Miniature-Painting.net - Visions in Color

Some words about the Abyst-paintjob:

I had no special thoughts about Abyst other then not to paint him in the classical red style, cause I guessed that this would come out to be the common treatment to him. So I thought a long while about a proper paint-scheme that would please me. As this is a quite large guy I had plenty of space to shade and highlight and even add a small spot pattern. At first I wanted to paint on some more tiger like stripes but that would have finaly overloaded Abyst totaly. And he has allready become quite colorfull. But now on to the true nature of the beast...

The Assembly:

Unfortunatly I had to pick up my Abyst at the local customs office after waiting for it to arrive for quite a while. I had to convince the customs officer (who already knew me from former shippments) that this miniature was a gift and totaly for free and so wouldn´t cost me any customs fee. If it goes on like this I may even convince him into this hobby. ;o)

Well, after unpacking it, next to some other free sample minis (thanks for these also Reaper) I discovered that the nose and fangs had been dented in a bit during shippment. But nothing I wasn´t able to fix by carefully applying some soldering lead with my soldering iron and filing it into shape. I also had to fix a whole in the wing due to it being cast quite thin in some places. This problem was fixed easiely with some greenstuff. Then I drilled a hole through the back of the wingpart and into the back of the demonbody. This way I could fix the wing to the back with the help of some steel wire and epoxy glue. During painting I noticed it would be better to paint the wings appart from the body and so I chipped it of again.

I drilled a hole into the top of a thin wooden rod and glued the wing to it for better handling while painting. The demon itself was glued onto a small round box with some hot glue. I filled the box with some sand to give it a good weight and center of gravity. This box was a great handle while painting. I didn´t drop Abyst a single time and it helped me to avoid what is now commonly known as "the Curse of Abyst"!

Knowing that it would be difficult to make photos of it as long as I have no camera I didn´t made a special base for the miniature (maybe later on), so it would still fit onto my scanner.

And now for something completely different...

I primed Abyst with my allways trusty white car primer through my airbrush. After letting the primer dry for a few days I painted the whole miniature an overal Ral Partha ivory. That´s a good base to start with for a yellow shading. Then I washed Abyst with a thinned down Ral Partha lantern light yellow. Next was a normal Ral Partha yellow. I then went on with shades of darkened down yellows for the shadows. I darken my yellow with a drop of violett. That gives a fine dark yellow. The darkest areas where shaded with browns. To light up the highlights again I applied some more ivory and blended it into the surrounding areas. The fur was washed with several red browns and dark browns. For the hair I used shades of red, starting with pink and shading down to dark red. Ral Partha blood red is the best dark red I now of. The eyes where painted white and washed with ivory and a little bit of red. The Iris was based in dark red and filled with highlighted red, then a vertical pupil of white was added. The white also works as a light reflex. The tongue was painted light orange and shaded down with orange and red/orange (Ral Partha´s Goblin Flesh Tangerine). I then highlighted the edge with light orange again. The teeth, as all other horns and claws, where painted ivory and then shaded down with several washes from yellow ocher to dark brown. The horns on the head where then slightly drybrushed with some ivory to bring out the structure again. I added a carefull wash of red/orange to the face and painted on tiny spots with my 3/0 brush.

I painted the armour plates around the abdomen with light and dark tones of brown to resemble the rest of the horns. The same with the armour plates on the elbows and with the hoofs.

First I wanted to give the armour Abyst is wearing a giger/alien like look, but however it didn´t quite turned out the way it was planned and so it looks more like a tartan now. Well, nice anyway, IMHO. I painted the edges of the armour with gold. (Temple Guard Gold from Taget Games) The knobs on the belt where painted like green gems.

The sword was too obvious a fiery flaming red sword and so (again) I choose not to use the common paint scheme. Green was the right color to follow my already quite exotic path. I added some sunbeam like pattern in gold to the brown shaded hilt and knob of the sword.

And to finaly stay out of the common color scheme I thought of something quite different for the spine-baton. Again a bone like appearance would have been the first choice. So I painted it like it was made out of pure red crystal. For this effect I used the standart diamond paint scheme in red (I think this took as long as the rest of the demon; even if it might not really look like crystal it´s a nice texture). The horns, as kind af an added decoration, were painted in golden and washed with brown ink and dark brown.

Then I turned to the wings. The basecolor is also a shaded yellow. Then I shaded down the edges of the wings with orange and red. Then I painted on a violet pattern, shaded down with dark brown. This is not a special butterfly-pattern. I have seen it on some prepainted dragon statue once and liked it so I tried to resemble it this way. I´m not sure how long the whole thing took me, but it must have been at least 20 hours.

Conclusion:

Though not my absolute No.1 Winged Demon (the posture is a bit static, the sword is way too bulky, and the overal sculpting could have been a bit more crisp), Abyst is a very nice sculpture, offering countless possibilities for paintschemes. And what is most important for me, was big fun to paint. And in addition to it you get four (!), IMHO nice looking, smaller demons in a boxed set. Good value for the price, IMHO.

Well, that´s it. Where´s the next one? :o)

Dirk Stiller

Previous Miniature Visions in Color #2 Index Next Miniature