Super Dungeon Explore - Starfire (Part 1)

Starfire is probably the largest figure I've attempted to paint thus far. It's also the main boss monster from the core game and therefore deserves special attention.  I've actually had the model assembled for some time now, I just haven't had time to do much beyond that.

The first decision I had to make was whether or not to prime the model black, white, or grey.  I decided that since I am going to paint him red, white would be the best choice because it would support red the best.  Black would make it look dark and grungy and I'm out of grey primer so white it is!

Now at first, since I'm shooting for a good tabletop quality I wasn't concerned about cleaning-up any of the mold lines or filling any of the gaps.  But once I saw how it looked after a few light coats I changed my mind.  I decided to scrape off some of the mold lines with a curved blade and fill in the gaps on the limbs with epoxy.  The epoxy I used worked well and now instead of a stark line where the two bits met it looks more natural.  I tried filling with Vallejo plastic putty but it didn't fill very well and just left messy crumbs where I tried to use it.  I should probably shelve that stuff until I can figure out how to best use it.

Anyway, I'm pretty much done with priming and it's about ready for some pigment!  There's still some mold lines showing and some crumbs in the finish but I'm not going to worry about those since I'm just going for tabletop quality.  Working from the inside out, I am starting with a mid-tone grey for the stone pillar and everything else that looks like stonework.  The main body of the dragon itself will be base coated using Model Color Red (70.926).  From there, I will likely shade it down with burnt cadmium red and then highlight up using oranges.  It should be relatively straightforward but because of the size of the model it will be time consuming.  So I'm thinking I will most likely have this done sometime over this coming weekend.

Speaking of the Vallejo Model Color paints I will be using, I had shelved a number of them because they were coming out too shiny.  I asked about this in one of my classes at GenCon and the advice I got was to put an agitator (like what you'd have in a spray can) in the bottle to help mix the paint better when you shake it.  So I added a screw I had laying around, shook the bottle of red paint up really good, and it worked!  My once super shiny red and burnt cadmium paints are both matte now!