Everest Ascended

A little over six years ago I received my rewards for the Reaper Bones III Kickstarter, including the enormous Ma’al Drakar the Dragon Tyrant. That Kickstarter had a bumper crop of great models, including several Gargantuan and Colossal figures that honestly broke me. I worked away on the smaller miniatures, but Ma’al Drakar and the rest of the titanic models languished in my basement as my painting backlog grew and grew.

Finally, last March I got myself an airbrush in one last, desperate attempt to break through the logjam. And the airbrush really did the trick—I’m still very much a beginner, but for priming and putting down base coats on large miniatures it really can’t be beat and has allowed me to put a massive dent in that logjam. (Just in time for the haul from the Reaper Bones 6 Kickstarter to land!)

Armed with the airbrush I was able to complete Ma’al Drakar over the course of several weeks. Because the work was intermittent I couldn’t say how many total hours that represented, but it was a significant time investment. This was easily the largest model I’ve ever worked on, though it probably wasn’t the most technically challenging—that honor probably goes to Shub-Niggurath and all those infernal goat eyes.

Obviously, I wanted to paint this model up as Tiamat so I looked at lots of Dungeons & Dragons reference art, particularly from Tyranny of Dragons. I assembled the model using poster-tack for priming and base coating, then disassembled everything to more easily work on individual components. The wings and the heads were probably the only components that benefited from this approach: everything else probably could have been permanently assembled right from jump.

I primed the model using Army Painter Uniform Gray from a spray can and then applied a zenithal undercoat. Knowing what I know now, I probably would have skipped the primer and just moved right to the undercoat, but old habits die hard.

At this point I assembled the main body, limbs, tail, and neck sections with superglue. In general, the pieces fit well with relatively few gaps and although the model was made with the original Bones material, I didn't notice a lot of sagging or drooping and I think this is because Julie Guthrie did an excellent job sculpting a balanced, well-supported piece. I used some Vallejo plastic putty for the gaps but was not very happy with the results.

I then put down a base coat of Reaper MSP Red Brick on the body, limbs, wings, and tail, followed by washes of Army Painter Strong Tone. The Red Brick had an alarmingly purplish look when first laid down, but this dissipated after I added highlights of Deep Red and then further highlights of Blood Red. I then blocked out the claws and tail spines with brown, highlighted with yellows and gray.

I then worked on the scales of the necks and heads with a base coat, wash, and then highlights. The washes really helped knock down the brightness of the chromatic colors and helped tie the different pieces together.

I did the eyes and teeth and then attached all the remaining pieces with superglue. The cleanup steps probably took as much time as all the rest of the painting, as there were lots of little details and adjustments to add.

All-in-all, it’s a pretty impressive piece to see in person if only because of the size, but Julie Guthrie really outdid herself with this design. I only wish I had used a much lighter tone on the wings: a leathery, tannish base would have made a better contrast and would have allowed the addition of some veining.

I am fairly pleased with the number of models I was able to complete in 2024. I mostly cleared everything in the priority pile, and even allowed myself to pick up a few new additions for the queue.