Dragons, then and now

Recently, at the Warfare event in Reading, I was challenged to assemble a model out of the box and not convert it. I thought I'd have a go at an old metal dragon. Even though it hasn't come from a box, I've not changed anything.

The model is old - mid-90s, I'd have thought - and the design is rather strange: if stretched out, the dragon would be extremely long and thin, more like a snake with limbs that the usual flying dinosaur. For a while, GW used this odd concept as the basis for almost all its dragons: the others had different details, but the same weird S-shaped bodies.

Anyway, what this means is that I can compare the dragon I've just done with another version of the same model I made at least 20 years ago. Let's see if I've got any better.

Here's the dragon from 1998:

And here's the equivalent from 2018:

And from another angle:

and

Well, I'm not sure what to make of that! The red one is more jolly and exciting, although I don't think the blending is quite as good and the base is terrible (and way too small). I seem to have been better at colouring in back then, though, as I didn't leave any black bits showing. Clearly my eyes are failing me in my old age.

The blue one seems more downbeat and moody to me, which obvious reflects my developments as a painter and my adoption of a more sombre palette (or just that I'd run out of red at the time). To be honest, I like them both!