Completed Conan in the Dragons den

[Jazz]

The scene depicts the great Cimmerian warrior Conan lost in a labarynth and he has turned the corner and walked straight into the den of a pair of angry dragons who are guarding their eggs. Who knows what happened next?

I used the Andrea 54mm Conan figure complete with the steps he came with. The left dragon is one that was used in the Lord of the Rings movies that I bought for £5 from a market stall. It has a metal body and tail and plastic wings. The chain came from a hardware store and is manicled around the dragons leg with lead sheeting. The second red dragon was a free gift in a magazine called "Mythical creatures" and was the first one of the series. I painted all the figures in oils as is my preferred medium. For the base I made my own out of skirting wood which I stained. The scene uses various rocks from my garden which I placed strategically and static grass liberally used. I used some Citadel skeleton army pieces for the dead scattered around the den. The eggs are handmade from milliput and painted in enamels. For the cobbled look of the floor I used flat lentils which are perfect for this. Glue them onto the base then when dry a light coating of wall filler over them taking care not to cover the lentils then paint when completely dry.
Hope you like it and I welcome any comments.

 

[Edorta]

I wouldn´t like to be between those two guys.

http://www.mininet.tv/egminiatures.html

 

[Sambaman]

Hats off to Conan for even approaching these two. But if I might, I would tend to question the historical accuracy for one small moment. I see light blue eggs in the scene, which would indicate the mating of this Russian Red with, I'm assuming, the Brazilian Stickle-Back pictured here. This would not be possible. Given the temperament of Russian Reds, and the disparity of their genetic compatibility they could never have successfully mated. Now, if we are to imagine there is another Russian Red, off to stage right lets say, then it would be remotely possible for there to be successful breeding occurring. Remote, as I said, as the mating habits of Russian Reds is quite secretive and rarely happens outside of confined areas, and certainly not while in the presence of a Brazilian Stickle-Back! Also, the shade of blue used for the eggs needs to be slightly more to the aqua side. With this particular shade of blue you would be suggesting the successful mating of the the disparate species, and we both know that would't happen...LOL! Very fun piece John, I might have thrown in a Blue-Bellied Burmese just to really shake up the purists, but I think you've done a very commendable job here!

Jay H.

 

[gordy]

Nice work John and great use of the Conan fig

 

[redhorse]

Excellent, I love these fantasy pieces. Plus some good background info from Jay adds to it!

 

[billyturnip]

Excellent, I love these fantasy pieces. Plus some good background info from Jay adds to it!

What it's fantasy? No way!

Very good work.

Roger

 

[Jazz]

Thanks for your comments guys, especially Jay. Your comments really made my day!!

 

[Babelfish]

Hats off to Conan for even approaching these two. But if I might, I would tend to question the historical accuracy for one small moment. I see light blue eggs in the scene, which would indicate the mating of this Russian Red with, I'm assuming, the Brazilian Stickle-Back pictured here. This would not be possible. Given the temperament of Russian Reds, and the disparity of their genetic compatibility they could never have successfully mated. Now, if we are to imagine there is another Russian Red, off to stage right lets say, then it would be remotely possible for there to be successful breeding occurring. Remote, as I said, as the mating habits of Russian Reds is quite secretive and rarely happens outside of confined areas, and certainly not while in the presence of a Brazilian Stickle-Back! Also, the shade of blue used for the eggs needs to be slightly more to the aqua side. With this particular shade of blue you would be suggesting the successful mating of the the disparate species, and we both know that would't happen...LOL! Very fun piece John, I might have thrown in a Blue-Bellied Burmese just to really shake up the purists, but I think you've done a very commendable job here!

Here here, Jay.

And given that dragons have had their populations decimated by evil human settlers taking over most of their traditional hunting grounds, we have a duty and a responsibility as modellers to "get it right" whenever we depict dragons.

Such a slipshod and slapdash approach towards egg coloration is indicative of the uncaring and cavalier approach adopted by far too many people towards environmental and conservation issues. And I'm quite sure that if any dragons were to see this, they would be mortally offended by such a total lack of basic research. They may even feel they were being compared to mere blackbirds, who are actually the ones who lay light blue eggs. It's scandalous.

Clearly many hours of hard work have done into this scene and technically speaking it is indeed a fine piece of modelling. But John's whole approach is extremely "dragonist" and as such has no place here.

Yours policitally correctly,

- Steve

 

[housecarl]

Wrong egg colour aside John, another impressive wrok.
Carl.

 

[Babelfish]

How long did this scene take you John?

I'm not usually big on fantasy stuff but I really like this one.

- Steve

 

[Jazz]

All in all, it took about a week. I have had the Conan figure for some years and originally had him set as a single figure. Then a few years later the Lord of the Rings dragon came to me and a a couple of months after that I got the magazine with the freebie dragon. I originally put the Lord of the Rings dragon with a Citidel miniatures figure (one that I am really proud of and will put on PF one day) but I wasnt satisfied with this so they all sat around doing nothing for a a few months before I decided to put them all together. It took a while to get the positioning right and of course each piece had to be painted seperately before fixing but when finished I was really pleased with it.

 

[Meehan34]

excellent work sir. i really like those dragons a lot and the scene is very very cool. I am glad this showing of your figures resulted in a better feeling for you.

 

[Gellso]

That's bloody good that. You cant really appreciate just how much went into this. Very well done the dragons look ace.