Anyone make dragon statues?

[Jax]

I remember seeing on the OKT some people who did some lovely bits of artwork, and am surprised noone has posted pics in here of some of the stuff they've made! :D
I remember seeing someone mention something about making a statue soon, last week.. was that you Bronzie? Or is my sievehead pulling stuff out of thin air?? :confused: LOL

[Monkeysrule]

It's Levallia.

I make dragon sculptures out of polymer clay. In fact, I just finished doing six hatching dragons (one of each color including Ruth) and a couple Ruths. But I have no way of posting them here (how do you scan a sculpture??:roll: ).

[Jax]

Hmmm, what's wrong with taking pics of them and posting pics? Do you have a digital camera or a plain camera? If it's a plain one you can get pics printed off onto CD and post them here that way! :D

[Monkeysrule]

My dad has a digital camera, but he never seems to have enough time to teach me how to use it.

[Levallia]

I can help you there monkeysrule! I just happen to be the head photographer of my school's annual staff, and am well versed in many camera models. All I need are a few answers. 1. Does the camera have a dial little pictures on it, or does it just have buttons? 2. Does it have an lcd screen? 3. What is the main thing you're having trouble with? I'll help as best as I can, though it's gonna' be a little tough without me being able to see the camera, we should be able to work it out though because the basics of most digital cameras are pretty much the same.

I just sent 5 pics to Ian so he can post them; I have no idea how to shrink them enough so that they'll fit here. They're all made of polymer clay and I'll tell a little more about their creation once Ian posts them. There are 2 of my Ruth, 1 that shows the whole sculpture and a close up of his face and the firelizard's. There is also a gold and a bronze firelizard, the bronze is a bit dark though because I couldn't use the flash (camera flashes bleach metallic and white so I wasn't able to use it on any of them) and the lighting was bad. Please disregard the clutter in the back, as creativity tends to creat large messes; big, scary messes. Really, I'm scared something is gonna' jump out of my pile of clay, tools, and paint bottles. :erm:

[Monkeysrule]

I know exactly how you feel. Just look at my room.

And I believe Ian will shrink them for you or post a link to them.

[Jax]

Looking forward to seeing them Levalia! :D

Monkey, I hope you do manage to figure out some way so we can have a little looksee!

And I am sure there was someone else I was talking to in person who mentioned that they were going to be doing a statue... :confused:

[Lily]

Some one last year showed pics all the way through the creation of a dragon with outstretched wings and we were able to follow the posing, manufacture of the wings, it was very exciting and the end result quite beautiful
Who was that?

[Bronze-Dragonrider]

I remember seeing on the OKT some people who did some lovely bits of artwork, and am surprised noone has posted pics in here of some of the stuff they've made! :D
I remember seeing someone mention something about making a statue soon, last week.. was that you Bronzie? Or is my sievehead pulling stuff out of thin air?? :confused: LOL
Well I was *planning* to make one, if I ever got the funds for the materials. I need an oven big enough to bake it though...

I found an excellant tutorial site for sculpting, and I hope that I can get around to it one of these days.

*edit* here's the site >> :D (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=18287) It's a very long thread, but well worth it for all the great insight it gives.

[Jax]

I think that was DaMaMisKa but she didn't make it over here Lily I don't think.... :sad:

[Jax]

Aahh I'm glad I wasn't making it up Bronzie! I guess we'll have to keep our eyes peeled and wait and see if you can do it sometime :D

[Levallia]

I'd like to see it, Bronzie! I bet you'll make a great sculpture. About the oven, sometimes art departments at universities will let you use theirs, I almost had to do that with a very tall dragon I made a couple of years ago so I looked into things like that. Is it going to be really tall, or is it the wingspan that's the problem? If the wings are just too long, try baking it at an angle so that it fits in the oven, that's what I had to do with my Ruth sculpture; or, if all else fails, try making the wings seperate and baking them thoroughly before baking the rest of the body, then stick them into the dragon's sides where you want them (leave deep imprints), bake the dragon, and glue them in with a VERY strong glue. I'm planning one with a huge wingspan too, so I'll probably have to take it somewhere to get it baked. But, proper positioning should do it, that's how I fit Ruth's 16-and-a-half inch wingspan into about a 14 inch wide oven and still had room left over. Good luck! :good:

[Bronze-Dragonrider]

Well I'd like to make him at *least* 2 feet long, but I'd like to make it 3. I'm planning on making moulds for silicone models after I do the sculpture, so unfortunately I can't sculpt it in an interesting pose, it would have to be a straight rigid stance. I'd have to make an outstretched wingspan, so it would be roughly between 2.7 and 4.7 feet wide. I'd never thought of asking to use one at a university... I have a College right here in town, they may be able to help, thanks! :D

Can I ask what sort of clay you used for your sculptures and what the price range of it is for the amount of clay needed? I just want to know a basic ballpark range for how much I need to save.

[Levallia]

That's gonna' be a BIG dragon :eek: . I use Sculpey brand polymer clay and it costs about $5 for 1.25 pounds. I only used 1.5, maybe 2 boxes for my Ruth and his base. Surprising isn't it? Maybe you know this already but, the trick is to fill 'em with tin foil. Make the foil cores for the head and body to save money on clay, save the clay itself, and make the sculpture bake properly (if it's too thick, the outside will cook but the inside will stay soft). Everything I know about clay, I learned from Katherine Dewey's book, "Creating Life-Like Animals in Polymer Clay", I hope to get her newest book on making people soon :D . If there's anything else I can help you with, don't hesitate to let me know. :)

[queenrider melody]

Hmm... maybe I should make one. It would be interesting.

[Levallia]

Go for it! It's lots of fun, except for the wings :faint: SO much series baking!

[Monkeysrule]

I finally have my clays loaded onto my computer. Unfortunately, the files are HUGE, and they would not load onto here nor would they get to Ian when I tried to send them. Levallia, how did you get yours on? I need help...

[Monkeysrule]

I'm surprised it worked. Usually my $@%#@*# email doesn't work right. Never mind about that ;)

[Jax]

What sort of email do you use Monkey? I just recently got gmail and so far it's been great! Some emails have a limit to what size attachment you can have, but as fas as I know, gmail doesn't have that!

[Monkeysrule]

I use Outlook. What's gmail?

[Jax]

It's an email system set up my the google people, with gads of space - in my hotmail account I currently only have a 2Meg limit, and I have to empty my junk mail every day to make sure I still have space in there for actual messages, whereas in my gmail account I am currently using 11Meg already, after being a member for less than a month, and that 11Meg is only 1% of the limit I can use!

A Google approach to email.

Gmail is an experiment in a new kind of webmail, built on the idea that you should never have to delete mail and you should always be able to find the message you want. The key features are:

*

Search, don't sort.
Use Google search to find the exact message you want, no matter when it was sent or received.

*

Don't throw anything away.
2217.987636 megabytes (and counting) of free storage so you'll never need to delete another message.

*

Keep it all in context.
Each message is grouped with all its replies and displayed as a conversation.

*

No pop-up ads. No untargeted banners.
You see only relevant text ads and links to related web pages of interest
(that number of megabytes is always going up while you're looking at that page)
I think you have to be invited to use Gmail, and I haven't figured out how to do that yet, but there are heaps of people here that have Gmail and would be able to send you an invite!

[C_ris]

if you would like an invite to gmail, monekysrule, or anyone else for that matter, just PM me! :D

[Monkeysrule]

Is it free?

[C_ris]

Is it free?
yup, completely! :D

[Monkeysrule]

Swwwweeeeeettt!!!!

[RobinBradbery]

I think that was DaMaMisKa but she didn't make it over here Lily I don't think.... :sad:

I finally made it over here. :woohoo: I'm just me now, not DaMaMiska. I'm flattered you remembered me. :blush2:

I just finished my little hatchling dragon sculpture. He is a cutie if I do say so myself. I'll post pictures in a new thread.

[Jax]

Of course we remember Robin! Nice to see you made it over to us!
Many of us followed your statue's creation with great awe and amazement!
Welcome home!! ;) :heartbeat {{{{{{{{{{{snugsels}}}}}}}}}}}}

[RobinBradbery]

Awwww thanks for the welcome. I feel all warm and fuzzy, :heartbeat I can't believe I missed this site all this time. :banghead: