I'd always wanted to get a
Great Spined Dragon but felt it would never happen. I'm way too tight-fisted to buy a 40-year-old spined Dragon that every collector will pay top dollar for. I'd have to sell a kidney or something to fund it, never gonna happen.... or so I thought.
Then, luck smiled on me and I started a conversation with David Wood of the Little soldier company. David and I kept chatting at successive BOYL's, and he ended up bringing me a spined dragon in return for some website marketing expertise. Which is handy, because I don't have any other expertise to offer. I got a spined Dragon Miniature. Now, how to paint it.
I cleaned it up and sanded it and cut all the mould lines off, washed it and sanded it and BROKE it in about 4 places. BUGGGGGGER! Primed it twice, sealed it, built it and then started to get some paint on it. I quickly stopped though because I had to temper my enthusiasm with the practical reality of making some kind of a base for it.
My first thought was some rough, scorched ground, which I started and then stopped because I'd had an epiphany. Actually, it wasn't a REAL epiphany, it was a bloody stupid idea that "normal Phil" would have scoffed at and then walked the other way....but this was stressed out, Phil. He's not "cheeky chappy, Oldmanpaints Phil", he's more of a manic depressive "let's drink whiskey and paint till 4am", kinda idiot. It was that Phil.
Let's 5x the MDF base
So, what to do...? Well, first things first, grab that bit of MDF I cut the original base from and let's use it...the whole damn thing. You can see I'd slapped some base coat on the dragon, but that was about it. The small base just wasn’t inspiring me.
I cut a big ass rectangle out and positioned the original base onto it...I'd already pinned the dragon to it and didn't have the stomach to unpick the pinning for fear of breakages....so whatever I did, I'd have to build up the base. I'd better make a plan...at least the "back of a fag packet" plan.
So, I thought "Let's do a castle, a wrecked castle, just one room, some castle walls with the dragon in the middle".
Then I thought, let's add.....
- A heap of treasure.
- Some marauding adventurers trying to steal the treasure.
- A spiral staircase (WHY, no idea, let's just make it more complicated for no good reason)
- A drain/sewer with a mutant toad in it. (Why, because I have one that Ketiltrout sent to me, may as well use it.
- A jail cell, with a prisoner or dead prisoner, maybe some straw..chain him to the wall, give him a widescreen TV (joke)
- An Oubliette (forget them dungeon), with a skeleton and reeds
- A mini staircase down to the dragon chamber.
- Some fallen adventurers whose ropes snapped trying to climb in to grab the treasure
- A gallows and gibbet.
- Some crows and maybe a cheeky magpie
- A wooden staircase to a platform with a Garderobe. (ancient toilet -WHY?)
- Some Ash/Poo piles of unfortunate adventurers.
- Some dead knights and people, and a skeletons
- Lots of treasure
- Some heraldic shields or pennants with all the houses from my family tree
- Some funny(ish) nods to Blanche and Ansell
