Dragon Mk-1
So…yup…this is a dragon sculpture, a mixed media art project utilizing clay, aluminium, and canvas and was created in a time span of ….Oh who am I kidding! Its my first dragon model and I am so excited and happy and joyful, oh how great is life!!
The original concept image
To make sure I don’t end up too lost in self-appreciation, I will try my best to be objective from this point onward…..so here we go. First, for the minute number of people who are currently thinking,” Well, actually this creature is a wyvern. A wyvern can be identified by its signature forelimb aviation structure”, to that I say ”Yes, I agree, it isn’t that easy to make friends with non-Lord of the Rings fans”.
The initial clay body-base
The conception of this creature began as a school project for my art class. When we were told we had a free reign over our choice of project I immediately thought “Sculpture!” and that led me to think ”Aren’t dragons cool…?” and here we are.
The mock armour plating to test the fitting
The base structure of this dragon is a wire armature encased in clay. The sculpting was time consuming as I had never done a natural body structure before and being an Indian summer, certain parts would dry up and crack faster then I could work on them, so you can probably imagine how frustrating that would have been. The fact that during this stage it had the honour of having the likeness of an obese chicken did not make it easier to love.
A fascinating thing about this step was the fact that I had to stuff the chest with newspaper, to make sure the body was not too heavy, which always makes me think about the fact that technically if I were to use a strategically placed lighter for long enough, the heat might reach the paper and it would catch fire! Which would mean I would have a SMOKING DRAGON!!! That would be awesome. Though the alternative would be that it would heat up, weaken the joints and the whole thing collapses into a miniature mess, so that has been the thought that has kept me at bay till date.(or-Hence no fire.)
Applying the armour
Another important feature about this model is the metal plating, a.k.a 6-7 cans of sprite and coke that were consumed for “work” purposes. The plating was a bit of a challenge because it’s the first time I had a pre-planned strategy in place involving definite stages. The plating process went through a rough paper draft, followed by thicker density paper after which the final plating was done in aluminium. Now, I agree there are some inconsistencies if you were to look at the armour in a few spots, but…….…I have no reasoning…its true, I was lazy, but just a little bit so I would like you to ask yourself,”Does it really matter? Come to thing of it, does anything? What is the point of it all?”, by the end of which hopefully you would have forgotten about the original problem,Which I just reminded you of, which I had to do to make the joke effective in writing, so it was a catch-22 from the start.
The last part of this project were the wings, and in all honesty, the only reason I chose to stitch canvas was because it seemed worth a try at that time. It was still fun to do though, so no regrets there.
Without a doubt, the most fun component was the tail blade. It started as a minor detail but slowly became my favourite part of the model and kind of felt like my signature addition to the concept of an armoured dragon and I am pretty happy with my result.