This week’s dragons have very different texture for the scales. Instead of having applied scales or some kind of tool mark for scales, I’ve used microbeads. These beads are super tiny, somewhere around 0.5 mm.
To get an idea of the scale, Pinkie is only just under 3 inches from the tip of her nose to the bend in her tail.
Click on any of the photos for a closer look.
I was inspired by this photo I found on Pinterest of the work of Asya Kuzahmetova, a Ukrainian polymer clay artist. Here she uses little tiny balls of clay and applies them for a wonderful texture.
I had a bunch of microbeads left over from scrapbooking and thought it would be fun to try different combinations of the colors I had.
Pinkie has fuchsia beads, black beads, and two different sizes of clear beads. Blue Boy has a combination of black, fuchsia and royal blue beads. I think I like his combination better.
I wasn’t so thrilled with the way the wings came out as some of the colored beads mixed in with the clear ones and some of the color bled out into the TLS I was using to stick them on.
If you decide to try using microbeads keep in mind that it’s kind of like bringing a scoop of beach sand into your work area. They get everywhere. You can try, but there is no controlling them.
Everything on my work desk was acting like it had tiny ball bearings under it! They were rolling about all over the place, and I’m sure I will be finding these little teeny beads in my workspace forever.
I do find the idea intriguing, though, for skin texture. Perhaps just on isolated areas next time. 🙂
Check out this post on Errol, dragon #1, for the details on why I am making one dragon for every week in 2015.
By the way, the names Pinkie and Blue Boy, of course fit perfectly because of their colorings, but I had to smile when I thought of them because they were two favorite motifs of my grandmother’s. She had nice reproductions of the Lawrence & Gainsborough paintings and she even made lamp bases in her ceramics class with the lady in pink in the boy in blue. I don’t know that she would have cared much for the dragon versions, though, lol.
If you’d like to see my other dragon creations so far, I’ve made a Thursday’s Dragon Pinterest board just for them.
Just to let you know, I only have 10 dragons left to go in this challenge, but there are 13 Thursdays left in the year. I will be taking off Thanksgiving & Christmas, because Holidays! I also will be taking next week off as I have a larger project in mind for the next dragon sculpture.
is the same as mine, just a different color. Plus, I learned that it’s filled with lead shot, not sand as I said in the video.
I use on Amazon. They also have a larger 
for those who do heavier work.
and then several loops of these beads are dangled from bead cones.
. It’s a great tool to use when doing any kind of work with wire or sheet-metal, especially if you like a textural look.
, 
or jewelry pieces a different kind of look, give this tool a try.