Squidmar is doing something a little interesting this time with his latest tutorial feature. He is challenging himself to transform a dollar store dragon!
Squidmar is making a name for himself by doing all things painting. This time around he’s taking this derpy dragon and giving it his best effort to transform it into something worth displaying!
He starts off by getting a huge assortment of skin tone colors on his wet palette and priming the dragon grey.
He uses a mix of Zandri Dust and Steel Legion Drab for the first couple of random areas he feels like he wants in a nice beige tone. He then takes Doom Bull Brown from to base coat all of the areas he’s thinking about making brown.
He then highlights them, but he doesn’t care about the colors too much. For the lighter beige, he simply adds normal highlights using his wet palette and a slightly lighter color he has available. However, for the darker color, the highlights are a bit more tricky as brown doesn’t reflect light as well. To compensate, the staples on some other brown shades and some very subtle highlights. He also paints the tongue using Bugman’s Glow and highlights it with some Pallid Flesh.
After this, he adds a good amount of orange to the browns just to liven it up and give it some color.
He then takes out an airbrush and post-shades with dark ink and sort of glazes the model with a spot of orange ink and a lot of water. He also reminds us that whenever you use an airbrush you will inevitably lose some detail if you painted it beforehand, so he repaints some of the top highlights to make sure they are still clear.
He then moves to the eyes with a base coat of Rakarth Flesh. He uses a yellow, then orange, and finally a red in the shape of a cat-eye from inside to out all while wet blending. That’s painting while it still hasn’t dried to blend the paints. Lastly, he outlines and makes a center slit with black followed by a small white dot for a reflection. He also takes an orange Vallejo glaze and adds a small amount around the bottom of the eyes to make it look like it is glowing.
He then realizes he almost forgot the wings! He starts by painting the small connector piece in the middle gold to mimic a saddle. He also paints the browns just like before highlighting them the same way. He follows up with some post-shade with a green ink this time, then adding a small amount of black ink to the pot to finish out the shading.
And with that, the dragon is done!
Be sure to check out the full video below to see Squidmar’s full breakdown, and subscribe to the Squidmar Miniatures YouTube channel for more tutorials.
About the Author: Andrew Schrank
Andrew Schrank
Job Title: Miniatures & Warhammer Hobby Staff Writer
Socials: Facebook
About Andrew Schrank: Over the past 15 years, Andrew has played all the games, including tabletop and video games, and immersed himself in the associated lore. Andrew joined the Spikey Bits team in 2018 and covers the Warhammer hobby and tournament scene, along with the latest in tabletop miniatures, each week.
Aspiring diplomat, Lord of Fluff, and Master of Ice Hammer, He loves Star Wars, Chaos Undivided, and Gundam. During his free time, he hunts Platinum trophies on PS5 and reads international news. On weekends, Andrew plays commander and cEDH games, often with unique strategies that push the limits.
He believes each day presents a new opportunity to grow and be challenged.
