DARK ELF DRAGON

By Adam Gray

MODELLING

I decided to model a Dragon for my Dark Elf army, representing a corrupted drake stolen away from the accursed High Elves by my Shades. First of all, I wanted to try and replace the opulent, finely made decorations of the High Elves with some more cruel and spiky Druchii bits. After some rooting around, I found some spears. And some more spears. And, just for good measure, a few spare spears! My thinking was that, perched high atop such a large flying beastie, my Highborn would need plenty of sharp things to throw about!

After calming down a little, I decided that I'd got enough spears and it was time to think about the Highborn himself. The torso from a Reaper Bolt Thrower crewman fitted the bill, topped with the plumed High Elf head from the Dragon sprue. With arms from a Dark Elf Beastmaster (carrying spears, naturally), and the robed legs and cloak from the Dragon kit, my Highborn was complete.

For the Dragon itself, I decided to use the unarmoured head option, only having to fill in a few gaps with Green Stuff, and the monster was complete.

PAINTING

The Dragon was basecoated with a mix of Liche Purple and Chaos Black, then slowly highlighted up to Liche Purple, with Fortress Grey used for the top highlights. The metal was painted Boltgun Metal with a Dark Green Ink wash, and then layered with Boltgun Metal, Chainmail and Mithril Silver.

The horns and teeth were basecoated with Adeptus Battlegrey, with Codex, Fortress, and Astronomican Grey applied in increasingly thinner lines on top to add highlights. The tongue was the most fun to paint, as I like slimy things! I first used Fenris Grey, then blended Tallarn Flesh towards the tip. It was finished with a nice, slimy Gloss Varnish.

The Highborn's robes were painted Dark Angels Green, with a mix of Black ink, Dark Green ink and Matt Varnish applied over the top. This is a very quick and effective way to paint robes, and saved me a lot of time. Speartips were finished with a bone effect, using Bleached Bone mixed with Dheneb Stone.

Finally, the rocks were painted Dark Flesh, and then overbrushed with Codex and Fortress Grey.

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