Reaper Miniatures

Copper Dragon on Marbled Tiled Hex Base

At the monthly Paint Day I host in Seneca Falls, NY … Finger Lakes Paint and Game Day … a Reaper forumite came up for a visit from down near NYC.  He brought with him some great pieces of marble tiles that were left over from a floor installation.  These tiles are 3/8 inches thick and one inch to a side hexagons of white marble.  He gave me several before he left to return home.

Not long after that day, I decided to utilize one of his amazing pieces of marble for the Reaper Miniatures Young Swamp Dragon, sculpted by Kevin Williams, that had been sitting in his blister pack on the wall above my work table.  But I wanted to really utilize the gleaming white marble and pay an homage to the base.  So using plastic squares as individually placed tiles I set out to make a marble floor on top of the marble base.

The base turned out wonderfully.  But what kind of dragon was I interested in painting?  I certainly wasn’t interested in making him a “swamp” dragon.  After some thought and a comparison of size to some of my other dragons, I decided he would be a copper dragon.

But that led to the idea that the copper dragons would molt their skins like lizards and snakes.  This molting would in fact take the form of verdigris (copper rust) and form around the outside of the dragon as it slept for long periods.  I set out to create a verdigris combination of paints to paint on his wings and underbelly.

But after some conversations with other artists and a specific comment from the provider of the marble tile, I decided the dragon was shaking off his molt and scattering bits of the verdigris around the floor and that his wings were still not finished molting and that hardened bits were still attached to the dragon.

To see everything that went on in the production of this piece, please check out … WIP 1 | WIP 2.

Thus, I present to you, my copper dragon:

Enjoy!