Welcome Chosen Undead to another step by step painting guide, this time it's for the Gaping Dragon from Dark Souls The Board Game. This version is a little bit more in-depth than a table top ready paint job, as I used it as an excuse to try my hand at using colour shift paints as the Gaping Dragons scales have a fair amount of shimmer when you see it in the computer game.
This piece is a Legacy guide, as I did this one a long time ago before setting up Omega Geekery. Since a lot of paints come and go over time do not stress if you can't get an exact match. I will also try to include alternative paints for the scales if you don't want to use colour shift paints, which are best applied using an airbrush.
One extra note, leave the Gaping Dragon in pieces to make painting this beast a lot easier. You can try to remove him from his base, just be careful about it, as there's pegs connecting the feet and the base.
So before we start the paints I used are the following (please note that not all colours are needed and you can make custom mixes using whites and blacks with the colour you do have):
Black undercoat spray can (any brand that you are comfortable using will do)
A glossy varnish (any brand)
A Matt Varnish (any brand)
Colour Shift paint Cobalt Blue (Green Stuff World)
Colour shift paint Toxic Purple (Green Stuff World)
Mephiston Red (Citadel)
Evil Sunz Scarlet (Citadel)
Daemonette Hide (Citadel)
Warpfiend Grey (Citadel)
Screaming Skull (Citadel)
Pallid Wych Flesh (Citadel)
Skavenblight Dinge (Citadel)
Agrax Earthshade (Citadel)
Druchii Violet (Citadel)
Smokey Ink (Vallejo Game Color)
0. *Optional Extra* Before we start anything, feel free to customise your base however you like. For myself I used Green Stuff and one of Green Stuff Worlds Textured Rolling Pins to make a similar setting to the sewers where you encounter the Gaping dragon, making sure to leave some blank patches here and there to allow "pooled water," that has drained and settled in.
1. Ok with the customising done use a black under coat and then apply a gloss varnish to either the entire mode or to just the scaly parts of the model, the reason why we do this is that Colour Shift metals have to be painted over a black glossy base to be able to achieve the colour shift effect.
2. Next up we are going to paint the flesh of the Maw in Mephiston Red.
3. I Recommended using an airbrush for this part, this paint is not very dominate and without an airbrush it takes a lot of coats (and time) to get the desired effect. Give the model a good coating of Toxic Purple, making sure to aim for the scales and avoiding areas that don't have scales like the skin, teeth, base, etc. Depending on the heating in your painting area, please make sure that the paint has dried before moving onto the next step.
*Optional alternative paint*
Instead of using colour shift you can paint the scales in a similar colours like Naggoroth Night, I will cover the rest of the steps for highlights in step 18.
4. Next up paint the skin areas not covered in scales, like the back of the tail, undersides of appendages in Demonette hide. You can dry brush this on if you are short on time, as the model is fairly detailed and does well with drybrushing. Alternatively for a better result, just paint it on normally while taking care of avoiding the gaps or recesses like the palms and joints, leaving a little bit of the undercoat to make a border between the scales and the flesh.
5. Either apply a drybrush of Evil Suns Scarlet to the maw, or alternatively carefully paint the raised areas with 1 or 2 thinned down coats. Once dry, Paint the belly and all bone areas in Screaming Skull (teeth, claws and wing talons).
To save on time leave a bit of the root of the tooth/claws black, for the belly I would recommend that this is applied in multiple thin coats so as not to drown out any of the models details.
6. The next few steps is to create a gradient of black-brown-white on the Teeth and claws. Apply Agrax Earthshade to the maw and teeth and give it a good amount of time to dry.
7. Once dry, apply a little bit of a highlight to the raised areas of the Maw using Evil Suns Scarlet followed by a lighter red or a 1:2 mix of a white to Evil Suns Scarlet. If you make a mistake and get red over a tooth, repaint it in Screaming Skull followed by Agrax Earthshade, allowing everything to dry before the next step.
8. Apply a few thin layers of Smokey Ink to the teeth/claws, starting from near the black base of the teeth/claw and painting up to roughly a third of the way up making sure to avoid the red areas of the maw.
9. You don't have to wait for the paint to dry, as we want to blend it with a thinned out layer of Agrax Earthshade. Starting from the 2/3rds of the way up of the teeth/claw and painting down towards the Smokey Ink section allowing for a bit of a bleed over into it as well.
10. Once again while the Agrax Earthshade is drying, we are going to apply a fresh thinned out coat of Screaming skull starting from the 2/3rds mark and painting upwards to the tip of the tooth/claw, let it dry and paint another thin layer of Screaming Skull from the tip of the tooth/claw and painting slightly further down.
11. With the mouth done, lets move onto the belly, start off with a very, very light drybrush of Warpfiend Grey, apply a Shade of Drakenhof Nightshade to all of the Belly and once dry proceed to the next step.
12. We are now going to drybrush or paint highlights to the utmost raised areas of the underbelly in Warpfiend Grey. We can also take this opportunity to do the same to drybrush or paint highlights to the raised areas of the skin/ non-scale areas of the model using Warpfiend Grey.
15. As I wasn't happy with the shading on the armpits for the arms, I carefully applied Druchii Violet to parts I wanted to have a darker shade on followed by reapply Warpfiend Grey highlights.
Once dry we can use a 1:2 mix of Pallid Wych Flesh and Warpfiend Grey. I recommend applying this as the smallest of highlights.
16. At this point I would recommend painting the base taking care not to paint over the feet as we are doing the final steps for the scales.
17. Fix up any of the scales you might have accidentally splattered paint on. So a Black, followed by a satin varnish and then followed by Toxic Purple (may have to be painted on using a brush.
18. Once everything is dry we are doing a final highlight of Cobalt Blue, this will require several thin coats as we are only using a brush to do this. We want to think where the light is shining on the part of the model and adding the blue to where the light would bounce off it.
Just a heads up, this step is a little tedious so bear with it, as it's worth the end result. you want to get the body scales, the top side of the tail, the back of the wings, the digits of the wings, and the scales on the arms. Once again several thin coats of Cobalt Blue is needed to get the best result as it's a very passive colour, but after several layers the colour really starts to show itself.
*Optional alternative paints*
Either carefully paint a reduced layer or drybrush the scaled areas in Genestealer Purple, followed by a wash of Drakenhorf Nightshade. Once the shade has dried do a follow up light drybrushing or reduced layer of Genestealer Purple.
*Additional optional not in pictures and I will do myself*
Add a slight highlight/drybrush to back of joints (like inside of elbows and back of knees) and inside skin of the wings of model in Pink Horror (citadel).
19. Finish off any basing stuff you want to add the base, like grass tufts, adding liquid effects, etc.
20. Once everything is dry just add a gloss varnish to the scales and mouth areas, followed by a matt varnish on the parts of the model that don't need to be shiny like the skin areas and claw.
Thanks for reading and if you liked this guide or have any suggestions for improvements, feel free to leave a comment.
Martin
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