Greetings. As is typical of large projects, the papier mache hydra proved to be too complex to finish by Halloween. To provide an update, here are some more current WIP shots of the piece. It's actually completed as of this post and I will follow up soon with a full set of pictures and a write-up. In order to finally finish off the Thunder Dragon, I'm planning to re-shoot the pictures of that project at the same time. Depending on the size of the posts, I'll either cover both at once or in two consecutive entries here.
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| Side view |
This is a side shot that shows pretty much the entire piece. The body winds around to the side and can be seen in the later shots. After attaching all the heads, I reinforced the necks with several layers of cloth skin over wire hangers to add stability. The one that required the most support was the central larger head.
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| Close up side view |
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| Front view |
From the front, the width of the pieces can be seen in this shot. I tried to give the piece an organic look by positioning and aligning each of the heads in their own direction.
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| Top-down |
This shot from above obscures the body of the hydra bit due to the winding necks of each head. You can see how utterly massive the entire creature is.
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| Head 1 |
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| Head 2 |
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| Head 3 |
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| Head 4 |
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| Head 5 |
The four smaller heads and their serpentine shape can be seen in the first four of these shots. The fifth larger central head has a more dragonlike shape originally detailed in the initial concept sketches. I added a few ridges along the snout and head and a row to each of the smaller necks to give some additional detail. The main head required quite a bit of hanger support and I actually tied it to a nearby lamp with wire while it dried during the cloth phase. I plan on keeping it supported for a while after the piece was completed to give the skin and paint time to cure. It should become rigid and hold its shape over time due to the support.
That's it for now. As I mentioned at the beginning, the piece is finished and needs to be photographed now. Hopefully I can get a full set of images up this weekend and also finally post the completed Thunder Dragon as well.
Regarding our previously mentioned discussion with the new potential artists, I've commissioned a set of smaller stylized drawings of my dragons as the entry project for this new artist. The management decided to have them posted as an introduction a little bit later. Finally, expect some new Pony content from Multi Palette within the next week. It seems like I've been delegated the responsibility of news reporter.
Hm.
~Zan
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