Frost Wyrm: Painting Guide

One last painting guide for 2013... I've been under the weather for the past week and a half in part because I've little time to rest up and properly recuperate.  Condensed word schedules made for longer day and the days off was spent maximizing time with family and friends.  Oh... and had to work the past too weekends as well.  In any event, I took advantage of the day off today to do some painting and get a model I had primed a couple months back actually painted and finished.

The model is from Reaper's line of Bones miniatures and the initial priming was done with Gesso ... a darker gray color.  I mention the color due to an unexpected mistake I had made when experimenting with another paint -- an Iridescent Pearl.  You see, as a favor for someone else, I had primed a frame in white and painted with the new paint and got fantastic results.  I figured that this same color would be fantastic as a base color for the Frost Wyrm.  I missed the part on the bottle which stated the paint was 'SO' (semi-opaque).  The paint is a white-ish color but when I applied it to the model with my airbrush, the model became silver as opposed to a white pearl.

Oops.

The effect was still pretty nice but a silver frost wyrm was not what I was looking for.  I was still able to transform it into something a lot more serviceable that I am proud with.  It was quite easy to do too.  Once again, I am using paints from the Citadel line for the rest of the model.

First thing was first, I applied a dark blue wash called 'Drakenhof Nightshade' over the entire wyrm. 

Second step was extensive drybrushing using 'Ehterium Blue' and Praxeti White' -- both Dry compounds from the Citadel line.

One the drybrushing was done to my satisfaction (heavier in some areas and lighter in others), I used 'Ulthuan Grey' to highlight its arms and legs with a touch more drybrushing with the same paints as before.

I used 'Mephiston Red' with some 'Bloodletter' Glaze for the creature's eyes and a touch of 'Screamer Pink' for the back interior of the creatures tongue and throat.

With all of the model done, some of the iridescent bits are still coming through but the creature is no longer a 'silver' but a blue-greyish white.

M