Great Basic Shape

The fellow pictured here has a great basic shape to begin developing his personality. To achieve his fine physique he has had a little nip and tuck. As for the nips... as his head was shaped and formed I began to see proportions where off a bit. The head was a bit to big. To fix this problem I rolled his head out to make it longer and nipped off the end of the nose until I had a pleasing size/shape. It is much easier to pull and shape the head down toward the nose than shaving off cheeks and foreheads. On to tucks and such... Starting with the neck, from the base of the skull gently roll and elongate until you have a pleasing length and width for his neck. Short stubby necks can look just as good as long and thin. The options and choices are endless and completely up to you and what the dragon says he wants. Trust me, they have a say so. Do you see the way his back sort of looks like a couple of rolling hills? This helps define his shoulders from his hips. As we all know, hips tend to be bigger...hee hee! Measure down about a third of the way down the body lump and use a finger or round tool to begin shaping the body. I normally take the butt end of one of my paint brushes and rock it back and forth a bit to make an indentation. From there I use my fingers to roll and smooth the shape. The tail is refined and shaped by rolling him in my hands. Yep, I hang him upside down and roll that tail between my palms. You might prefer another way and that's just fine. Once you get a nice fluid looking form from his back end to the end of his tail you can decide if he needs another nip. More often than not I end up hacking off some of the tail to make it more proportionate. However, if you want a tail that is a foot long...go for it! Are you ready to make him smile? Good, here we go!