I am genuinely amazed when I end up finishing one of my procrastinating projects.
I started the dragon in September. I was getting into drawing dragons during class, and I also was playing around with Sculpey for the first time in years. So a clay dragon seemed logical enough.
Clay is frustrating. You make a shape, and then you squash it while trying to add the details. You make a head, and squeeze it flat in the process of molding a nose. Somehow, I made a head, and then a neck, and then I ran out of Sculpey.
I bought some the next week, but my micro-second attention span had moved on. I attached a torso to the head (not without the aforementioned difficulty, but I more or less made a solid base out of tinfoil wrapped in cling-wrap). And then… I wasn’t quite sure what to do. The limbless dragon sat at the side of my desk for months gathering dust.
Then, a week or two ago, I resolved to finish that darned dragon if it was the last thing I did. I made the legs. I made and remade and remade the wings until they were half-way decent. I tried to smooth every surface (that’s another problem with clay miniatures; your fingers aren’t miniature, and your nails leave huge dents). And smoothed some more. And smoothed some more, because I was really nervous about it coming out right.
Unbelievably, it’s done. Finished. Complete. It didn’t even catch fire in the oven from melting cling-wrap. It’s one of the biggest clay sculptures I’ve ever done- I think it’s at least five inches long- and it’s sitting on my fireplace mantel. Now, on to finishing that paper Discworld model…
Since tomorrow is Trogdor’s birthday, I was thinking of how appropriate is that the dragon got finished at this time. No beefy arms, though, so that wouldn’t be an appropriate name.
He has comedically goofy eyes, so how about a comedically goofy name? Like Douglas? (Technically unrelated, even if it’s something The Cheat can’t say.)
When I read the subject line I thought this would be about motorcycling, as one of the best known roads to ride on is called “The Tail of the Dragon”, and riding it is often called simply “doing the Dragon”. It’s an 11-mile stretch of very twisty roads in the Great Smoky Mountains between Tennessee and North Carolina.
According to Wikipedia the stretch bears the street name “Tapoco Road” in North Carolina and “Calderwood Highway” in Tennessee, so naming the dragon “Calderwood” would be a clever inside joke. If you cared to make a motorcycling inside joke, anyway.
Otherwise I’d suggest Path, the name of a prominent green dragon in The Dragonriders of Pern books.
I like it, it’s whimsical. I also agree with mobo that it should be a less than fiercesome name. I’m thinking “Bob”
‘I come from under the hill, and under the hills and over the hills my paths led. And through the air. I am he that walks unseen. I am the clue-finder, the web-cutter, the stinging fly. I was chosen for the lucky number. I am he that buries his friends alive and drown them and draws them alive again from the water. I came from the end of a bag, but no bag went over me. I am the friend of bears and the guest of eagles. I am Ringwinner and Luckwearer; and I am Barrel-rider,’ went on Bilbo beginning to be pleased with his riddling.
How well does it hold together? Whenever I do sculpture, I always work around a wire skeleton (usually old clothes hangers). It doesn’t seem to me like Sculpy on a foil framework would be strong enough for things like that neck.
