Once I knew I was getting hundreds of minis, I decided to prep for them, and bought a few of the existing Bones miniatures... a minotaur, gnoll, ogre, and troll, a purple worm, a few skeletons, and some orcs. I played with these, painting them with simple paint jobs and using Army Painter Quickshade on them. They painted up great, looked good, and I was ready to go.
When my Bones came in, I expected to hit the 'workhorse' models first, orcs, goblins, kobolds, undead, vermin... things I can paint really fast, use Quickshade on, get them table-ready.
Instead I painted a dragon.
For those who are interested, Here's my method:
Step one: Assemble and wash
The bigger bones add-ons didn't come assembled, so I glued him together with Gorilla Superglue. I also washed the model with dawn and a soft brush, to get rid of any mold release. I also glued the model to a Gale Force 9 econo-base.
Step two: Basecoat
I mixed up a fairly random medium-dark red out of my airbrush paints and gave the entire model a basecoat of this color.
Step three: Initial Highlight and Shade
I washed the entire model with a coat of Baal Red Wash from Games Workshop and let dry. Once dry I took GW Mechrite Red and then GW Blood Red and drybrushed the entire model in the two shades.
Step Four: Chest
I painted the entire set of chest plates with GW Snakebite Leather, then drybrushed with GW Golden Yellow, Higlighted the edge plate with GW Sunburst Yellow, then once dry washed the entire chest with GW Gryphonne Sepia
Step Five: Horns, Teeth, and Claws:
Based with GW Bleached Bone, Then hit the edges with GW Devlan mud and a touch of highlight with GW Skull White
Step Six: Wings
Multiple layers of work here, with two layers of GW Devlan Mud, two layers of GW Black Wash, once overall, and once just in the creases. Two layers of GW Red Glaze followed. A very light drybrush of GW Blood Red and then finished with a final wash of GW Devlan Mud.
Step Seven: Eyes
I over-painted the eyes with a large oval of GW Sunburst Yellow, Made the Pupil with a dot of GW Scorpion Green, and then an iris of GW Chaos Black.
Step Eight: Details
The tongue was painted GW Tentacle Pink and then washed with GW Baal Red. Eyes were outlined with Chaos Black. Small protrusions down the neck and around the eyes were painted Chaos Black, and the Arm claws were outlined with Chaos Black.
Step Nine: Base
The stone was painted with a series of hand-mixed greys, based and drybrushed. Several inks were used as well, primarily GW Devlan Mud and GW Badab Black. The statue head was based GW Bleached Bone and then washed multiple times with GW Ogryn Flesh and GW Gryphonne Sepia. Finally, I used TableMaster Base Treatment: Blasted Earth over much of the existing base and the econo base.
At this point I took the picture above.
Final tweaks (not shown):
Lots of shading done on the base with GW Devlan Mud. Some washes applied to the model itself, another red glaze on the wings, some more ink here and there. Once dry, I sealed the entire model with 'Pledge with Future Shine' aka Future Floor Polish, and then sprayed it with Army Painter Anti-shine.
1 model done. Hundreds left to go.
