Monster March 7 - part 4; Detailing.

 

"Explain to me again" Saerthaera growled and glared at the minister of the interior.

Minister Erid visibly shrunk under the withering gaze which seemed to bore into his head. He stammered, unwilling to speak until he forced himself.

"Whilst you were gone we detected two separate intrusions into the treasury. No clues about who the perpetrator's were or what they took have been found" he swallowed hard.

"And you, Ser Madalena, what have the Griffon Knights to say on the matter?" The yellow reptilian eyes swung to glare at the knight stood at the end of the table. Her polished steel armour, dark yellow Hauberk decorated with white griffons reflected in the polished hardwood tabletop.

"We were unable to apprehend the thieves" the fierce blonde woman replied, holding Saerthaera's stare unblinkingly.

Paperwork was flung across the room as the objects ontop of the table were flung aside and a full glass of wine shattered against the wall.

"Unbelievable! I take leave to visit Lord Inferno to seek aid against my father to defend the kingdom, and YOU LET SOMEONE STEAL FROM MY TREASURY?" her voice rose to a roar causing Erid to cower under the edge of the table.

"Our treasury" Madalena tried to correct.

"We are still searching..." He began in a high pitched voice.

"Oh shut up both of you, I will handle this myself" Saerthaera spat through clenched teeth, "now get out".

The two members of the government left the suite, one almost running, the other a warriors straight-backed march. She watched them leave and then checked the corridor outside her door to truly make sure they were gone, there had been an epidemic of spies before she left. Scanning the corridor, there was only the Griffon Knight guard left at the end and she summoned him to attend.

Two hours later, Saerthaera re-emerged to her sitting room and summoned her aide.

"Yes Mamzel?" she said, as she gingerly stepped around the ruined plate armour which dotted the room.

"Ah, Anaya, we have work to do. First though, get rid of that back to the barracks please" Saerthaera said, pointing to the sleeping knight in her bed chamber.

*****

It is the third week of Monster March, and the fourth installment of this series.

Once again I will go over the progress made on Saerthaera here, and how I've been painting her. I encourage anyone reading to go and visit Swordmaster of Hoeth's blog to take a look at the various monsters which the community is painting for the month.

When last we left our dragon, she had had the detailing of the bone plates and purple fin areas painted and detailed up.

We start this time with the basecoat on the wings, which was Tallarn sand, and then washed with Riekland Fleshshade, being careful to avoid pooling and tidemarks on the large membranous wing sections:

On the left is the basecoat only, and the right the washed sections I worked round all the areas of the wing like this until everything was washed.

I then used a large drybrush and proceeded to drybrush/stipple Tallarn Sand in the center of the membrane and about 3/4 on the length towards her arm:

I purposely did this in a rough fashion in order to try to get some texture into the paint and some "weathering" to her wings so that they didn't look like new skin. I plan to replicate this effect once or twice more and halfway up the wing and maybe then the bottom 1/4 to give a gradient effect to the colour.

Whilst waiting for things to dry, I took the opportunity to get the stone work on her base painted grey, washed with Earthshade and drybrushed again with Mechanicus Standard Grey and then a very light drybrush of Ulthuan Grey:

I plan on adding the other details to the base and painting the rim black, before giving her a coat of Matte Varnish, then going back in with the gold and silver to make the treasure pile vibrant again.

Then it will just be a matter of picking out a few details like her eyes and some detail on her teeth as I'm not happy with the effect so far.

Overall, I'm happy with how she's turning out and progressing on schedule so far.

I estimate that she's taken maybe five hours of work so far, most of which has been drying time for shades.

In the next and final installment of this series, I'll give her a proper showcase of finished photo's, as well as give some text about who she is and where the model came from, as well as finishing her short story I started here.

Until next time, have nice day...