Week Eight: Mason Eaton

Now that the dragon has been fully finished, set and sanded, I am able to start painting it in acrylic. I started with a coat of black acrylic paint all over the sculpture.

It was fairly difficult to get to some parts of the sculpture such as the inside of the head crest and under the wings, so the first two coats of paint were quite time consuming, and I then had to wait for it to fully dry before adding white accents.

Due to the small and delicate parts of the sculpture that were difficult to get to, I figured it would be easier to messily apply the white acrylic where I wanted it and neaten it afterwards rather than work with precise lines. This method is also easier for me to manage with my Tourette’s syndrome due to motor tics and hand cramps.

I applied three layers of the white acrylic on the accent parts and let it dry before using a smaller brush and black acrylic to neaten the edges. This image shows the difference between a white accent on the head crest before and after tidying up with black paint.

The head and crest of the dragon was the most difficult part to precisely paint, particularly the part of the head crest that falls under the front wing, which was hard to get to without splattering paint everywhere else. I had to wait for little parts to fully dry so that I would be able to lift up the sculpture and angle it to paint different sections without smudging the paint.

It was very time consuming, but eventually I had finished painting the dragon. I decided I didn’t want to focus on detail but more on sharp, minimalistic and precise lines and block monochrome features as inspired by clocks and time.

I am extremely pleased with how my dragon turned out, but it took my way longer than I expected it to when I first began making it. This combined with personal struggles made the progress on this dragon slow, but very rewarding ultimately.

In terms of displaying this model, I want it to be in some kind of bubble or structure to keep it safe and separate from it’s surroundings. I think it would be interesting to contain it somehow to represent it as a memory and something precious.

I plan to produce fully finished dragon drawings to accompany this model at the Takeover, alongside making some kind of memory bubble or containment for this model. Next week I am going to focus on making progress on both of these concepts.