Hello and welcome to the 19th in my year-long series of polymer clay dragons!

Meet Qīnglóng (pronounced “chíng-long”) the second dragon encountered in Tiger’s Voyage.

Click on any of the photos for a closer look.

He is an ocean dragon and has a rather unpleasant attitude, which I hope I conveyed by his expression. He is described as being perched atop a castle ruin on a rocky island jutting out of the ocean, so I had some fun creating that.

To keep him from being top heavy I buried a lead fishing weight in the front narrow part of the island. Tricky, eh?

The book gives quite a detailed picture:

•  bearded, with a long sinuous body
• water dragon
• scaly skin is brilliant blue
• yellow eyes, purple tongue
• head is longer, narrowing more at the nose
• fleshy, fat & lazy
• grouchy, irritable
• cheeks and brow covered with feathers that sweep away from its face and shimmer like fish scales in brilliant blues and purples
• similar feathers flow down the spine of its back and fan out at its tail and limbs like the hair around a Clydesdale horse’s hooves
• sharp golden talons
• when annoyed feathers along the back & top of the head stand up like crested cockatoo

I’m starting to understand what movie-makers are talking about when they adapt a book and say they feel they need to change things and not do them exactly as described on the pages.  There were details that seemed important for the character, and other details that just didn’t translate well from page to visual.

Anyhow, I kinda like Qīnglóng and his grouchy attitude. 🙂

To learn why I’ve challenged myself to make a dragon every week in 2015 check out this post on Errol, dragon #1.

Like my tutorials? Support me on Patreon for weekly peeks into my creative process and a bonus video every month!