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Ten Thumbs Page 12

Sculpting a Dragon

If you have the ability to draw from memory you are blessed. I have the more common problem of knowing what things look like until I have a pen and piece of paper in hand. The stuff in my head just can't make it to paper. But I can trace and I can copy. Drawing or building a bigger model of a smaller model is much easier.

My first sculpture came from memory. I used to draw dinosaurs so I recalled roughly how they ought to look.

My second dinosaur was based on a plastic model.

I began looking pictures in library books. Now I just use Google to find pictures. Google has an image function which will find all sorts of images for me to choose from.

Once when I decided to draw a dragon I was stumped because people have been drawing quite a variety of images of dragons. Here is my sketch pad which should help you realize how modest my drawing skills are. The third image down on the left side came from an illustration in a book. The others were my own.

The dragon in the lower left is the one I eventually used. Notice that it is bottom heavy to support the snow above it.

I discovered however when I began it that while I could tell what the front of it looked like I didn't know what the back of it looked like. This became a problem copying all pictures. 

Eventually I got in the habit of using modeling clay to make three dimensional figures. Although I still often start with a picture I now make a small three dimensional model of the picture before attacking a huge lump of snow.

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