Saturday 8 September 2012

A Dragon is Born

As part of my growing love for Polymer Clay I occasionally pluck up the courage to sculpt.
It is an extremely rewarding process that you find your self totally immersed within.
It is even more rewarding when the piece you have created finds a kindred spirit and is given a new home.
This is a brief over view of how Askook the Dragon was created.

First I chose a pendant to which the creature will live, I love a reasonably deep dish pendant not too large that the creature can rest in and fill a majority of the space.
I then go about conditioning my clay and creating a desirable creature colour, in this case it was a greyish green.
I then create a long snake with a fatter end and a thinner tail like end.




I create the head and then proceed to position him within the pendant.
I had decided prior to making Askook that he would need to be a protector of something and also it helps to fill the space and add and extra element of interest to the pendant.
I have used in this piece a Glass Cabochon called " Dragons Breath"






From here I begin to create features within the body & face to bring the piece to life and give Askook some personality. This takes on a life of its own and you never know what you will personality you will uncover until you begin.







Here you see I have chosen a crystal eye close to the colour of the stone he protecting















Here you can see I have added a horn like ear, a Glass Leaf to act as his wings and some hollow spots to hold the wing in position. I continue on in this manner adding more spots to give him much more of a reptilian style. 
I then created a mix of liquid clay and mica powder to which I poured in to all of the creavices to create a feeling of him being fossilised  This also helps the entire piece stay adhered to the pendant base.




Askook then under went the required baking procedure for Polymer clay. Once he was cooled i applied a new product called swellegant developed by Christie Friessen.
This gave Askook a much more life like feel.


Finished product above, living happily with his new owner.

No comments:

Post a Comment