white. Trousers had a highlight with ivory before being washed with agrax as well. The wash on all of the clothing helped make it more naturalistic.

27th October 2025

Another single mini to work on, this was again a 3D print I designed (in Eldritch Foundry) and a friend printed for me.

Primed black. I had my usual dithering about colours, so in order to start on it I just went with the one thing I was sure of – a blue cloak.

I built the colour up using four shades of blue. Once I was happy with it I started on laying down some colour on the fur and skin, and put down a blue wash on the cloak to smooth it out a little.

I blocked in the trousers in white to start with while still trying to decide. Then went ahead and started working on the armour. Whilst doing that I plumped for an earthy green for the trousers. These were painted up with Castellan green, washed with nuln oil, then highlighted Castellan, followed by Castellan and ivory, with increasing ivory.

The armour was washed with nuln oil, then highlighted gunmetal followed by chainmail. Straps were painted with my foundry spearshaft triad.

Then I worked on the gloves and boots. The boots and gloves were painted as dark leather, using rubber black with a touch of nuln oil for shade and greys for highlight.

The shield was painted in a blue to match the cloak, with an ochre charge.

Then it was the usual tidying up and finishing off. Including painting a gem on the belt buckle.

His sword is meant to be slightly magical, so I tried to paint it with a faint blue glow, and once I had painted the base and stuck him on I tried to apply an object source light effect onto the base, his boot and leg armour.

24th October 2025

A short break, followed by busy work, meant no progress here or on my Silver Bayonet project of late.

So to get back at it I decided to work on this 3D printed model that I designed (and a friend printed).

The overall concept was for an engineer type character, but since I would be using it for sci-fi skirmish games (not sure which rules yet, that will be in a future project) he of course had to have a gun as well.

Usual zentihal prime for him. I used the Eldritch Foundry software to test out some colour schemes, and went with a brown jacket.

For a pop of colour I chose to give him an orange shirt, complemented by dark grey trousers.

I did consider giving him white boots, but felt that would draw the eye away from the core area, so went for dark boots instead.

The blond hair was painted brown at first, then highlighted with several stages of ochre, finishing with ivory for a few strands. Initially I didn’t paint the eyebrows, but a friend convinced me to give it a go. They came out quite well, with his left brow raised slightly quizzically. Although in the pics they don’t show as clearly (blond against flesh).

Various highlight stages, picking out detail on the handheld device and also working on the base followed.

Base started out white, painted over with Gryphon orange then some areas of Gore Grunta fur. Followed up with a silver drybrush and detailing the cables (with multiple highlights) and such.

Then he was finished. Reasonably happy with him – and you may see him return in a future project 😊

29th July 2025

First up after the end of the Spring Clean Challenge is this random grot that I found while sorting out some other things.

Between Silver Bayonet enemy figs I just decided that I would paint up this chap and try out a darker base for using contrast, plus try pushing highlights again. And this fellow is pretty small, even for a grot, at just 13mm to the eyes.

Started out by painting it Rubber Black by hand.

Then I drybrushed it pale sand, but didn’t go too heavy, leaving a lot of dark area remaining. This was followed with Plaguebearer flesh contrast, drybrushed a light ochre, a small amount of ochre highlights, then some pink for the nose, lower lip, palms and ear tips.

Picked out the teeth and nails in ivory, washed with agrax. The eyes were Mephiston red.

The loin cloth was where I worked on my layers and highlights. At the moment red seems to work best for me (maybe I need to get some good groupings of other colours).

Went from the flesh tearer, through Mephiston and evil sunz, then a mix of evil sunz and Fire Dragon, reducing the highlight, finally adding just a small amount of fire dragon for the final smallest highlights.

The rope belt was painted in a mid beige.

In person the skin looks better than in the pics tbh, but I am not sure about leaving as much dark for the contrast stage. I think it would suit zombies and more grimdark paint styles, but it may be just a touch too dark for something like this grot, and definitely wouldn’t work for things like elves.

Quite happy with the non-contrast areas, and the highlighting of the loincloth. It’s a pretty small area, but luckily had good definition. The final orange may be a little too bright perhaps, but I do want to try to keep pushing on this sort of highlighting.

19th June 2025

My main goal for this year’s spring clean was to build and paint my ancient ‘Giant Chaos Battering Ram’. It did take me a bit of time to get it out of ‘the vault’, but once I had it progressed quite well. I am pleased that I got this painted after all these years.

The rest of the clean was focussed on other ‘Oldhammer’ era minis.

I had fun painting these minis from my youth, trying to go a bit further with highlights etc than I usually would. Overall I am reasonably happy with the results.

I will keep this project open for any other smaller hobby work that aren’t enough for their own project. However, for now I sense a return to my Silver Bayonet project…..

19th June 2025

Probably the last mini for the Spring clean part of this project, here is a venerable Space Skeleton, from 1986 I think.
Started off stripping the old paint job and priming again. Decided that I wanted to emulate the orange suit of my old paintjob though.

The orange was painted with Fire Dragon Bright, washed Crimson. Then highlighted with FDB followed by a couple of stages of FDB and ivory.

The bones were initially blocked in with skeleton contrast, then highlighted with Ushabti Bone followed by bone and ivory then ivory.

I painted the wrench as slightly rusted old gunmetal.

Added some colour interest by painting the gas cylinders in green (going from Castellan Green up to Moot Green) and some of the pipes in blue.

Happy with how the orange came out.

17th June 2025

Just a quick one.

Here we find our plucky diminutive hero Thorimbo facing off against a porridge loving giant in the jungle terrain of G’Arden….

13th June 2025

I wasn’t sure about doing this mini. Firstly I thought it may be too new, but 1990 is still 35 years ago 😊

Secondly I was a little off put by all the slashed clothing, but clearly I did go for it…..

Started out by laying down the red and blue, to see if I was happy with the choice of split. Then I painted in the undercloth behind the slashes in the opposite colour, followed by repainting and tidying the overcloth.

Then I went through several highlights stages on the red and the blue – again, like on recent work, I also planned to push the highlight a stage or so further than I normally would.

I also added some further colour by painting the socks and the hat band in a yellow.

I washed my socks (😊) then highlighted them up in two stages of Ochre, and added more highlights to the red and blue clothing. Also started to work on the sword.

Then it was finishing off, painting the hilt, pouch, bag, cuffs, hat pistol, feather, teeth and giving the skin a further highlight. I left the eye patch in a plain full black – but may do something different with it in the future.

Tried a slightly different green for the base rim, an old foundation Knarloc green.