Dragon Head

Last year I created a dragon head as a prop for the 3rd Annual Eco-Friendly Fashion Show. It was a fairly long process. I first sketched out how I wanted the dragon head to look like and how it would look like on the set. Looking back now, I think I would have created numerous other sketches in different angles to get a clearer idea of how I wanted it to look like. Using newspaper, masking tape, a soda bottle, cardboard, wire, and glue, I constructed the shape of the dragon head. To be honest, I struggled a lot with forming the mouth of the dragon. When I first made it, I thought it was too flat and wide, giving it the appearance of a duck rather than a ferocious dragon. Disappointed, I went back and made the snout more narrow, perhaps too narrow, however I didn't seem to notice it at the time. I tried giving the dragon some texture by paper maching it with some napkins left over from an event. Unfortunately, with the paint applied it resulted that the napkins didn't give it the bumpy rough texture I intended. Painting the dragon was a long process. I mixed various shades of reds, oranges, and blues to get the color I wanted. Looking back now, to make the dragon look more realistic I would have tried to determine where the shadows of the face would be to paint them a darker shade. To make the teeth, I used air-dry clay and attached them with white caulk. I painted them using creamy yellows, dirty greens and mud dry browns. On the day of the event I realized I should have used bolder colors on the teeth to make them more noticeable. Ultimately, I wouldn't consider this to be one of my proudest works, however this process taught me several tips that I should keep in mind when creating another large props.