Wyvern from Reaper

A few weeks back, I was at the LGS with nothing better to do than browse through their wall of Reaper blisters. I picked up a hefty pack with a Wyvern in it and said to myself..."What the hell."

I've been on a bit of a roll with large Reaper figs recently, and see no reason to stop now. So this week, I put it together.

While assembly was straightforward, the scenic base I decided on was not. The base was made from multiple layers of balsa wood, covered in cork, and then finished off with a lot of slate. Though it took some time to conceive and engineer, I was really happy with the result. Broken mountaintop...got it.

I glued everything together, puttied the wing joints and then primed everything.

Next came the obligatory floor wax layer with dark paint. Now everything was sealed, shaded and ready to go.

But what colors to use? I first thought about a black wyvern with golden accents. And while that would look pretty cool, I'd just painted a black figure (the Drow demon) a few weeks ago. So I went to my favourite color scheme site (paletton.com) and started playing with split complementary color schemes.

I finally settled on plum as the main color, with accents of deep green and bright yellow-green.

Once I had sprayed on the base colors, I realized that the deep green was not accenting the plum. They were more visually balanced than they should have been...not good. So, as it is, this color scheme is out of whack. 

But it wasn't like I was going to re-spray at this point. I was going with it.

After some washes, highlight passes and detail painting work, here's how the wyvern ended up.

A colourful beast, reflecting it's fantasy origins.

And I was happy with how the base turned out. Now I need to get some more basing slate!

'Til next time.