Saturday, July 11, 2026

Green Dragon of Melnibone - Painting Part 6

Green Dragon of Melnibone - Part 6 
Painting Green Wings (Upper)


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The original blue wings certainly made for a striking contrast with the green body scales but they just didn’t tie together for me. So, it’s onto the last major painting step: green wings. I want the wings to have a base tone that matches the green scales but to then make the wings look a little more leathery. 

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Here are the steps I followed to paint the tops of the wings.



Above: The original blue wings

Mid grey base coat

Above: I started with a mid grey base coat - Matisse Mars Grey

A layer of dark green

Above: a coat of dark green - GW Caliban Green 


Nuln Oil wash

Above: a wash with Nuln Oil to to darken everything. I particularly want to make a shadow in the borders between the wings and the ‘fingers’. Hopefully this step will cover up any little mistakes in these areas.



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In the following steps I’m aiming to match the green of the wings with the green of the body scales.


Mid-dark green glaze
Above: Mid-dark green glaze - Matisse Background: Forest Green


Mid green glaze

Above: Mid green glaze - Matisse Alpine Green 


Light green glaze
Above: Light green glaze - Matisse Permanent Green Light


60 / 40 Light / Mid green glaze
Above: I’m happy that the wings now match the body in tone, so now I want to add highlights to the distinctive raised areas of the wings. I used a 60/40 Matisse Permanent Green Light / Matisse Alpine Green.


The photographs in this next section show the progression of the highlights of the raised areas of the wings. For each of these stages I started with the same 60/40 Matisse Permanent Green Light / Matisse Alpine Green mix from last photo to which I added progressively more GW Ogryn Camo. 


Light / Mid green / Ogryn Camo highlight

A tad more Ogryn Camo

Ogryn Camo
Above: In fact in this photo, I used almost pure Ogryn Camo. To be honest, this was a step too far, the effect looks too patchy. So...

Tamiya Clear green

Above: Time to blend the highlighted areas back a bit. Here I used a wash of Tamiya X-25 Clear Green. 


Sap Green Ink Wash

Above: I thought the wings needed to be a bit darker, so I washed them with a 25% solution of Liquitex Sap Green Permanent ink. You can also see on the centre section of the right wing where I trialed the next step.



In the Elric stories, the dragons have leathery wings. So, in a nod in that direction I want the wings to have an accent of golden leather.

The following steps show how I achieved the look I was after. 


The aim is to progressively lighten the central part of each wing section while increasingly changing the tone to a golden leather. The colour mixes are (mainly) in the captions.


10/90 Matisse Permanent Green Light / Vallejo Khaki

20/80 Vallejo Khaki / GW Ogryn Camo

50/50 GW Ogryn Camo / Vallejo Buff

50/50 GW Ogryn Camo / Vallejo Buff

20/80 GW Ogryn Camo / Vallejo Buff

Vallejo Buff

I'm still making the central parts of the wing sections lighter, I suspect with diminishing returns.

50/50 Vallejo Buff / Vallejo Light Yellow

In the step below, I used some light yellow to make sure that the shape and size of each section passed the eye test.

Vallejo Light Yellow

At this point I was happy enough with the general size, shape and colour graduation of the central section. So now I need to make of the tone more golden and to bring some of the green back.


Above: I gave the outer parts of the wing sections a 50/50 Vallejo light Yellow / Matisse Raw Sienna to give the golden tone that I was after. I followed this with a targeted wash of 25% solution of Liquitex Sap Green Permanent ink so that the golden leather would gradually blend into the green.


Above: In this final step I extended the  

Sap Green ink wash a bit. I gave the whole a bit of an eye test and tidied up the creamy yellow sections twith Vallejo Buff and Matisse Burnt Sienna. 


So that's it for the upper section of the wings. I'll do another post for the under wing painting.


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Monday, June 15, 2026

Green Dragon of Melnibone - Painting Part 5

Green Dragon of Melnibone Part 5 - Painting the Rider



Dyvim Storm before the upgrade

This set of photos follows the upgrading of the rider, Dyvim Slorm. He’s an add-on to the dragon. I can’t remember the manufacturer but he’s a horseman to which I added a “Broad Bladed” lance. The saddle and saddlecloth are made from Green Stuff.


I haven’t been overly inventive with this section of the process. I pretty much just kept to the original colours and pimped them up a bit. The main changes were changing his clothing to yellow to go with the dragon scales and to paint the detailing on helmet as red gems.


Dyvim Storm before the upgrade

What follows is a quick review of the steps I took for upgrading the rider. Descriptions of each step are below each photo. 


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I've changed his tunic from blue to yellow



Here I've begun highlighting the yellow on the tunic and the purple saddlecloth. I've also highlighted the leather gloves and saddle. 



In this step I finished highlighting the leather gloves and saddle, the yellow tunic as well as the purple saddlecloth. I also gave the metal bits, both gold and steel, a wash with GW Nuln Oil before highlighting them.


A view from the other side.




Dyvim's head is the final step. I fixed up his face, made his hemet black and highlighted it with grey, added some red gems and worked on the top of helmet’s wings. I gave the gold an extra zhuzh. I’ve noticed in the photo that the yellow on the tunic hem needs a little fixing up, I’ll fix that up when I do the final touch-ups at the end of the project.





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Monday, June 1, 2026

Green Dragon of Melnibone - Painting Part 4

Green Dragon of Melnibone Part 4 
Painting the Horns & Spikes


Spiky bits all done!

The next step was to redo the dragon’s various horns and spikes. As ever, each successive layer leaves a little bit of the previous darker colour in order to create a gradation of colour from dark brown at the base of each spike then slightly yellow to bone white. 

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The original horns…


And spikes

Here's what I did:
Stage 1. A base coat of GW Skrag Brown

Stage 2. A wash of GW Nuln Oil concentrating on the base of each horn & spike. This is meant to add a contrast between the base of the horn/spikes and the lighter tones to come.

Stage 3. A layer of a light ochre brown (Matisse Raw Sienna) leaving some of the darker areas from the last stage showing.
These next two stages move further to the horn/spike tips with progressively lighter shades. 

Stage 4. A layer of a warm yellow, in this case GW Averland Sunset.

Stage 5. I wanted to stay with the yellowish effect as the process of lightening the horn/spike tips continues. So, I went for a layer of Vallejo Tan Yellow.


Stage 6. Continuing the gradual lightening process: a layer of 50/50 Vallejo Tan Yellow & Matisse Naples yellow light

Stage 7. A layer of a bone white - Matisse Gum Tree 

Now for the final step in painting the horns and spikes: 
Stage 8. A final highlight of pure white

A better view of the back spikes




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