Making Dragon Art Dolls

Happy Monday Everyone!

I just finished a pair of Chinese Lung dragon dolls this last week, and I thought I'd post a little behind the scenes action here. The dolls are up for sale on my etsy shop: Lee's Menagerie. Here's what they look like finished!

And now a little peak at how I made them.

The dolls started as just wore armature held together at points with small balls of clay. I beefed up the head and body with aluminum foil so I had the right shapes underneath and then I wrapped it up in floral tape to keep everything in place. After all that, I cut strips of old fabric and wrapped them around the body to form shape and give softness.

The next thing I did was add the base layers of paperclay to start forming the head and feet. After the base is dry I add more paperclay and start sculpting the details: horns, claws, scales, ect. This is also when I carve out the eye sockets and position the eyes.

Now it's painting time! I coat the clay with a base sealer that includes acrylic color, gesso, and modeling paste. The dragon gets about 3 coats of this. Then I start applying a base color of acrylic paint. This base color happens to be red.

Then I put the secondary base color on the scales (kind of a mustard yellow this time).

The next step is to go in with a highlight color and make those flat base colors really pop! This is my favorite detail brush, I use it for everything. I got it at ooakartistemporium.com

Looking pretty good! After the paint is dry it's time to seal everything with a couple coats of ceramic sealer. This makes my eyes kinda gross, so i like to go back in and use nail polish remover to clean off any lingering paint or sealer residue. I also like to use a little shiny topcoat on the dragon's nails.

The last (and hardest part) is attaching the fur. I like to cut out squares and the shape them around the body as I glue the fur on, but it's a fiddly process and I think everyone does it differently. You'll just have to experiment and see what works for you. I do glue my fur on with oodles of fabritac glue instead of sewing a body-sock for my creatures. That approach really only works if you have a fairly solid cloth body. If you're planning on using stuffing you're going to have to sew your body together.

But after lots of work, you have a super cute finished dragon!

I hoped you enjoyed this installment of 'how its made'. More posts on my needle felting experiments later in the week and a new adventure journal entry all coming soon!

Once again, the dragons are for sale in my shop Lee's Menagerie if you are interested in adopting one.

Stefani Lee