The Dragon and the George

Around Christmas 2025 I did a bit more work on my 1987 boxed dragons collection, having previously only painted the Green Dragon (almost a decade ago). This is one of my all-time favourite model ranges – I remember seeing them on the shelves of my local games shop when I was too young to get into painting lead miniatures. As well as the fantastic artwork, the boxes included a short story:

‘Are you sure this is going to work?’

‘Oh, do shut up, Bandrinas,’ snapped Rhiannon Demonfriend.  Only her testy manner betrayed her true age; she looked no older than thirty.  ‘We need to get into that tomb, right?’ – her apprentice nodded – ‘And that idiot court magician rumbled us, and the tomb is now surrounded by several hundred yokels from the local militia.  So we need some way of dealing with them, right?’

In the Blue Dragon box there are two miniatures: a sorceress, Rhiannon Demonfriend, and a relatively small dragon. I continued the approach I’d previously taken with the dwarf from the Green Dragon box, reflecting my planned colour scheme for the dragon on the sorceress’ robes and staff. I used darker blues for the robes and lighter blues for the staff than I ended up using on the dragon, which I think brings some nice variety to the pair, and freehand painted some simple stars.

‘But why me?  Couldn’t you summon an army of skeletons or something?’

‘Look,’ said Rhiannon, with the air of someone explaining to a very small child, ‘We’re out in the wilds.  There isn’t a graveyard for miles and miles.  Where are the skeletons going to come from?’

‘Now don’t get me wrong,’ ventured Badrinas cautiously, ‘But isn’t that a tomb over there?’

‘And how are we going to get at the bodies?’

‘Ah.’

The Blue Dragon is a wonderful sculpt, with a characterful face and lots of nobbles and details. I’m particularly fond of the medallion, partly because it links the model to the story on the box, and partly because I love 1980s Citadel Miniatures with medallions. I slightly regret fully assembling this before painting it, because there are more steep corners than I realised, but I’m very happy with the end result (the intense blue is just a final, fairly heavy glaze with the out of production Guilliman Blue Glaze).

One of the books is inscribed with the text “The Dragon and the George”, which is the title of a real novel by Gordon R. Dickson, and one of the main inspirations behind the film Flight of Dragons, which is probably one of the main reasons I’m such a fantasy nerd today. I was lucky enough to pick up a first edition copy of the other inspiration, Peter Dickinson’s 1979 book illustrated by Wayne Anderson, in a second hand bookshop about 20 years ago.

‘Er, this spell…’ said Badrinas after a pause, ‘What does it do, exactly?’

‘Oh, you wouldn’t understand.  It’s far too advanced for an apprentice.’

‘Well, couldn’t you give me a general idea?  After all, it’s me you’re going to cast it on.’ Rhiannon looked up from her books and sighed.

I suppose after talking about the box, I should show it. Apologies for the washed-out colour and shaky cropping – I’ll try to do a better job for the next one. The font is the same used for the video game Dragon’s Lair and Matthew Robbins’ 1981 movie Dragonslayer. I believe this was hand drawn for either the game or the movie, so it was presumably re-drawn for these boxes. It’s interesting to think of a time when intellectual property wasn’t such a fact of life in miniature design and other media.

‘It will make you more powerful,’ she explained, ‘You’ll be able to scatter those yokels, and then we can get what we want and go home.  All right?’ Badrinas looked considerably happier.

‘Why didn’t you say so?’ he asked, ‘What will I be able to…’ Suddenly there was a bright blue flash.

‘… do to them, then?’ said a large blue dragon, in Badrinas’ voice.  Badrinas medallion and chain hung incongruously from its scales.

‘Well, don’t just sit there,’ snapped Rhiannon.  Go and get them!’

I’ll finish with a photo of the two together. I’ve got two more dragons to upload later in the month (or early next month, depending on time): Tom Meier’s Zombie Dragon, and Citadel’s second Great fire Dragon.