WIP: Dragonfate Dais (Games Workshop) - Putting on paint

Airbrush is finally working again, so its time to get some painting done!

So quick backstory. I haven't painted a lot of larger items for myself recently, and put off a lot of projects I've been excited to start, mainly because my airbrush has been less than cooperative. So I've taken on more commissions that need brush painting while I figured that out. I was losing pressure through the line. Lots of moving parts on an airbrush.. Was it the compressor? Something in the line or the water trap? Something clogging the airbrush? An air leak in one of the many places you put things? I finally got fed up and tore everything in the works apart and rebuilt it after a thorough scouring, and I now have consistent air pressure! So its time to get started on the paint portion of the Dragonfate Dais.

So getting back to where we left off from last time. The glue is dried on the "skeleton" base we put down last time. I then took Vallejo Black Lava paste (a texture paint) on the bottom. You'll maybe never, ever see it....but I know its there. The terrain is no longer hollow on the underside and looks....finished. That's the top picture you see.

So next step was to lay on some paint. Most of the pictures Games Workshop has of this is a dark gray color scheme, a very "cold" color. So instead of duplicating what's already been done, I decided to venture into unknown territory and go with a warmer tone, and paint in browns and oranges. Instead of the typical "pool of blood" I've seen, it meant doing a pool of lava. I started with a brown base, sprayed a warmer reddish brown to highlight, and some black to shade the recesses. Then I started to base the lava with white:

After that, I added some yellow to the mix, then some orange. While I had the orange loaded in the airbrush, I sprayed the runes in the ground to give them a "glowing" effect. Then I added some reds to the lava. By now my compressor was getting pretty warm, so I had to stop before adding the black the give the lava that "cooling" look. I might just do that with pastels, I haven't decided yet.

While the colors were loaded, it was a good time to start with the ambient, OSL lighting. I just did rings with the colors on hand, yellow in the middle, going to orange, red and brown to the edges. I also made sure to pay attention to how the light would fall on the stairs.

So with that getting close to finished, it was time to paint the dragons and the columns. I wanted an aged bronze look, and not that shiny kind of bronze, but that dulled finish kind. I mixed up a custom color consisting of Rhinox Hide, Calliban Green, and Leadbelcher to get the color of the columns and airbrushed Alclad Titanium Gold onto the dragons themselves. I'm not sure if I'm completely happy with the colors. By themselves, the parts look good, but I'm still undecided about if the colors match the palette I've picked out or if I need to "warm" the dragons up a bit.

And here's a quick mockup of where it stands at the moment:

And that's it for now! Thanks for looking!