The Black Dragon – Review

As soon as I saw the black dragon I knew I had to paint one.  This figure is one of the best I have seen from Games Workshop.  It is sculpted with an astonishing amount of detail and a great deal of extra parts to add a lot of variation to it,  variation which I intended to exploit to its fullest.  I also had a plan in mind for the colour scheme.  After reading about the new Carmine Dragon I decided to go for a black to Dark red color scheme.  Carmine Dragons are red when young and progressively darken to black when aging. With this colour scheme my black dragon can also be used as a stand alone Carmine Dragon in games like Storms of Magic where there is a huge need of monsters.  This bring the total version that this dragon can be used as to 6.  Find the full list of versions below.

• Name:  Dark Elf Dread Lord on Black Dragon
• Series:  Warhammer
• Producer:  Games Workshop
• Artist:  Joseph Vella
• Size: 25 cm
• No of Parts: 82
• Link for Sale : Midnight-Partners Store
• Link for Gallery: Midnight-Partners
• Link Video: YouTube 360 degree

Cleaning and Assembly:  The Black Dragon consists of some 82 parts of which I nearly used all.  Cleaning such a number of small and sometimes delicate parts is never an easy job but the quality of Games Workshop’s casts really shows.  All parts required minimal effort to clean it was just the attention to not damage the details which took most of the cleaning time.  Many of the parts had to be pre assembled (before painting) in order to not complicate the painting work.  Nearly all the black dragon’s body had to be assembled except for the tails and wings.  The riders bodies however were kept separate in order to easy the painting this time.

Painting: As explained above the Carmine dragon was the main reason I went for a red to black colour scheme.  Now achieving this scheme was not that easy.  I also want a neutral colour to act as highlights for the black coloured skin.  To achieve this highlight I first coated the whole dragon with a mix of very light brown taking care to leave as much of the dragon spikes and horns white as possible.  After this was dry I started on the red parts by airbrushing some 5 layers of thinned down red.  I also touched the base of each spike and horn with red this to give the effect of the horns coming our to the skin.  Once dry I painted several layers of black ink taking extreme cares of leaving the light brown showing where needed. 

Once the airbrushing was completed I proceeded to hand painting the various spikes, horns and fangs with my trusted brush.  A thin layer of sneak bite leather brown was first applied blending it with the red I did before.  This was then progressively highlighted to pure white by adding layers upon layers of thinned down skull white.

Finally I proceeded to the painting and detailing of the dragon’s golden armour, the Dread Lord and Supreme Sorceress.

Clik to buy - Dark Elf Dreadlord/Supreme Sorceress on Black Dragon

Assembly:  Much of the assembly had already been done before painting.  All that was needed at this point was attaching the wings to the dragon.  These and the armour plus the two Dark Elf lords however can still be removed safely for ease of transport.  I also assembled the Dread Lord and Supreme Sorceress.

Specials:  I always new that I wanted a custom base which added atmosphere to my Black Dragon.  Since many time Dark Elves are associated with stormy seas I decided to go for it.  As you can see the base clearly tell the story of the last High Elf victim of the Black Dragon and how his blood is mixing with the stormy waves which are crushing on the stone from which the Black Dragon is taking flight.  The High Elf was built from the extra Dread Lord’s parts then it was just a matter of modelling the waves and covering them with water effect from Games Workshop.  All in house as you can see .

The second special of this Black Dragon is the fact that it can be used in battle in 6 different versions. Two of these version, are purely aesthetic while the other four have an effect on the game you are using them for.  Here below is the full list I also suggest you to go to my official website to take a look at the different versions.

1. Free Black Dragon
2. Free Carmine Dragon
3. Unarmoured Dragon with Dark Elf Dread Lord
4. Unarmoured Dragon with Dark Elf Supreme Sorceress
5. Armoured Dragon with Dark Elf Dread Lord
6. Armoured Dragon with Dark Elf Supreme Sorceress

Check this video to see all the veresions.

As usual any comments are welcome.

Comments recieved from the modeling communities:

rem: wow! this is amazing!! a masterpiece!

A-me:  Wow! Incredible work! Congrats! Serafin: Really good work. I´d love to see some bigger pics of the rider. I think I need this dragon too

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