It seems that life is starting to get back to normal and things are getting busy again. Summer is here and there are a lot more distractions in the way of gardening, boating, and getting together with friends, both home and away. I haven’t built my mermaid cavern yet, as I have a painting commission to do and need space in my studio to finish that up. (The mermaid cavern will be coming soon though, I promise! ) However, in the meantime, I am still working hard on my story and in service of that I decided I needed a bigger, more posable, dragon and a dragon rider.
The new blue dragon and my little red dragon, Firenza
My original red dragon (Firenza) is a little small and not as posable as I wanted for my story. She also has rather fragile wings. In building a new dragon I made a big strong male who is very flexible and will be much easier to pose. That doesn’t mean that Firenza won’t be in the story….as you can see they seem to be getting along (that may have to be a whole other story though!)
So here he is in all his glory. He is my fourth needle felted dragon and I have learned a lot in making each one. This is the first time I have attempted to make a mouth that can open and close. For this guy I decided to have a go a making his wings out of felt and for that I had to learn how to wet felt. (Thank heaven for Youtube!)
Top - my first attempt at wet felting . The yellow gold is a “silk hankie” which is an actual silk cocoon pulled out into a fine square of silk fibers. I thought it would be attractive, but from comments I got (see below) I think it is a C- in the aesthetics department!
Bottom - Second attempt - a thinner, more delicate fabric, but not quite large enough for wings
Here’s what the fibers looked like on my second attempt before they got felted.
So what is wet felting vs needle felting you ask? Wet felting as the name suggests involves wetting flat layers of wool fiber and gently agitating them in order for the fibers to bind together to make a flat fabric. Needle felting involves using very sharp barbed needles to push the wool fibers together and bind them either in a flat 2D form, or in sculpted 3D shapes such as I make with my creatures. Both processes are time consuming and tedious but the results can be amazing. My first foray into wet felting produced a pretty good piece of felt that unfortunately was way too thick for my dragon wings. My son described this as looking like something a Yak threw up on! ;) I really didn’t think it was that bad! Lol!
Undaunted I ordered some fine Merino wool to felt with and using just a couple of thin fiber layers created the kind of fabric I wanted on my second attempt. You have to plan your pattern/colors and also figure in some fabric shrinkage ahead of time, so on my third attempt I succeeded in getting the right size, shape, and color - et voilá…Dragon Wings!
Quite a good wingspan don’t you think?!
I have also worked on a new “fairy”/ dragon rider girl who is a lot smaller than my original fairy Blaze. Much as I love Blaze, she is not posable so my new gal has an armature and will be fully posable when finished. This new character is part of my story and will accompany Nieva on her journey. Here are a couple of head shots. I am making clothes, so more on this girl next time… Now I must return to my commission.
My new “fairy”/dragon rider. Haven’t fixed on a name yet - suggestions on a postcard please…. ;)