Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Finished!

Even though I only had a few more hours of work on the Hatchling since the last time I posted before I could call him finished, it still took me nearly an entire month to put in those few hours. (It is the end of our fiscal year at my day job and coping with the year-end details sucked up a lot of my energy.) BUT, here he is at last.


And from the other side.


I finished him off with lots of layers of different colors of acrylic paint. What really made his color come to life was the final glazes of Luminarte's pure pigment powders. You have to be careful with those as a little goes a long way, but I think I got it right this time. You can see the faint wash of Sun Gold on his face in this close up. It's a cool effect.


I owe a huge thank you to Sprite for teaching me her technique for creating skin textures. These show up best in this photo on his hips, thighs, and tail. I need a little more practice with this method, as I tend to squish one side while working on the other, but I'll get it eventually. (If you like baby dragons, or fantasy sculpts in general, you have to check out her blog!)


Sprite also gave me the idea to line the inside of his shell with the illusion of crystals. I don't know how she did hers, but I created mine out of several sizes and colors of shard glass glitter, micromarbles, fine glitter, and thin washes of the luminarte glazes again. I love the way the silver shards catch and reflect the light.


I have always loved dragons - I definitely see more of them in my future!

13 comments:

Linda Fleming said...

Judi, you should be so proud of this piece- it's fantastic! Bravo my friend, you out did yourself!

Sprite said...

Oh Judi it came out wonderful! A fantastic piece indeed. Be very proud, this is great work!! Thank you for the awesome mention too! :) You know I'm looking forward to seeing more!

BIG hugs,
Sprite

Jennifer Rose said...

this is gorgeous! :D

he looks great and love the shiny shell :D

Serena Lewis said...

WOW! He's gorgeous and I love all the extra touches you did too. Well done!

BumbleVee said...

he's great Judi....and what a lot of work you put into him. Yes indeed, ... real life sure has a habit of getting in the way of our fun stuff.....and things take twice as long as they should.

sandy said...

Wow this is beautiful, great job. Love the three column too, I want to do that but I don't want to lose my gadgets...I've tried before and lost them. I know there is a way to save them.

Shashi Nayagam said...

What an awesome sculpt. Judi you should be proud. It turned out fabulous!

MaryO said...

I just wanted to echo what everyone has said about this one, Judi. I don't think I'd be wrong in saying this is one of your all-time best pieces.

Judi W. said...

Have to agree with everyone else - this is magnificent! Bravo!

Carla said...

Just awesome! Love the crystal effect.

Anonymous said...

Can't add much more to what everyone else said, he is fantastic! I need to make another dragon someday too, last one I made was part gourd.

Norma Soulet (AZArtist) said...

Wow, your art piece is Fantastic!

Surpreyes said...

Just amazing!