Monster March 2021 - Dark Elf Dragon Week 1

I'm back for Monster March again, and this year I've pledged my Dark Elf Dragon and possibly an old metal Stegadon depending on how progress on the dragon goes! At the moment this is the state of the dragon after 1 week of work. The Stegadon has been stripped, but is a pile of metal chunklets that need a lot of TLC, so we'll see if I can manage that one.

If you're not familiar with Monster March, head on over to Path of an Outcast to read more: Path of an Outcast: Monster March - Part 1 (swordmasterofhoeth.blogspot.com). It's a community event where the goal is to pledge and paint a monster, large model or pretty much anything in the month of March! About 2 years ago, I successfully painted my Shadowsword for the event. 

Anyway, here's the dragon so far. I started the month with it built and I've spent this week completing the airbrushing on it. I think it took about an hour and a half to get it into this condition.

I've been reading the old 5th Edition Armies book, and was kind of inspired by the background in there of Dark Elves being a seafaring race, so rather than going for black on the dragon I wanted to paint it a bit like it could be a sea dragon! Anyway, I've gone for a sort of blue hide with an orange/red trail down its back. I added a few indications of stripes, but I'm not that happy with them, so that whole area is something I'll be sorting out with the regular brush now. I did the skin on the stomach and wings in a sort of almost flesh tone that's not far off Rakarth Flesh in colour.

I normally name some of the paints that I've used, but in this case, I'm really not sure as it was a lot of layers. I definitely remember base-coating the body in Prussian blue, but I can't remember what I highlighted it with, possibly Vallejo Emerald and white mixed with the blue. The skin was definitely Vallejo Dark Flesh with white mixed and added for highlights.

Anyway, that's my week 1 progress on this thing. It's fun to paint a dragon again after so many years. If I want to finish the Stegadon, I probably need to finish this dragon up pretty quick (I am not looking forward to building the Stegadon - it's the metal howdah with 6 metal crew - I'm going to have to pin them all so I can paint them separately and stand any chance of getting it looking good!)

Speaking of pinning, the dragon has a rider that I have mounted on a block to paint separately.