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Cavern Dragon's Hoard
This figure was my entry to the fifth and final round of the Iron Painter Season Two contest over at Wyrd Games. Iron Painter is a little different than most contests - all the painters are paired up each round, with only one from each pair continuing to the next round. Each round has a 'theme' effect or mood that must be conveyed in the miniature, and each round consists of only two weeks. The theme for this round was 'just for a laugh', which was a really daunting theme to me. Humour is very subjective and it's really easy to fall flat or be too obscure. I don't think humour gets enough credit in any medium - film, TV, books, all genres treat humour as a lighter, easier less serious artistic accomplishment than something dramatic, and I think that's just as true and just as unfair in miniature painting as in anything else. I had a handful of ideas for this, and drove myself nuts trying to pick between them. In the end I picked this one, because even if the joke fell flat I would have pushed myself to try something new, which I had been able to do in each of the four previous rounds. The something new for me in this case was to assemble and paint a dragon. I've only recently started painting miniatures that require much assembly and I'm not particularly adept at it, so this was definitely a challenge! Prep, cleaning and assembly took the whole first week, so I was definitely rushed on the painting. There are several areas of this that did not get as much attention as I would normally give, and I hope one day to come back to it and finish it up. If anyone's looking to try a first dragon, this guy is a great sculpt for it - the pieces fit together very nicely and a good two part 5-10 minute epoxy will take care of just about all the gap filling. I found a pattern for a foldup box online and saved it into a graphics program. I added in the logos/box art for the video game systems and printed them out on photo paper. I debated painting the logos, but aside from being pressed for time, I thought it looked more real and better for the joke to make the boxes look as manufactured as possible. The text on the real box of the Playstation 3 is very small, so I used the PS3 logo instead. I'm happy (and astonished) to say that I won this final round and became the Season Two Iron Painter champion. (To those visiting from the future and wondering where the joke is - in the Xmas 2006 season, both Nintendo and Sony came out with new video consoles, but both were in short supply and big demand. The PS3 in particular was hard to find. It went for thousands of dollars on Ebay, and there was at least one shooting and one store robbery in the US related to its release. I figured something that desirable makes a perfect dragon's treasure!)
Posted: 12 Jan 2007
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