Advice on painting a dragon mini.

I've been painting a year or so now and feel like my skills are to a point where I want to take a stab something more interesting. I bought this Reaper fig:


(#2457: Amber Dragon)

And now I'm trying to decide how to go about making it look great. I was wondering if anyone had any general advice as well as on things like shading the wings and scales, etc.

Thanks.

Good luck. I have not yet tried a dragon, but have started a demon nealy the same size. Be prepaired for a long term project and take breaks with other figs. If you want a truely magnificant looking dragon, you will have to highlight each individual scale.

What color scheme are you planning on using? I could give some advice on highlighting. If you want to take shortcuts, do it on the main body, but put all of your effort in the face and wings.

Color scheme is a good question. The only dragon the PCs IMC have encountered so far is a black, but I hate to limit it that way. I'm thinking green or red for a nice "generic" monster dragon.

I have painted a red and a blue (Hate my Blue dragon) and a Black dragon.

To try to color his scales individually would take a lifetime. It will feel that way anyway.

For dragons I have found the best way to get it to look right is to base coat him the color you want hom to be then Light black ink til you can see the ink betwwen the scales. This should take about two hours or so to get right with drying and all.

Then Dry brush the base coat lightly on the centers of the scales trying not to get it into the between spots.
Then three ink washes in the color you wantr be it red, blue, or green. This will deepen the color correctly and should take about another two hours if you take your time.

Then to finish drybrush your highlights til it looks as you desire it to look. Add detail at this stage like eyes and maybe a light meatlic sheen to some scales to make it glisten.
I can post pics of my black dragon if you want or my blue where i got tired and stopped before the final ink wash.
Let me know,
Darius

Bring on the pics.

There's really not much difference between painting small and big minis- mainly they just take longer and you can add more detail. My one bit of advice would be to paint sectionally- completley paint the wings, then the main body, then the tail, etc. this helps break up the monotony (for me anyways).

The best trick for me is to search for other peoples ideas and see what works and what doesnt. I'll spend a certain amount of time studying a 5.6 mini to figure out what went wrong, as well as studying the 8.0+'s to find out what went right. That said, here are some recent 8.0+ dragons:

Reaper Green Dragon
Reaper Black Dragon
GW Zombie Dragon
Reaper Dragon - OrangeRed (!)

Interestingly, it seems pretty difficult to get an 8+ rating on a dragon mini.

After looking at some of the figs on coolmini, I'm leaning towards a green dragon, possibly with some yellow tinting. This fig isn't all that huge, so I may save painting a red for when I get a larger figure. My minis are gaming aids, not just for display. I'd hate to put a lot of effort into painting one that never stared down the players

Slightly OT: Ye gawds! I wish I could get a hold of WOTCs black dragon boxed mini. That thing was GORGEOUS.
EDIT:
PS- Oh yeah, and Darius? Definitely post the pics!

Dragon # 1

Dragon #1 Back ....hopefully more clear