Enter the Dragon(s)

Just a quick progress report on the men of the East. I have completed the first batch of Dragon Guard. I’d have to say I’m very pleased with how they have turned out.

I decided to only give sashimonos to roughly half of the troops - partly because I was feeling too lazy to make 20 of them, and partly because I couldn't decide whether they looked better with or without the sashimono.

Since these are the elite Dragon Guard, I wanted to stay away from the typical easterling colors so they will stand out from the rest of my easterling force. I opted for a greenish scheme to reflect their dragon-esqueness. The slight green hue to their armor doesn't show particularly well in the pictures, but it is a nice subtle effect to make them look more like actual dragon scales.



Paintjob:basecoat: black
Boots: (p3) battlefield brown
Armor: my own special blend of (P3) Pig Iron and (GW) Chaos black
cloth: (GW) hawk turquoise
sword handles & center of shields: (GW) tin bitz
blades: (P3) pig iron
Gems: (GW) liche purple layered over the bottom 2/3s of (GW) chaos black with a dot of skull white for the highlight

All armor and cloth received a light wash in (P3) turquoise ink, then I edge highlighted with (P3) Pig Iron - including picking out random individual scales before following with a light wash in (GW) badab black to blend it all together. Finally I went back with a highlight of (GW) hawk turquoise for the cloth. I stayed away from my typical devlan mud washes, and tried to be careful to brush off any excess wash to prevent buildup to give them a clean, polished look. After all, these are the most superior troops of the most elite force evil has to offer!

It was by far the most complicated process I've used for painting rank and file troops, but I think it really payed off!




Major lesson learned: thinning your paints really does make a difference! It makes for a much smoother finish. I'm very much a "paint right from the pot" guy, no fancy pallets or anything for me - and what do you do with all that pain that is left drying out on the pallet? such a waste!. But this is one change I will definitively maintain. I don't do anything fancy with mine, I just added a little water straight into the pot and gave it a good shake to mix it up. It doesn't take much, you don't want to thin the paint too much (I think I over-thinned my pig iron - all the metallic flakes keeps trying to settle to the bottom now, so I have to stir it up with a toothpick before using it). Just a few drops seemed to go a long way towards improving the finished product.

Next step: stripping the old cruddy paintjob off the dozen pre-owned easterlings so I can paint them up right!