Nick Bibby's Great Spined Dragon

As regular readers will recall, my favourite miniature of all time is this beast: the Great Spined Dragon by the incredibly talented Nick Bibby. Considering that the model is approaching 30 years of age makes it even more remarkable. No other sculptor has produced a better model, and as you will no doubt be aware, there are some truly incredible dragon models out there.

Now, I have written at length about the creation of the Spined Dragon before and that article can be found here for those of you who are interested in hearing more. Today, I want to talk about the painting of my dragon. a task that has taken up the majority of my painting time over the last few weeks.

Here is a shot I took of my original model after I purchased it last summer. I paid about £70 for him, though I had allowed for a top bid of £120. If you are interested in acquiring one of these models after reading this post, this really is a fair price range to work from. Mine was in poor condition. The front leg was snapped off, the back leg (which is a detachable piece) was badly twisted and many of the wing bones were seriously damaged. It was clear that the model would need serious repair work and restoration to ensure that it remained whole into the future.

The broken leg was an easy fix. Using a 1mm drill I added a steel pin to the stump and glued the piece back on. It was quite straight forwards really, especially when I stuck the main part of the body onto an oval base for additional support. The tail and head for attached in a similar way, though I used two part epoxy resin for extra strength here. My problems lay with the wings. After working on the model for a few hours the left wing became increasingly more fragile and in the end I decided to snap the piece into two pieces and do a full repair. Again, steel rod was inserted for about two centimetres into the stump and used to rebuild the wing and add strength. However, this still wasn't enough to produce sturdy wings.

I solved the problem by using very thin plasticard to build the membrane of the wings. I laid the damaged wings on the top of this and stuck the lead down using superglue. I then used green stuff to build up a strengthening layer over the top of the plasticard and around the edges of the wings. Serendipity came into play at this point, as my fingerprints helped add texture to the wings where previously it would have looked very flat and smooth.

With the model built, my young son (aged only three at the time) helped me undercoat the model in white in the back garden. He thoroughly enjoyed it and still talks about it now, but I began to feel a sense of trepidation at painting such an enormous model. My feelings were re-enforced when I tried to undercoat the thing (I originally chose red) and I found myself giving up shortly after! I packed the model away in my draw and worked on my Khorne Army.

And so the model sat there until recently. Having overcome my painting lethargy with some Slanneshi chaos warriors I felt ready to do something completely different. So I pulled out the Spined Dragon and got to work, this time with a green colour scheme. After about five weeks work, on and off, the dragon is pretty much complete and I worked on the finishing touches today.

What do you lot think of my efforts?





Frontal View: I limited the colours I used for the body and was largely inspired by the 'look' of various crocodile species. I found that using plenty of natural world images I could bring out the realism in the sculpt.

Top View: The wings were painted with a mix of drybrushing, ink washes, fine point work and speckling. I was trying to capture an aged look to the wings.

Back View: The back of the dragon saw the closest application of the crocodile colour scheme. This is most noticeable in the black stripes that run across the back of the model.

Back View Two: I used colour harmony between the yellow underbelly and the green skin/scales. I found that this helped bring the two colours together in a more satisfying way.

Top View Two: I felt that a base of this size would look a little plain without something breaking it up so I included a casualty from the Fighters range. I liked the way the fallen knight adds a little narrative to the model, after all is the dragon protecting the wounded knight or is it preparing to eat him?

Side View: Taking a decent shot of the underneath of the model was a challenge but this is the best I could achieve. I used red inks to make the buboes a little more angry and add contrast. The spot colour also helped link the dragon with the fallen knight.

Well, with such a huge beast finished I am now looking around for another 'big 'un' to work on. This is most likely to be my Marauder Giant, which I also started work on last summer but gave up on. I feel a lot more confident about handling bigger miniatures now and feel like I can do the classic model justice.

As always, please feel free to comment on my restoration and paintjob.

Orlygg.

A Monstrous Interlude: The Great Spined Dragon: Nick Bibby's Masterpiece

A winning entry indeed! The Great Spined Dragon, here converted to be a Plague Dragon, was painted by David Chauvel  and won Best Dragon at the 1988 Golden Demon Awards. 

Ever since I saw the Great Spined Dragon being painted up by Harry, I knew that I had to own one. It is, quite simply, the finest dragon ever sculpted.

To quite frank, it is exquisite. 

A photograph cannot do the model justice. Once you have the pieces, and you roughly assemble them together, and balance the model in the palm of your hand, you know that you are holding something so very special. It feels like it wouldn't take much; a nudge perhaps, or a gentle blow of air from your lungs, to encourage the little beast to take flight and sail around your living room on its skeletal wings.

I think this magic is conjured by its eyes. They are small, beady things that peer out from the craggy brow with a malicious intent, almost as if they are appraising how easy a meal you would make! The head too is so finely sculpted that it positively oozes character. 

Its limbs are based, not in fantasy as so many sculptors who work on dragons do, but very much in reality. There are distinct echoes of birds of prey in its pose. Closer inspection reveals the muscle structure finely sculpted under the scales, suggesting the inner workings of this strange reptilian monster. 

I managed to get one on eBay for £97. It was worth every penny. Even my wife, the non-leadhead, was impressed when she saw my rough assembly, promptly stating 'oh, I like that. If you paint that up, you can keep it on the mantelpiece.'

Surely, the ultimate praise any model can possibly receive? 

Then there is this example, painted by Craig Sparks, and also entered into the 1988 Golden Demon Awards. 

The model seemed to be popular back in the 1980s, as the two images that I have published above prove.  It was used time and time again by painters entering the Golden Demon awards of the later '80s. And the model must remain popular to this day to command such a healthy price tag.

Having become infatuated with the model upon its arrival in my home yesterday, I decided to do a little research into the model and present my findings as this post. I knew that it was sculpted by Nick Bibby as I had approached him for an interview here at Realm of Chaos 80s and had asked several questions about his dragons. Sadly, he was far too busy to talk to me and the questions remained unanswered and the research drew to a close. The arrival of my dragon changed all that, so I set about exploring the dark corners of the web to see what I could uncover. 

Before I present my findings, have a quick look at my dragon as he currently stands. After I have complete this post I am going to finish cleaning him up and stick him together.

A quick snap of mine, held together with Blu-Tak and propped up on a London Taxi.

It appears that the model was released in late 1984 or early 1985 and was one of a great many dragons that Citadel was producing at the time. Building and painting them seemed to be a hobby in its own right by the mid '80s, and Citadel had flooded the market with a huge range of dragon models. As early as 1982, the sculpting team were producing dragons of considerable size (such as the 'chicken dragon'), and the sheer scale of these beasts must have been casting nightmares!

What follows are the instructional materials produced by Citadel to accompany the release of the model. The first is a flyer that includes a breakdown of the model into the cast parts and the sketch produced by Tony Ackland. These documents prove to be extremely useful for anyone interested in building and painting this model today, as I am sure many of you are aware, the Great Spined Dragon was sculpted without wing membranes and these, with a little modelling skill, need to be produced and attached to the model. The second side of the leaflet detailed how best to go about this, explaining where to stick the membranes to produce the best possible fit. 

Rooting around further, I can across this second flyer, now in the collection of Steve Casey over at Eldritch Epistles. Here we find the original mailing list gumph which included a rather whimsical piece of background fluff about Spined Dragons in the Warhammer World as well as some rules for the beast, as geared towards Warhammer Second Edition, which were current at the time. 

But what of its sculptor? Then, luck struck and I stumbled across a blog called the Spyglass Asylum, which sadly has not seen an update for some time. The writer of this blog was also a big fan of the Spined Dragon and wrote a lovely article praising the piece. Thankfully, Nick Bibby contacted this blogger and provided some further information about this most wonderful of dragons. 

Here is the text.

NB: Well, this is a blast from the past! I came across your blog, whilst looking for something else entirely, and was stunned by the comments. Not a blogger, never posted before, so this is a first. I thought old "Spiny" was well and truly consigned to history. I think I sculpted him in 1982, or 1983 but couldn't swear to it. It was certainly before my allergy to epoxy caused me to switch to Fimo [Kegox, Mordax, etc]- Spiny was sculpted in 'Green Stuff'. He was my rebellion against all those dragons with silly flappy little wings and no musculature to use them. I wanted to sculpt a believable dragon, as anatomically correct as possible with proper wings and the musculature to use them - something that looked like it really existed, Structural anatomy has always been an interest of mine - how can you sculpt a subject without understanding the underlying skeleton and musculature? It gives the surface texture it's form. At the time, he wasn't hugely popular - a lot of people simply didn't get it. So I'm chuffed that somebody likes him now! 

I did a painted diorama with a tweaked Spiny back then - how I would have sculpted him, if casting wasn't an issue. It won the professional class at the first ever Golden Demon awards. I still have it in a box somewhere. If anyone is interested, I'll dig it out and take a picture. One day I will do another "Real" dragon, but in bronze. Well, More power to your collective elbows, and thanks for all the kind words! Best wishes, Nick Bibby.

NB: I think I may have one of the very last Spined Dragon ever produced by Games Workshop - they offered a service in the late 90's/early 00's where they said they could reproduce any model if they still had the mould. I rang up to check if they still had the mould for the Spined Dragon and was pleased to discover they did - I think I paid around £35 for it. Not long after it arrived, I decided to get another but was told that the service had been pulled. 

I still haven't been brave enough to build and paint it though so its still in its box.

Well, there lies the reason why the Spined Dragon is so treasured by so many. The artist who produced the model thought long and hard about the creature, and treated it as a living being, rather than just a fantastic creature. I have said it before, no technique can be a replacement for 'soul'.

I guess the Spined Dragon proves that point once again.

And in case you are wondering what Nick Bibby is up to now, have a quick look at these photographs I took from his website. They show some of his later sculpts in great detail. It seems, in the years since Nick Bibby left GW, he has moved to to become one of the greatest bronze sculptors in the world, with a catalogue of work to make an museum proud.  

Nick Bibby's Snail... I looks real does it? Wouldn't make a perfect old school giant snail for Oldhammer games? I bet this is worth a lot more than I paid for my Spined Dragon though - just look at it! It could be alive!

This is a pretty recent shot of Nick working on an enormous sculpture of a bear. Incredible!

If you want to see more, and I really do recommend that you do, check out his website here by following this link http://nickbibby.com/gallery.php. Before I sign off, imagine this for one moment. In his comment to Spyglass Asylum above, Nick stated that he would one day sculpt and cast a dragon in bronze. If that work of art was anything to the scale and brilliance of what can be seen on his website then, hopefully, the Great Spined Dragon will one day be the second greatest dragon ever sculpted. 

Right, I am off to stick mine together and decide exactly how I am going to approach the base and wings of this fantastic model.

Orlygg.