Draconis: Spring Clean 2025 and Onward

14th April 2025

This is the item that I didn’t want to mention in my project summary.

However, as can be seen from below, and my project image update, I have found it.

I have had this ‘mini’ for over 30 years now, having purchased it in ‘Truro Micro’ (which was where the GW Truro store is now. I assembled the main frame and sprayed it black, but I think I ran out of spray then put it away again.

This is an expensive model now, but I feel that this year’s spring clean needs me to get through some old school minis from my youth – and this is one of the oldest I have.

So, out came the black and white sprays for a zentihal prime.

The paint is down, I’m committed to it now……

10th April 2025

This fine chap had the same start out as the Pit Fighter Ogre, in terms of prime and skin work.

I decided to paint his loin cloth in a halved red/blue, reminiscent of the colours for Altdorf. Part way through I also decided that I would paint green stripes on the trousers.

The colour wasn’t popping enough, so I thought I would highlight up an extra stage.

I am trying to highlight things more than I usually do, to make them stand out more – I tend to be a touch conservative on the highlighting, but some of my recent Silver Bayonet work has given me the push to take them higher.

So the red and blue both had four colour stages, and the green stripes had three colour stages.

For the boots I went for a black and white pattern to represent Frisian cow hide. I think this came out pretty well. However, it did give me a little issue with the toe claws that are poking out of the fabric. I tried both black and white, but neither worked due to the boot colours. In the end I went with a yellow brown at the base, highlighting up to ivory. That colour separation at the boot helped, but I’m still not sure on it.

The hair was painted with a wash of gryph hound orange, followed by a thinned agrax. Picked out various other details, (spent a good amount of time on the horn) and he was finished.

6th April 2025

First up is some old school (or Oldhammer as the cool kids say nowadays) C23 Ogres.

I have quite a few of these scattered around, but for now I will just be selecting two to work on. The two I chose are (based on my old Citadel catalogue) ‘Pit Fighter’ and ‘Berserker’ (first and second on the top row).

First up they had a bath in brown Dettol, followed by a good scrubbing and a repeat bath, until they came up pretty clean. Then they were based on 40mm round (as I plan to use them for some skirmish games) and given a prme. Ended up priming Army Painter bone over black, as I had no Wraithbone left. I was going to try Barbarian Flesh over black, but as I went to spray it was just spitting out… ☹ (luckily I always start off the minis)

For the flesh I started with a wash over of Darkoath flesh. This was followed by two shades of my Foundry Flesh paints, first lightly drybrushed on, then highlighted. This was then followed by selective washing with Carroburg Crimson and Magos Purple into various recesses. Then additional highlighting with light flesh and a few more placements of the red/purple washes.

At this point I focussed on just the Pit Fighter Ogre. For the armour areas I used Vallejo gunmetal, washed with nuln oil, then highlighted up. On the metal leg (Yeah, you could say he is a bit more like a Pirate really) I applied some brown and orange washes, and a touch of green, just to change the tone up, followed by bright edge highlights.

For the cloth I decided to paint it in red, like I had it before. This was Flesh tearers Red, followed by Mephiston then Evil Sunz as the final highlight.

Quite happy with how this came out on the rear.

The leather parts were painted using my old Foundry leather triad, with Agrax washes to blend it in.