Draconians For a Friend
I thought it would be best to take a break from the Napoleonic theme on the blog and show you something completely different. Frostgrave has come out, a few of us in the club are excited about it, and so when my chum Pascal shoved a box of Ral Partha Draconians into my hands I had an inkling of a feeling they’d be used for that game. I’m slowly gearing up for Frostgrave myself, although I still need to paint my warband. More on that later. Let’s take a look at today’s models.
Models by Ral Partha. A first for the blog.
These are pewter models which are older than my girlfriend is, a bit strange to tackle these! They came in a handy boxed set with foam slots included – I wish this style of packaging was still adhered to. Still, it didn’t quite suffice to stand the rigours of time, as one bow-armed model had the upper half of his weapon snapped off.
The model on the left is missing the top part of his bow. Not something I can fix…
They were all undercoated black then drybrushed in silver to tackle the armour and get the detail out. I then basecoated in a few colours which roughly correspond to those on the box (Pascal preferred this) and washed these in several tones. A drybrush on the skin served to lighten everything back up. Layering would have been impossible on their skin – too rough and scaly, so drybrushing was perfect for it.
I have no idea which model is which – never been into D&D!
The rest of the colours were blocked in, washed, highlighted etc. as per usual. One colour I did try out was the new retributor armour from GW, which one the one hand is stupidly expensive, but on the other it does offer great coverage for a gold paint. It will certainly have its uses.
I had a bit of trouble offsetting the skin from the silver on these heavies.
On the whole, I had a lot of fun painting these guys. Despite the age of the sculpts the detail on them is astounding – look at the filigree on some of the armour. Still, it’s far from my usual interests so it’s not a line of models I’ll be returning to anytime soon, I suppose.
The head honcho, a wizardy type.
Finally, of course, there’s the wizard. I lavished a bit more time on this guy than on the rest. The wizard is the one indisposable character in Frostgrave and so it’s only fair that he’s the most impressive looking, right?
That’s it for now, though. They’ll be handed over to Pascal two days hence and now it’s back to historicals for a bit. Goodbye!
They look extremely nice!
Thanks!
Nice work, I especially like the wizard.
Thank you!
The wizard is my favourite, too. Excellent choice of colours and good contrasts.