Dragons
Aval Nogard
Meet Aval. She's our first living myth, our very own baby dragon.
hatched from the bubbling caldera of the volcano that leads to the center of the world, she was conceived in early October of last year.
My friend Freak, and I were playing a marathon session of Canasta online and chatting.
"I want something really cool to dress up my motorized chair." he said.
"Like what? Some kinda fancy paint job?"
"Mmmm, yeah, but something 3-D."
"Like what?"
"I want a dragon."
" You want a dragon. A 3-D dragon. One that can what, sit on the shoulder of your chair and look out at where you're going?"
"Yeah!"
That's the chat that came to dominate the next 9 months of my life. The first month and a half was filled with concepts, colors, additions, paint schemes, more details, more ideas, and a whole raft of technical considerations. The idea of her grew larger and more complex. Ideas were proposed and discarded as too difficult. Others were trashed because they weren't outstanding enough. Then just before Christmas we nailed down the final version of her and got a good concept sketch.
Richard built her frame and the first, very thin, layer. I added muscles and some shape. Richard built her skull, I built her face. We added the spikes and some other details then made a huge batch of red cold process porcelain (CPP) and covered her in it.
hatched from the bubbling caldera of the volcano that leads to the center of the world, she was conceived in early October of last year.
My friend Freak, and I were playing a marathon session of Canasta online and chatting.
"I want something really cool to dress up my motorized chair." he said.
"Like what? Some kinda fancy paint job?"
"Mmmm, yeah, but something 3-D."
"Like what?"
"I want a dragon."
" You want a dragon. A 3-D dragon. One that can what, sit on the shoulder of your chair and look out at where you're going?"
"Yeah!"
That's the chat that came to dominate the next 9 months of my life. The first month and a half was filled with concepts, colors, additions, paint schemes, more details, more ideas, and a whole raft of technical considerations. The idea of her grew larger and more complex. Ideas were proposed and discarded as too difficult. Others were trashed because they weren't outstanding enough. Then just before Christmas we nailed down the final version of her and got a good concept sketch.
Richard built her frame and the first, very thin, layer. I added muscles and some shape. Richard built her skull, I built her face. We added the spikes and some other details then made a huge batch of red cold process porcelain (CPP) and covered her in it.
We added the wires for her wings, covered them with bones, then added the fabric.
This is when she really started to take shape. We spent the next couple of weeks refining her body, filling in cracks, adding to her spikes, and generally making her as close to physically perfect as we could.
When she was finally dry, we started painting. We knew we wanted her to look as though she'd hatched directly from an active volcano, so we searched for pictured on the web and in books to find the exactly right types of lava/magma to suggest scales without actually making each individual scale.
We started by painting her red with orange and yellow streaks and cracks. She looked horrible! Then we painted her with crackle medium, then a coat of black. She looked worse! The crackles were too small and didn't show off some of the details we'd hoped would come through when it crackled.
After what seemed like hours of frustration and argument, we tried something different. We mixed up some red and black paint and added some cornstarch to it to really give it texture.
After a couple of hours of daubing and blobbing and cursing and worse, we finally got the lava to actually look like lava.
When she was finally dry, we started painting. We knew we wanted her to look as though she'd hatched directly from an active volcano, so we searched for pictured on the web and in books to find the exactly right types of lava/magma to suggest scales without actually making each individual scale.
We started by painting her red with orange and yellow streaks and cracks. She looked horrible! Then we painted her with crackle medium, then a coat of black. She looked worse! The crackles were too small and didn't show off some of the details we'd hoped would come through when it crackled.
After what seemed like hours of frustration and argument, we tried something different. We mixed up some red and black paint and added some cornstarch to it to really give it texture.
After a couple of hours of daubing and blobbing and cursing and worse, we finally got the lava to actually look like lava.
Richard spent the next 5 days painting in the magma. Using a #1 round liner, he painted the red, then the orange and finally the screaming yellow, making them look as though they were dripping between the cracked and floating chunks of hardened lava. Our objective was to make her look as primeval and primordial as possible. She's the first of her line, the Fire Dragons, and we wanted her to look as if she'd come into being by willing herself so.
As he progressed, we added to her features and refined them with the use of color and texture. Some of these places have as many as five layers of paint!
As he progressed, we added to her features and refined them with the use of color and texture. Some of these places have as many as five layers of paint!
After we painted and highlighted her wings, we did a few more touch ups and called her finished. The time for the final step had come. We got a large can of spar sealer, marine grade sealer made of polyurethane, and started coating her. we upended her and coated the belly and front first, then set her upright to coat the wings and back. then we did it again, after lightly sanding her. She stood guard in our entryway for three days drying from her finish coats.
We made arrangements for her to find her permanent home and the man she was born to guard. Today, she found her destiny and her destination.
We made arrangements for her to find her permanent home and the man she was born to guard. Today, she found her destiny and her destination.
This is Aval Nogard, perched on her throne. She's guarding the back of a very dear friend whose eyes sparkled and smile outshone the sun when he finally got to meet her face to face.
He was thrilled and she was fierce in her determination to have his back. They belong together now. We had so much fun bringing Aval Nogard to life. She taught us many things, not the least of which is that we can and do work very well together, each of us feeding the other with ideas and help. We may not always see eye to eye, but when we find our common ground, we can make magic happen. We can make Dragons. Aval wasn't cheap. She cost $450.00. Freak said she was well worth it and then some. I'm inclined to agree with him. Most of our sculptures are a lot more modest in size and price. |
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If you have a mythical beast you'd like us to try to bring to life, please drop us an email at [email protected]. We'll be happy to do an online consult for free and can discuss prices then.
