The dragon, finished.

As promised, here’s the post about the actual dragon base.

I started the base with red, then swirled in some yellows to give a more organic look.

I built a plastic wall around the outside to hold in the next part: PVA

I layer of pva, probably 5 mm thick. I left this to dry for a day, and got: well, not much change actually. I left it another day and again, not much. I think the pva was drying at the top, and I’d made the wall too well so it wasn’t actually letting any air through at all. I removed the wall, and let it dry for another day…..

Some of the pva was absorbed into the tissue, but I could see obvious signs of drying! I left it again…..

And it worked. I decided to give it a little dry brush of orange, to mix it up a little more.

Then came the interesting bit. Crackle.

This was done on the Warhamster stream, “Slapping it on” and using a hairdryer to dry it quickly.

This was immediately after drying it. I knew from the test piece it would continue to crack some more if left alone, so I did.

That’s the “finished” base. But not quite complete.

Paul did suggest “Object source lighting” on the rock to add a little more realism. As I hadn’t done any of that before, I thought it would be an interesting experience.

It doesn’t show up much in pictures, and isn’t that obvious in person, but I added some red and yellow to the underside of some rocks to imply the light from the lava lighting upwards.

I have a little more touching up to do to the model, but it’s basically done.

Watch on Sunday for the finished dragon, and the start of a new build that my patrons are voting for!