Creating a dragon head

 Looks like the last time I posted on this blog was WAAAY back in May 2012. LOL! 

Yeah, I tend to drop off the face of the earth from time to time. Keeping a journal or blog is a time sink and honestly sucks! So maybe I'll continue to update this here blog and maybe I'll just disappear for another nine or so years. 

So yeah, I mostly have not been keeping this blog as most of my time has been spent on bonsai and pottery. I have another blog where I talk about those things, but even that blog had a good chunk of time where I wasn't posting shit. Oh well. 

Creating a dragon head

So hopefully in the future I'll be able to update this post with some pictures. My explanations will make a lot more sense 

I'm going to try to document the process I use for creating a dragon head. I really doubt anyone would be able to use this to actually create a dragon head, but it might help me if I forget what I did. 

Start with a base shape for the head and mouth. It just so happens that the overall shape of a dragon's head and mouth is a cone, so create a cone using the pinch pot method. Keep the walls relatively thick, yet not too too thick. 

Once your cone is relatively symmetrical, use your thumbs to roughly shape out the eye sockets. Try to keep the sockets symmetrical. Work to push up the clay from the eye sockets to build up the brow ridges. At the same time, you'll want to press down on the nasal and frontal area, helping to give some shape to the skull.

Next, I'll use a clay cutting wire to open the mouth on the skull. This will create the lower jaw as well as the muzzle  portion of the skull. It will look stupid, it's totally fine! Use your thumb to flatten out the throat area in your lower jaw. Refine and shape the muzzle and upper jaw area. 

Use wet snakes of clay to build up the following (in the following order):  

Lower jaw. The idea is to give your dragon a more fierce looking jaw line.

Nose and nostrils. This will add height to the muzzle and interest to the face

Lower lip. They don't have to be thick full lips. 

Upper lip. The dragon is baring is teeth and about to strike! Give that upper lip a snarl. 

Throw a couple eyeballs in them eye sockets. I prefer a dragon with big, bulgy eyes, but if you want to make smaller, beady eye, hey you be you!

Use wet snakes of clay to create eye lids. First the lower then the upper. 

Create head flanges/horns. These can be construed as either. I make 3 pair: 

Orbital

Mid face

Lower jaw

Not sure how to describe the process. It just happens with me. 

Create frontal horns. I like to make these twisty. 

Create teeth. I've done this all sorts of ways. Some with tusks. Generally what works best is to create a set of upper and lower fangs like a viper would have. I then add a set up upper and lower secondary fangs. 

Create tongue. Long and skinny works really well. Connect the base of tongue as close to the base of the back of the throat as you can. Get some movement on that tongue. Have it undulate up and down. Carefully use the downturns to attach tongue to base. Be really careful around your teeth. Don't wanna break them at this point!

Now it's time to add details to your dragon head!

That's about all I'm going to say for now. I might do more later. Hopefully I'll add some pictures so this makes sense.

I started doing clay again at Mishy's. I called her last week, asked if I could do some work around the studio for my clay fees. She of course agreed.
Mishy's a true hippie. Does not like to throw things away. She's a strong proponent of the 'why buy it when we can make it' philosophy. She has all sorts of odds and ends gathered around her studio. This of course extends to people - all sorts of odds and ends.
I took a couple of the monkeys with me on Saturday and we attacked a rock pile she wanted moved. We managed to do an hour, maybe two of work before the heat got to be too much. We regained our composure tried one last time, and decided the heat was just unbearable. The funny thing is that it hasn't really gotten hot yet. It was only 98.
Mishy gave me a bag of clay to get started. Was too exhausted to do anything yesterday, except nap. Managed to get in a bit of clay work in today before work. I did a pot and a small mask.
The pot is basically a modified octopus pot. I kept the legs low and splayed out, sort of like a star fish. I also added six petals around the top, with six horns in the center of each petal. Not quite sure what the end result will be.
The small mask is more or less a laughing skull coming out of a plaque, with fangs, an exposed tongue, and devil horns. Just something I did with some of the leftover clay.
Today's projects were more or less a small refresher in shaping the clay. I was just flexing the creative process, making sure everything is still good. Yeah I think I'm good.
I have some ideas on what I want to do, just don't want to go over the same thing over and again.

I just received official notice that the Phoenix Faerie Festival will not be happening this year. The actual news is that it's been postponed until next year, but the effect is still the same. Reasons quoted are to allow event coordinators to regroup and re-energize.
I know there's been some logistics that seem to be playing against this fest. The event tries to take place in a wooded or treed area. Yes these places exist here in Phoenix! It seems we are having difficulties acquiring a good location, and when we do, it just comes down to too many regulations coming in and wrecking a good thing.
Of course it's more complicated than that, but that's my war. Logistics be damned, I want my fest!
So... okay, I now have almost TWO YEARS to plan for the next fest. Somehow I have to keep my creative juices flowing and not think about how much this really sucks eggs. And if I do come up with something creative and butt kicking, I still have to figure out how to keep it intact without breaking it. And in the interim, I'll just have to find another venue to sell my wares, but I don't know where. Maybe this is just too much for me. Perhaps I'll just hang my hat and forget escaping for a bit into fantasy altogether.
Perhaps, but perhaps not. I know myself enough to know that I could give two snots whether I actually sell my shit or not. Of course it's always nice to sell your crap, but sales aren't really what drive me. I'd be doing this even without the Faerie Fest. I could always argue that there's still the Phoenix First Fridays, but that seems to have gone away as well.
So back to my creations. More to the point, my lack of creations! LOL! Seems I've been too busy doing nothing lately to actually do anything. I have a bunch of small projects waiting for my return to the creation table and get them back up and going. Meh, it's winter, though you wouldn't know it by the unusually warm weather. It's the season of rebirth. Out with the old Oak King, in with the Holly King! Actually its currently a time where the old Oak King sleeps, awaiting His rebirth as the Holly King, but I digress... My point is that its the season of rebirth, where all greenery is in deep slumber awaiting the awakening in the spring. Perhaps I'm more in tune with the seasons than I realize and my creative juices are merely sleeping, awaiting their spring revival.
Perhaps. All my beloved little ficus trees are all fast asleep outside, waiting on the spring. Its a bit difficult to get into the spirit of bonsai creativity when everything has retreated into their dreaming states. Try as I can, I cannot bring myself to do anything creative. I have plenty of different clays, but no will to work it.

Did I mention I've been busy?

Most of the things in the studio have been fired. Still waiting a few items to be raku fired, but other than that, I'm done for the season.

I've been turning and burning, taking pictures of items as they come out of the kiln, and putting them on my etsy shop.

I've also been potting up as much stuff as possible. Did I mention things have been growing like weeds? Been busy wiring things up and getting them ready. There's been some really great surprises hidden amongst the vines.

Once I get everything all potted up, I'll be turning my attention over to a few epoxy clay projects I have lined up. They're literally lined up my project table, waiting!

soo.... I've been in the studio.

Busy busy.

The one octopus pot that was hiding in the studio still hasn't been fired. Soon, I imagine. I have multiple octopus pots that I'm going to high fire (cone 10). Still awaiting the dragon high fire. Very anxious to see how they turn out.

As of this writing, I have two fish sculptures and three or four pots on the raku shelf, waiting to dance in the raku kiln. The pots harken back a few years ago, when I was going for pots with ultra-smooth surfaces. I'm doing these based on a request. All raku pieces have my trademark combination of raku and low-fire crystal glazes.

I decided to ignore the broken pieces. For now. So much to do, so little time.

Awaiting their bisque firing are multiple pots: a couple 'turk' pots, a couple round pots, two 'primitive' pots, a 'rocket' pot, a couple free form pots, a couple of fish sculptures, and a couple of goblin heads.

In case anyone cares, I'm back from vacation mode. I went to San Diego for a week with the family, did the whole Sea World and beach thing. For a week I was very active, being out and about from about 10am until 10pm. Just non stop activity. Lots of eating, but lots and lots and being active.

So now I'm back to work. And I'm back to the clay studio. Most importantly, I'm back to creating as much clay as possible. I had with me one octopus clay pot that I recently did, along with a smaller piece. I took it in to the Dragon, and hand built a few more items:

two fish
an octopus pot
Mishy pointed out that I had a few pieces that I had forgotten about, so I also had a few pieces to glaze:
an octopus pot with horns
two dragon heads
a sea urchin pot
a primitive dragon whistle
a couple of sea slugs
a broken fish

I used high fire glaze on the octopus pot. One of the dragon heads was a little broken (tongue was broken). Rather than toss this item, I decided to experiment a little. I dipped this dragon head in high fire Robin Egg glaze. I then used a sponge to remove most of the glaze from the raised edges, highlighting the details of the dragon head. I'm really anxious to see how this will turn out!

The other pieces I will get to eventually. The other dragon head will most likely be raku fired, the sea urchin might go high fire. As for the broken fish, we'll see. Maybe I'll use it to experiment.

I'm on vacation

If anyone is reading my blog, you might have noticed my etsy shop link is blank.
Aaaand if you haven't noticed, I haven't posted much to my blog.
I'm on vacation mode. What can I say, it's hot. Hotter than snot. So I'm taking a vacation. Not a long one, but a long one by my standards. I've also pre-paid my dues for the month of August, so I'll be in the studio as long as I can, working on clay.
So I won't be posting much, if any. Not until September maybe. Even now, this post has taken me 90 minutes to list this much. Very distracted.
But I promise I'll be back with a lot more. Might even post once in a while, but not a lot of substance. Not until I'm BACK!

Monterey Chicken

Monterey Chicken
For a change, I thought I'd include a recipe for the Monterey Chicken dinner I made tonight:

Monterey Chicken
4-6 chicken breasts, each cut into 3-4 thin strips
1/4 cup olive oil
2-3 cups Monterey cheese
one package of bacon
fresh corn tortillas
2 cups of tomatillo sauce (recipe follows)

Garnish:
diced roma tomatoes
diced green onions
Mexican sour cream
Queso Cotija

Preheat oven to 425.
Prep the grill with REAL mesquite wood. If you do not have mesquite wood, QUIT!
Prepare the tomatillo sauce, keep warm.
Cook bacon until lightly brown. Not too crispy.

Marinate the chicken in olive oil, sprinkling with salt and pepper. Cook over mesquite wood until just brown. The wood should be nice and HOT. Do not overcook! We're trying to just cook it, but we're really just after the smokey flavor.
Chop strips into bite sized strips. Place into 13x9 baking dish. Add bacon bits all over. Smother with plenty of sauce and LOTS of Monterey cheese. You might need more cheese. Toss into hot oven on the top rack for about 30 minutes. You're just trying to melt the cheese, but a little charring of the cheese will only add flavor!

Lightly fry the corn tortillas in oil until they are soft (about 20 seconds per tortilla. Oil should be HOT, or you'll end up with a pile of torn up tortillas.

To serve: Place one or two fried tortillas on the side of a plate. Serve up a nice mound of rice and beans on the side. Plate up the chicken and sauce on the tortillas. Add garnishes of your choice.


Tomatillo Sauce:
2 lbs tomatillos
1/4 cup dried chile de arbol
4-6 chile serranos
1/4 cup cilantro
2 teaspoons finely chopped garlic
1/2 sweet onion (vidalia is my choice)
2-3 teaspoons vinegar
1-1 1/2 teaspoons salt
Chicken broth

over mesquite grill, blacken tomatillos, onions, serranos and chile de arbol. Once well blackened, process along with the rest ingredients in blender or food processor. Add up to 1/2 cup chicken broth to thin down sauce.

Cook in medium saucepan for about 30 minutes, or until the sauce is fully cooked, adjusting salt and broth for personal taste

Lessee.... I promised some pictures of some of the vinyl blanks I've been working on. It'll come later. Exhausted at the moment.
I'm off work tomorrow. My little girl is having a party this weekend. Her Birthday is in July but she wants to have an end of the school year party and birthday party now. Bernie noticed that I'm handy with the paintbrush. She asked me to make a 'pin the tail on the donkey', only to make it a Littlest Petshop monkey. I complied. It came out well enough that she then asked me to make a monkey head pinata. Did that today after work. I'll be painting it tomorrow.
So circling back to the pictures I promised of the vinyl blanks... I've been using the magic sculpt to modify golf balls. I finished one and I have three others that need to be painted tomorrow. So that's where I'm at. I have several pieces waiting their final paint jobs. Once that's done, it's picture time, then load to my Etsy shop.
Wait, did I say modified golf balls? Yep. Golf balls. Modified, meaning I add some magic sculpt. Then paint them up. Why golf balls? Because they're cheap! I bought a dozen for about $2. Plus I make two or three items at once, so I feel accomplished.
Looks like I'm going to be busy tomorrow, painting stuff up. We'll see how it goes.

I've been doing blanks more than anything lately. Doing is a relative term; I haven't done shit in about a week. I ordered some magic sculpt and I've been waiting for it to get here before doing anything. What *IS* magic sculpt?
http://www.magicsculp.com/
I can't find my own words for this stuff, I'm at a loss for words. AWESOME begins to describe what I think about it, but way beyond that. It's forcing me to rethink the sculpting process. It's a two part epoxy clay that sets in about 2-3 hours. When you first mix it, it's a bit difficult to work. Has the consistency of marshmallow cream, but as it sets, it gets stiffer.
The odd thing is that it's supposedly safe to use with bare hands. The instructions advise to wash your hands before and after handling. It also has a slightly unpleasant smell. Sort of like bad BO.
Bernie bought a vinyl toy blank. I used the top part, which was round, and about the size of a baseball. I started a Cthulhu-esque octopus with sculpey, making the tentacles, oversized beak, and eyes. I used the magic sculpt to create horns, which are becoming wings, and to cover the ball in its skin.
I have two other semi-finished vinyl blanks. Semi-finished in that I've created the face, but I still don't know what to do with the bodies. One is supposed to be wearing a mask. The other is a kitsune wearing kabuki makeup.
Pictures to follow.

I decided to do another vinyl toy blank. This one started life as a small kitty blank. I was trying to keep it as a cat, but a demented cat. The grin was too dragon-esque, the ears became horns and before I knew it, the head had morphed into a Quetzacoatl Temple Lion....

I decided my MUNNY was a bit too expensive for my first attempt at DIY vinyl toys. I looked around and found these:
http://www.colorblanks.com/toys/
Color blanks. DIY viny toys, but at very cheap price. I also found another DIY vinyl toys by brand Doodle Buds. I bought a bunch of the color blanks and doodle budz at various sizes. All combined they cost about as much as my one Munny!
I wanted to experiment, see if I could bake sculpy on these guys without melting them. I found some instructions at instructables.com that mentioned you could cure the sculpy at 200, so I tried that. The sculpy didn't quite set at 200, so I turned up the oven to 225. This is only 50 degrees cooler than what sculpy should set at. However, the vinyl toy was VERY wobbly, on the verge of melting. But it was successful! I was able to add some sculpy pieces. I decided to set the detail sculpy with my hot air gun. This combination gave pretty good results.
I really wanted to take a picture of the before subject and take some pictures as it came together. I painted up my test subject and put the finishing touches before I could take pictures. It came together THAT quickly. I created a small top hat and scythe for it. I took pictures before I put the final clear coat, but you get the idea.
So what have I found? You CAN use sculpy on vinyl, but you have to be really careful.

I've posted both finished dragons on my etsy shop. Speaking of which, I decided to combine both etsy shops into one.

yay.

Go to my etshy shop now. Look at my finished product. Marvel at the genius of love that is me. Buy shitloads of stuff from my shop.

I'm taking this blog too much to heart. Last Thursday was my day off. I was looking for this place called red hot robot:

http://www.redhotrobot.net/

My youngest is going through potty training and I promised him a robot if he had two days with no accidents. Was looking for red hot robot, got lost. Finally located it, but along the way I picked up a copper pipe and some fittings. I made two blowguns for my older boys. I picked up the robot for the youngest, but I also picked up a munny for myself:

http://www.kidrobot.com/Toys/DoItYourselfToys/MUNNYWORLDminiMUNNY4InchWhiteEdition.html

I plan to modify the life out of this little guy and make something fun.

My son LOVED the robot I got. It's an old old school wind up tin toy. He sleeps with it and he's about as careful as a 3 year old can be with such a thing, but it's only a matter of time before he breaks it.

Hey I found pictures of the snake dragon in progress, so I'll be posting them:
There's a couple of body shots from different vistas to get an idea of what I was trying.
There's also a couple of close up shots of the claws so you can see the wire armature and clay claws.
Though you can see the FEEL of the finished product, the pre-built up aluminium section looks different. Sort of like seeing it's skeleton.

My day off today. I finally have a day to craft out. Work on my clay. Spit some shit out.
Bernie had other plans. She went to the dentist early in the morning, had me watch for the plumber. Me and Hunter watched 'How to Train Your Dragon'. The plumber was a no show. Bernie finally gets back from the dentist. We have breakfast together and I take a shower. NOW the plumber shows up. Forgot the cardinal rule: if you want to summnon a plumber, take a shower.
By now it's 11am, and I haven't bent a wire. Haven't kneaded any clay. No worries, the day is still early. Bernie asks me to work on her gallery glass project, so I do a few designs for her. While they dry, she reminds me that we need to get groceries. We go to several stores. She takes me out for a late lunch. By the time we get out, it's time to pick up Chelsea, head home and start dinner.
I forget what we ate, I wasn't hungry. I usually don't eat as much as I do on my days off with Bernie. Dinner comes and goes. By now, Bernie's gallery glass designs are dry so I prep the window and apply. It's a lotus and koi design. I get distracted with Bernie's project, and most of my evening is gone.
I'm still determined to start the armature on my next clay project. It is my day off after all, so it's now or never. I spit out a dragon frog armature and start on the aluminum foil filler. My biggest challeng is the belly. A proper fragon (frog-dragon= fragon) needs a big, fat belly.
I was able to get in a good 45 minutes today for my projects, altogether. But I was able to create the wings for my serpentine dragon and get a good start on my next project.

I 'finished' my red dragon. I'm still not satisfied, might do more finishing work on it, but it's basically finished. I haven't gotten around to taking pictures of the finished dragon with the wings attached. As soon as I do, I'll probably post it on etsy.
Did some more work on my second dragon. Mostly built up the arms with foil. I'm proscratinating doing the legs because I'm considering ideas.
I made an extra set of claws and a bunch of eyes, horns, teeth, more claws. I wanted to make a smaller dragon using those claws. The idea being to emphasize the size of the claws.
Back to my second dragon.... I don't know what to do about the back legs!
My solution was to create a Naga - a humanoid with a snake like body. That is, a humanoid dragon with a snake like body. It should have a face similar to the Red Dragon and wings.
some picture will be posted later. Maybe.

Did some more work on my polymer clay dragons. Mostly on the face. I'm trying multiple techniques on different dragons. I've tried creating a skull, to which I add the eyes then the teeth. The other technique I'm trying is where I create the eyes, horns and teeth first, to which I add some clay and build up the features.
Wish I had some pictures to document the process, but I'm short on time.
I did manage to get one red dragon mostly done. I finished the wings and still need to finish the paint.
I'm including pictures of both dragons. I'll include finished pictures, with the real wings attached later on the red dragon.

I'm really tired. Made some cheese enchiladas. Smothered in sauce. And cheese. Then some cream on top, chopped olives and onions. More cheese. Had a healthy side of rice and beans. Beans had crumbled cheese. It was absolutely tasty, heavy, cheesy, and... tasty. I only had two, but I also made a very tasty bowl of guacamole. MMMM....
I've been working on the dragon arms and legs. The ones I'm making look more humanish, but I'll make it work. Originally I wanted to make very pronounce forearms with thinner upper arms. Somewhat like Gundam wing or robotech. The upper arms became beefier than I wanted. I'll post more pictures later. Maybe tomorrow, once I digest those enchiladas!

Sold my aquarium today. It was a nice aquarium. I'll try to include some pictures. It was a planted aquarium with lace rock, driftwood, and some small peaceful fish. I won't mention what I paid for it, but it was enough to pay for my vendor fees for the Fairy Fest in November. I really liked that tank, but I really want to go to the fest that much more. I sold the last of my telescope eyepieces to help pay for the vendor fees, but my other computer took a dump and had to get a motherboard. I used some of the leftover money to buy some acrylic paints and super sculpey.
Speaking of sculpey, I included some pictures of the claws on wire armature. I bake these on, then add some flesh to the bones. I've also include some pictures of wings that I've made with cellophane and wire.
Funny thing, I kept my albino bushy nose plecos from the tank that I sold, and I kept some of the baby guppies, but I miss my tank.
I'll try to sell some more things so I can pay for my studio fees. I'll also need some $$ to pay for supplies for even MORE creations. I really need to get to Mishy's some time and do more clay.

I'm currently working on some polymer clay dragons. I have several that I'm working on at once. My mind just works better when I can try different ideas at once. I was working on short necks and long necks, thin bodies versus thicker, gorilla like bodies.
I'm also trying different techniques on hands and feet, but it's basically the same. I create a skeleton of claws to which I build up with clay. I'm adding clay to the end of thin wire armature for the hands, then building it up from there. A little difficult to explain.
I found a link somewhere for making wings with heat shrink cellophane. I've modified it slightly for the galvanized wire I'm using.
Looking over my notes here, it sounds like bullshit. I think the best thing to do is to add some pictures to document what I'm doing. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow, but that's low on my list of priorities.
Still working on other stuff, but I'll post that as I get to it. Maybe.