At the end of Part 1, I left off just after inserting 3 facial horns, adding more detail to the eyes, and snout.
After adding in the top horns, I did the same thing in his mouth for teeth. Chose 4 of my little teeth/horn/claw bits that matched, and used the same method to insert them. I only put in 4 total, because I didn't want a huge mouthful of teeth. As the artist, that was my choice ;). I also took two small balls of the pinkish clay mix I used for the underside of his mouth/tounge, and using the rounded end of a tool, gently flattened them in his nostrils.
I wasn't quite done with the details on the face yet, but wasn't entirely sure what to do. I was thinking ahead to the rest of his body, and what I was going to do to texture in some scales. I had seen several ideas and was tossing them around, combinations of them, and leaving his skin smooth.
What I ended up doing was a bit of an experiment... but hey, this whole sculpt is one big experiment! I took another small, and I'm talkin', TINY, snake of translucent sculpey, and flattened the bottom against my work tile. The whole thing was maybe 2 inches long, and barely 1/16th inch in diamater. I wanted very, very small scales to layer on his snout to give more dimension, interest, and reptilian feel.
Turned out rather cool! It took a LOT of time to do even just this little bit, and keep in mind there's 2 sides. So what I did on one, I repeated on the other. They don't match, but that makes it more real, IMO.
My next step, was to figure out what type of "Big Horns" this guy was going to have. Surprisingly enough, there was no argument here from the dragon in question when I decided to use a piece of extra wire snipped off from when I was making his armature. This piece was about 2 inches long, and had been wrapped around another piece and then removed, so it was quite twisted and curled in a wonderful way. I took another piece from the spool and started randomly curling and twisting it so it was different in shape, but similar in style to the original one. I cut it to as close to the same length as the first, and proceeded to cover them with clay.
This was actually somewhat difficult as the clay would not stick very well to the wire, so after pulling the clay off a few times I coated them in a very thin layer of TLS, re-ran the clay through the pasta machine to get it very soft and pliant, and started again. I'm using untinted SS for the horns.
Well, that made it worse. The TLS just made things slip and slide more. So, the clay came off the wire again, and I wiped down the wire with some rubbing alchohol and q-tips, and conditioned the clay ... again.
That time was a charm as I tried a different way of things. Instead of creating a snake with a big slit to insert the wire into, I made a small sheet, and wrapped it around the wire like a blanket. As I pushed the clay to follow the twists and turns of the wire, it started working and sticking much easier. Maybe it was the alcholol bath to? I'll have to try that again next time I cover bare wire with clay.
Once the wire was completely covered, save for a small bit on the bottom end to insert into the dragon's head, I took one of my favorite tools, the end of a cheap kids paintbrush, and started to texture the clay slightly by beating a bit with the paintbrush. I didn't want the clay smooth - I wanted craters and bumps and ridges and a very natural looking texture.
Afterwards, I was looking at them, thinking the texture was great, but the color was BORING. So out came the Pearlex powders. I had never used them before, and this seemed like as good a time as any to try them out.
As you can see, they turned out quite colorful! They went in the oven for 10 minutes to bake while supported by the ever handy empty & trusty toilet paper roll. (Sometimes its the best thing to use to prop things up while baking. I've seen them used to hold up all sorts of sculptures! *giggle*)
When the horns came out and were cool, I gently rubbed my finger against them to see if the powders would rub off ... and not a single fleck came off. So, while I had the powders out, I also dusted the newly formed facial scales with some of the light green sparkly powders for more color dimension. Since they were not going to rub off, it opened up all sorts of other uses for them.
So now that we have our horns, how to attach them to our dragon's head without it falling nose first into my work surface, and getting himself a broken nose?
Ah. ;) Gotta love that empty TP roll. It was a bit tricky getting the horn to stick into the head, so another stab with a long needle tool, some more TLS (just a tiny squeeze), and some more translucent sculpey rolled around the base to help secure the rather large, heavy horn. This method also allows for some repositioning after its in, just have to be careful to keep the clay 'donut' around the base from gaping open.
The above picture shows the horns in two different stages of attatchment. The horn on the left is already attatched with the above method, and the one on the right shows the build up of clay to mimic a large bony growth to support the horn much like a elk or large deer would have. There is a small, but deep, hole in the center of that top green disk which the wire fits into, and then the donut of translucent clay wraps around the base of the horn. Clear as mud? Good.
Now at this point, there wasn't much else I wanted to do with the head. It was almost 8 days work (after dinner, most nights, till between 1-3 am) to get to this point, and I was about ready to move on to the body. But first we have to bake it. I added a touch more TLS over the eyes to give them more depth and gloss, as well as brushing the entire head with the green pearlex powder for shiney scales. I also finished the texturing of the rest of his head by taking the ball point stylus and gently tapping it against the clay for little craters and hills.
If you look closely enough, you will see that the 'body' is taped with masking tape to a glass baking dish to help support the head and horns. I also had to tape the toilet paper rolls to the glass to keep them from slipping. I had to adjust the horns some at this point to make sure they were in the perfect places, as they tended to move around a bit, not to mention droop from the weight. I baked him for 30 full minutes at 270, then let him cool in the oven.
The next step, which I didn't photograph very well, was to cover the rest of him in his green clay.
I added a spine ridge for future decorations, and smoothed the clay out.
This is as far as I have gone so when I work on him more I'll update again.
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