Dan the Monster Man at Paper Mache Blog specializes in dragons, and was commissioned to craft a bust as close to the likeness of Maleficent’s dragon form (as seen in Disney’s Sleeping Beauty), including glowing eyes, nostrils, and throat. “It was quite a challenge,” he says, “which I relished.”
“I wanted to make the dragon that the cartoon would be based upon. But I couldn’t improvise very much without straying too far from the original drawings. And the lights were even a bigger challenge. Obviously I couldn’t get lights that would blast out of the mouth, eyes, and nose exactly like the cartoon. And the dragon had to look decent when the lights were turned off.”
“I ended up using a dillion, well a half a dillion little, green l.e.d. lights. There is a place to put AA batteries in the back of the trophy when it’s off the wall. The lights are controlled by 4 small switches behind the ears.”
The eyes? They’re taxidermy eyes for elephants, sanded down to remove the paint and then given a new pupil. And just in case you need some scale…
There’s Dan and his dragon. Nobody told me you could make these kinds of things from paper mache when I was in gradeschool.
(Paper Mache Blog via Tipster Lisa.)
