As the winter is starting to die down, many people are already starting to plan ahead their holidays, birthdays and weddings. It is a nice feeling! Closer the spring is coming, more revived I am starting to feel, too. It's like we are almost through the darkest night and the first rays of sunset are about to show over the horizon, making the colours of the sky brighter, lighter and warmer.
This time I would like to indulge your curiosity about the new things I made with some photographs of my newest work, the Red & Black dragons cake topper.
This cake topper took some time and practice to make, as I am not a figurine making professional. By saying this, I still did the job well, but all I wanted to say, that I do not specialise on 3D figurines like that, so it was challenging to make a carcass, wire, foil and all that.
My customer wanted to have black and red dragons as these are their wedding colours, she said.
Of course red and black would have gone greatly with gold and shimmery crystals, so I decided to make it exactly like this. In the beginning I was planning to make clay wings, but when I tried on the metallic gold plated ones, I really loved the effect. I know they are not big enough for the dragons to fly, but when making an artistic figurine like this, all that matters is that it looks good and lovely. They are here for loving and hugging anyways, not for flying. So tiny little wings add more cuteness and softness to their silhouettes.
When working on this project, I made the dragons first and then the round base. It was quite a challenge to understand how I wanted them to be positioned as the base was sticky and every time I placed the dragon on it I was scared it will stick to it. Therefor I covered the base with cling film and then I was playing with the dragons until I was satisfied with the placing. Miraculously their tails entwined together as if they were forming a top of the heart and so it was only obvious that their hands need to be joined together at the very bottom, to form the bottom of the hart, the sharp peak of it. So this came as a complete surprise for me. I felt like some miraculous powerful and loving force was guiding me. 
After the main composition was established, I have placed the dragons on the base permanently and started working on the textures of their skin first. It took me a few hours to cover the whole of their bodies with the scales, but with the help of DOTIES it was so much easier. Dotties saved my life million times when it comes to dragon skin.
After that I used an extruder to make the multiple amounts of swirls that formed a wonderful armour like back decor. For the legs I used extruded and hand rolled fine and thin swirls. Was quite a challenge too. But it wouldn't be interesting otherwise, right? My client also wanted to have some orange colours on the red part, but I didn't feel like adding orange clay or painting some parts over. Therefore I decided to add subtle effect of "orangey-ness" :) by adding orange or fiery crystals and gold. Gold is yellow and it will automatically soften and make the red colour warmer to appear as more orangey.
As you can see I have also used the ultimate Mandarin Duck Stamp (Organic) as it is perfect for larger scales of dragon skin or pebble looking background. I can't tell you how many times I have used this stamp! This one is definitely a keeper for me, for you and for the next upcoming collection.
Anyways... The sweetest part of this journal I think are the two little hands that the dragons are lovingly holding together. It was important for me to show the tender and sweet connection between these two dragons, just like the real personalities behind these characters, they are deeply in love with each other.
You can see more photos on my Flickr Page.
Thank you very much for reading,
Love & Peace,
