Autumn Asian Dragon

[merimask]

Well, I finished my newest Asian dragon plaque and I'm quite pleased with it.

It's another commission piece, but I was given a lot of leeway by the client (a wonderful person who knows that letting me run with an idea often results in fun stuff).   He wanted an Asian dragon like my Cherry Blossom dragon, but with fall leaves instead.  I went a step further and did the sculpted branches too (which was the only part about the koi plaque that I liked).  I was SO careful sculpting and laying them out...I even did a mock-up before I started glueing, laying everything in its place and photographing it for reference.  All the caution paid off though...I feel like this one's doing what I wanted it to do.

I let myself go a little and added all kinds of fun embellishments to the face and spine.  I even found some lovely dyed golden pearls for the eyes, which I think totally work.

Fun fun!

So, now it's on to  the wave dragon, which has developed into a real challenge.  I'm out of "big" leather...all I had was smaller scraps so my waves have gotten smaller and quadrupled in number.   It's hard to say, but in my head I'm picturing it with color and I think all the frilly whitecaps against the blue/purple/green/aqua waves are going to look really neat.  It's a HUGE project though.  Just gigantic.  I did my cutting and sculpting and mock-up layout tonight.

The dragon is the only piece that's actually finished...except I haven't added the floopy embellishments to the face or spine yet.  I did the eyes though; dyed pearls again except these have a silvery cast to them.  The waves are still all in raw leather...but if you can imagine them with color you'll see where I'm going.  I'm painting the waves now, but it's going to take a long time.  I'll be lucky if I finish this one by Friday.

Not going to do anything else with it tonight though.  I took a sleepy pill because I have a busy day tomorrow.  Guys are coming to remodel the bathroom (yay!) which is sorely in need of a facelift.   I can work on the waves tomorrow while the construction is going on, it'll give me something to do.

In other news:  Steve Irwin's widow was interviewed by Barbara Walters tonight and I shouldn't have watched it  'cause she broke my heart.  :-(

Comments

[pzb.livejournal.com]

Quite pretty m'dear. :D Glad to see you've gotten back into the swing. And hey, at least the koi wasn't a total waste.... XD You did get the branches out of it. :D

That's really cool to see the raw leather on the wave dragon. :D Can't wait to see it finished.

Hope the remodel has gone well. :D

[merimask.livejournal.com]

Thanks. :-) Yeah I try to learn from every mistake, and I try to always remember the parts that DO work, even in a piece that fails in general. Those branches were fun to make and I'm going to be doing more things with them soon, I think.

"That's really cool to see the raw leather on the wave dragon."

You know...I've often thought it'd be informative and fun if I documented how I build a piece, right from the very beginnng when I get a hide delivered in a box. I could take a picture at every step, from cutting to carving to shaping and painting. Do you think that'd be something interesting?

[pzb.livejournal.com]

*I* would love to see a step by step from you, but then, I'm a total spaz that loves to see work-in-progess shots of people's work... I think it helps me to understand what lengths they go to and the steps they take to get from point A to point B.

Heh....you'd think I'd do more WIP stuff.....but if you saw some of the changes I made......holy crap......