“The Dragon Slayer” – A 28mm Reaper Miniatures Diorama (The August Challenge)

by theimperfectmodeller, posted in Fantasy, Uncategorized

I wasn’t sure if I’d manage to submit a model for the August challenge or not but a recent change in the weather provided some unexpected modelling time and in the end I managed to complete this one with a few days to spare before going on holiday.  The model features two Reaper figures, a Crusader Champion and a Red Dragon.

As with my recent “Fantasy Island” diorama I thought I would post the finished model first and follow it up with a “Making Of” article sometime afterwards.  However, as the August challenge was a technical one I think I ought to at least make a few comments now.

First up is the base work.  I’ve never done a base featuring what I hope looks like a lava flow and trying to get it to look something like the many pictures I looked at was harder than I thought.  I’m not unhappy with the end result but I’ll leave it for others to decide if it looks the part or not.  It’s certainly colourful!

The dragon also presented a challenge.  I’m not sure trying to hold it while attempting to paint it counts but it was certainly hard to do!  A big part from a painting perspective was the amount of blending, highlighting and shading.  Getting the wings to look right wasn’t easy either and in the end it was all about brush strokes.

The Crusader was relatively straight forward although it did have a fair amount of relief work to be picked out and painted.  I also came up with what I thought was a nice paint mix to produce a light metallic blue to provide a contrast in the overall colour scheme.  I’m not sure the free hand “S” for Slayer counts!

Photos below.

TIM

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59 thoughts on ““The Dragon Slayer” – A 28mm Reaper Miniatures Diorama (The August Challenge)”

  2. I flipping LOVE this one man. Every element is so cool. That dragon is fantastic. I have a dragon that needs painting and this has inspired me. The lava looks amazing. I’ve seen other lava modelled and it often looks a bit flat. Your lava is alive with so much movement. The knight is great as well. A very nice sculpt and I like the blueish colouring to him. The rocks are cool as fornication too!!! Well done all round mate you should be very proud of this one.

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    1. Thanks IRO I did enjoy it and it’s a far cry from anything I’ve done before. The Reaper stuff helps, they have so many good models that this genre will keep me going for as long as I like. You should see the wish list I have for them!

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      2. They are on the list but I really want to get a figure called Dynamic Ray which is based on the Shaun of the Dead charachter and produced by Hasselfree Miniatures but it’s out of stock. So much for being hassle free!

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  3. Very nice work! The base totally looks the part in my opinion, I can feel the heat from here. I also really love this dragon, really expressive.
    I’ll wait for your “making of” to get tge recipe for you metallic blue. I tried to get it right a couple of times but always failed dramatically so I hope to steal a good recipe someday.

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      2. Time is on your side but if you get the chance to try some I’m sure you wont be disappointed. Don’t be a slave to your backlog though, we all have one, it goes with the hobby and the addictive element of creativity that we all possess.

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    2. Yea, I almost feel like there needs to be flame shooting out of the dragon’s mouth. Though how on earth one would do that convincingly on a model, beats me. But I guess TIM just makes the scene look so good, that I half expected it.

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      1. The idea of having a flame coming out of the dragons mouth and hitting the shield did occur to me but a) I wasn’t sure show to go about it and b) having got that far with the model I didn’t want to cock it up! Noy quite so perfect!

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      2. I think everyone would have a different image in their head of what looks right, making it really tough to pull off. I don’t know that I’ve seen anyone make something like that, that looked good. Else I would probably remember, right?!

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  9. Awesome stuff here – you’re certainly cutting loose with the creativity and freedom that fantasy models allow. The dragon looks fantastic, as does the lava – while the bright blued steel of the Knight’s armour offers a striking contrast. Really lovely work here!

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  10. Thought I had already applied to this one, but I guess I was phone browsing and wanted to wait till I could see bigger pics of it all on a monitor. So here I am, and it looks great!

    The miniatures are pretty awesome. The terrain is great, and I love that lava. I think you were smart to go your own route on the lava, looks much better than some I’ve seen. My favorite is a toss up between the lava effects and the dragon. Love the dragon. Great post, but really good paints too. The highlighting, tones, and shading. All very nicely done. Looks like you can paint just about anything!

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    1. Glad you like it. As for painting anything? I think that’s something we can all do. All of us, yourself very much included, have at the very least a minimum basic knowledge of colour and shading and highlighting so I think we can all paint anything. Ì think the difference owes more to doing things which are different. Images are out there so ideas are plentiful. The thing is some people are happy with a specific genre, nothing wrong with that at all, while others, myself for example, have no real elegance so I just do what catches my imagination. Your own work is very, very good and you too can do anything if you want to. Don’t be shy, I’m expecting great things!😉

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      1. Why does my bar keep getting raised?! 😉

        Given enough internet research time, yea. I could potentially paint anything. I would really struggle to paint some stuff straight from my head though, and I am not great about figuring out my own color combinations. I like to lean on GW’s paint schemes nowadays, which is odd, because in the past I seemingly painted it all just by picking out colors. I know that didn’t always work though, because there was some stuff that I tried to emulate, but my colors didn’t turn out right. As become more familiar with the paints, I’m sure I’ll experiment more and more.

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      2. Well your bar gets raised because you have the ability to push yourself to greater things. Ì accept that time might be a constraint but your ability isn’t. If you don’t posses one buy a colour wheel, it has the potential to change your world of colour. This might have to be a future musing subject!

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  11. I guess I’m going to have to get used to being amazed by you Dave , just when I felt you were peaking ,bang you hit us with another beauty .
    Like IRO says the lava is so well done really loos like it’s alive ! .

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    1. Thanks Pat. I can’t stress enough what a difference quality figures make to the end result. As for peaking, I’ve only just started! Seriously though it’s just about inspiration, for now I’m on a role but I know it won’t last. I’ll have a down period and then get inspired again, it’s the way it goes for most of us I expect.

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  12. Terrific work. The base really makes this complete.

    Do you keep all your dioramas? It seems that you have a very high output rate (especially considering the excellent quality) so I wondered if your house is full of these works of art.

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    1. Thank you. What to do with them is becoming a bit of a saw point with “she who must be obeyed”. I’m loving what I’m doing at the moment but the down side is storage for sure. As things stand they are dotted about here and there as I ran out of space both in volume and size of dioramas in the display cases that I had. With kids some way off of leaving I need a solution. Ì have a large garage which gives me an option to work with but it’s a shame in a way to just box them up. Ì did think about trying to sell some but I’m not sure if anyone would want them and of course packing them safely wouldn’t be easy either. Single figures are much easier to display, store or sell so I think I may have little choice but to head down that route. Stopping isn’t an option though!

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  15. Well… Doesnt my duel just pale insignificance next to this! It looks fantstic. Appart from the obviously excellent work on the minis, I’m really appreciating the ambient lava glow. I’ve tried this one on one of my possessed spacemarines (like one of Prometian Paintings minis) and while im happy with how it went, it could be a lot better. Awesome work.

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    1. Thank you, appreciate the kind comments. Not sure I’d class yours as insignificant though, very nice work indeed. What you have done is reminded me that I was going to a build post on this one which I haven’t done. Another thing added to the list!

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