I don’t often paint large models, but I’ve had this fellow on my painting table in various states of assembly and painting for a couple of years now. It’s  a red dragon from Grenadier’s Julie Guthrie’s Dragons line, circa late ’80’s-early 90’s.

Of course, nothing says I had to paint it as a red dragon. In fact, I was considering painting it a greenish-black and using it as a swamp dragon. I even went so far as to basecoat it green, but then changed my mind and went with the red scheme. I used mostly Vallejo colors (Red Black, Rusty Red, Gold Yellow) and Citadel paints (Stegadon Scale Green, Sotek Green, Scorpion Green).

Compared to some of the dragon miniatures available today (i.e. Reaper), this one is pretty small, but is perfect for representing a young dragon rather than an ancient wyrm.

I have a love for Grenadier miniatures, as together with Ral Partha they were pretty much the only game in town for Fantasy miniatures when I was young. These dragons could be a pain in the ass to assemble, and this one was no exception, requiring copious amounts of green stuff to fill the gaps where the wings join the body. Nowadays it would probably be cast from plastic, or at least the wings would be, which would make it easier to assemble as the weight of the wings wouldn’t require pinning.

For the base, I added an axe along with a bit from an Army Painter accessory pack (the helmet with the snake). I smoothed out the contours with green stuff and added sand, tufts and static grass.