Draco from the film Dragonheart
A large Resin bust from United Empire Miniatures
Painted in 2000
United empire Miniatures tested the murky waters of fantasy around the late 90’s with a few wild and whacky mini busts, and then one or two really good full sized pieces, Batman being one of them and this Dragonheart, being a good likeness to the Dragon voiced by Sir Sean Connery in the film of the same name.
It’s a big lump of resin, and although it’s noted as 1/10th scale, the dragon in the film is large, and this bust is comparable in size with a ¼ scale figure bust.
There are several pieces to the kit, the horns around the dragon’s head being separate pieces along with the wrist / hand casting that has a very positive location lug that slots underneath the chin.
As with a lot of fantasy pieces, painting choices are up to the individual, although I did choose to paint this one in similar colours to the Dragon from the film.
Initially that wasn’t seen by me as a problem, but then, I’m an optimist when it comes to painting.
The kit itself is very cleanly cast, and although here is a little to do regarding mould part lines, it’s not going to cost you much in time, and a little treatment with a sharp craft knife and a file and you’ll have prep done and the parts ready to paint.
Fit of parts is very positive, the horns will only fit in their particular locations, no two being the same, so you can’t get them mixed up. I drilled into the base of each of the horns to add a wire handle to allow me to paint them, and also added similar, but larger gauge wire to the main casting and the hand /wrist, although these were then fastened into blocks of wood to be used as painting handles.
So, painting.
Well, it gave me the excuse to watch the film again, or enough of it to get a good idea of the colours I’d need to use...... Um, basically brown. It’s not a very colourful or flamboyant scheme, I’ve got to admit.
There’s a bit of variation on the chest scales, but yes, basically brown.
I decided to airbrush the main areas of the main casting and the hand / wrist, using Tamiya paints for this, a mix of Red Brown and Desert Sand, starting off with just the Red Brown, getting this into all the deeper recesses where possible, and then mixing in the Desert Sand gradually to build up the mid tones and highlights.
I do find airbrushing relatively easy, once you figure out the mix proportion of thinner to paint ( I use Isopropyl Alcohol with any of the Tamiya paints – but not their Lacquers.
. The Lacquers require Tamiya’s own thinner ) and adjust the pressure being pumped out of the compressor, then it’s really just a case of practice. For a compressor I use a good fish tank air pump, it produces about 5psi, which is enough for the minimal amount of use I make of the airbrush, and having had the chance to look inside the Revell compressor, it’s exactly the same setup – both are rubber diaphragm pumps.
At this point I noticed that in the film, the dragon has a slight sparkle to its scales. The paint’s Id used were dull and matt in finish, but I did have some paint that would work well – Alclad II prismatic Jade. It’s a very thin mixture – in fact it settles out to be mainly clear liquid, but when shaken up to mix the metallic flacks properly, it has lots of miniscule particles that reflect a green sheen.
Sprayed onto a surface colour of your choice, it causes a shimmer effect when the model is turned, so that some areas sparkle with a greenish hue, whilst others remain the base colour.
So, i gave the whole model a fine misting of this colour, directing the airbrush to disperse the Alclad II from above the model -no point it going into the crevices, as they would not reflect light.
I left the painted parts overnight to dry, but then could start adding the deeper shadows.
To create these I added thin washes of Burnt Umber oils, dampening an area with the thinned paint, then adding neat Burnt Umber with a pointed brush to areas that would be deepest shadow. I used a larger soft brush to blend and fade the darker colour into the mid-tones, adding more of the unthinned brown if the area needed to be darker still.
As I’d airbrushed the brown colour to a point where it was quite light, there were very few areas that needed further highlights. I did add just some sand coloured acrylic to the tips of the smaller scales around the eyes and top of the head, but that was about it.
To be honest, at this point it looked very bland. Even with the shadows and highlights forced quite a lot more than I usually do, it was still basically shades of brown ( I had in my mind a full rendition from Billy Connolly repeatedly saying “ Beige, it’s very, very beige !” ).
There was more to do, like adding black, so the muzzle, lips and jaw were painted with black acrylic, along with some of the scales on the head.
I’d seen an article about a Godzilla model, where once the scales were painted, instead of adding a dark wash to pick out the scales, a light cream colour was added and then wiped off.
I thought “Ill give that a go then” and added Buff Titanium oils to the areas I’d painted black. I didn’t dilute the paint much, just a touch of White Spirit to make it into the consistency of double cream and to allow me to work it into the details. Then using an old T Shirt, i gently dabbed and wiped the cream colour off. Granted a little of the black came away too, but this tended to be from the higher points of the scales and was easy to touch back in afterwards.
I think it worked too, the scales stand out nicely, and looking at darker coloured reptiles, there are an amount that appear to look like this.
Now the horns. I painted these with a couple of coats of off-white acrylic,, building up a solid colour. Again I allowed this undercoat to dry overnight before adding the oil paints, using the Buff Titanium as a starting point to coat the whole of each horn, then using a fine brush to add areas of Yellow Ochre, Burnt Umber, and finally Black, allowing streaks to appear in the colours as they ran into each other.
The paint was pretty thick, so I had to allow about a week for it to dry fully, but this gave me time to think about a base. Whilst I was at it, I used the same method to paint in the nails on the paw.
It took me ages to think of a way to display this piece, just using a polished block of wood for a plinth didn’t look right to my eye, and even one with part of the front still rough with the bark on it didn’t look pleasing.
I’d had this very textured piece of old chalk in my store of “rocks for on bases” thinking that some treatment with a hammer would break it up into more useable pieces, as it was, it seemed a lot better fit for this piece left as a whole, and using a masonry bit in a DIY drill, I put a hole through it from top to bottom to allow a wooden dowel to be passed through.
The wood dowel would then locate into a hole in a wood plinth, and also into the dragon, holding all three components together securely.
The problem was that the chalk was..... well..... white. It looked a lot like a lump of natural chalk, and therefore distracted from the dragon. So, I painted it with a lot of Burnt Umber oils, wiping off the excess paint with a soft cloth and then adding a mix of Titanium White and Yellow Ochre, almost drybrushing this onto the dark brown paint, wiping the brush regularly before recharging it with the lighter coloured mix.
Once all the painted parts had dried, I fastened them together using superglue, and then located the model onto the display base.
Billy Connolly would probably say it looks very Beige still ( come on Billy, Dark Beige please ), but it’s pretty much how the dragon looks in the film, and having a bright coloured plinth or display would detract from the model. So there’s not a lot of latitude to be had.
I do like this dragon though, it’s a bit cuddly I grant you, but the likeness to the film character is spot on, and being a grown kid myself, I did enjoy watching the film with my son when he was quite young.
So, the sculpting is good, the moulding and fit of parts is good; what’s not to like ?
Cetero oporteat sensibus his eu. Has ex vidisse perpetua, vis partem mollis mandamus at. Ea nam legere mentitum prodesset, no quo lucilius liberavisse, te oratio debitis omittantur eos. Sea ea iusto detracto, ut scripta sapientem suavitate cum, nam deleniti perpetua intellegam an. Ei per officiis detraxit probatus, vim at graecis tincidunt.
Cetero oporteat sensibus his eu. Has ex vidisse perpetua, vis partem mollis mandamus at. Ea nam legere mentitum prodesset, no quo lucilius liberavisse, te oratio debitis omittantur eos. Sea ea iusto detracto, ut scripta sapientem suavitate cum, nam deleniti perpetua intellegam an. Ei per officiis detraxit probatus, vim at graecis tincidunt.
Cetero oporteat sensibus his eu. Has ex vidisse perpetua, vis partem mollis mandamus at. Ea nam legere mentitum prodesset, no quo lucilius liberavisse, te oratio debitis omittantur eos. Sea ea iusto detracto, ut scripta sapientem suavitate cum, nam deleniti perpetua intellegam an. Ei per officiis detraxit probatus, vim at graecis tincidunt.
Cetero oporteat sensibus his eu. Has ex vidisse perpetua, vis partem mollis mandamus at. Ea nam legere mentitum prodesset, no quo lucilius liberavisse, te oratio debitis omittantur eos. Sea ea iusto detracto, ut scripta sapientem suavitate cum, nam deleniti perpetua intellegam an. Ei per officiis detraxit probatus, vim at graecis tincidunt.
Cetero oporteat sensibus his eu. Has ex vidisse perpetua, vis partem mollis mandamus at. Ea nam legere mentitum prodesset, no quo lucilius liberavisse, te oratio debitis omittantur eos. Sea ea iusto detracto, ut scripta sapientem suavitate cum, nam deleniti perpetua intellegam an. Ei per officiis detraxit probatus, vim at graecis tincidunt.
Cetero oporteat sensibus his eu. Has ex vidisse perpetua, vis partem mollis mandamus at. Ea nam legere mentitum prodesset, no quo lucilius liberavisse, te oratio debitis omittantur eos. Sea ea iusto detracto, ut scripta sapientem suavitate cum, nam deleniti perpetua intellegam an. Ei per officiis detraxit probatus, vim at graecis tincidunt.
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