Relay For Life

I was asked by some friends of mine to create a dragon out of a (new) needle sharps container to be used to collect money for Cancer research for Relay for Life. Without hesitation, I said I'd give it a go... 

 Here is the picture with a drawing of the dragon I was to create....

 I asked for a little more detail and got this....

With the two drawings in hand... I figured they would be happy with whatever I came up with! My first thought was to make a large dragon using the container itself, but thought better of that seeing how it would have to be massive. I decided to come up with a little baby dragon that is wrapped around the container itself.

I began by making a paper mache base, then used fabric to create the scales/skin of the dragon. I draped paper mache coated fabric along the spine of the dragon, and then began adding scales one at a time starting with the tail...
That ended up being very, very time consuming.... so I had to rethink how to do the scales.

I decided to try hot gluing the fabric scales directly onto the dragon form without dipping each one in paper mache first. That seemed to speed things up! Once the scales were in place I coated the fabric with a lot of Modge Podge to give it some "tooth" to hold its shape.

I also added some scrunched up tissue paper over the original paper mache newspaper body.

I really love the look tissue paper gives things, I guess that is why I always try to incorporate it into something I'm working on. Once the body was finished, all it needed was paint. I used a lot of different colors...

Lots of layers of paint...

 In person the paint colors work, the flash of my camera really makes this little baby dragon look deranged!

 I created this dragon to either wrap itself around the sharps container,

Or playfully climb up the container when it is laying on its side. I think it looks a little friendlier this way *wink*

I do think I "nailed it!"  The similarities are striking! lol....
I'm still laughing...
 big hugs,
Cheryl