This Dragon Tail Is Made Of White Painted Aluminum, A Material I Hadn't Had Much Chance To Experiment

This dragon tail is made of white painted aluminum, a material I hadn't had much chance to experiment with before. It claims to be a sturdy automotive paint, and it definitely has a storm trooper sort of feel to it. Personally, I'd been a bit hesitant to make much with it, because I don't really trust paint on metal, but it seems durable enough, and I sent some sample scales to the commissioner and she was cool with them.

The tail is a pretty short one, at only 24 inches long. It's also got a line of spikes down the spine.

If you're curious about these tails I make, check out this page with information about them: http://armoreddragon.tumblr.com/tails

Small version of the huge pangolin chandelier is looking super good. I'm super excited.

This is actually the second version I cut of this so far, with an updated and much improved internal support structure. I'll talk about it more in-depth when I continue writing out the chandelier saga, but right now I just have to share this.

Do you live in Canada? If so, where?

I grew up in Chicago, but now I live in the Boston area. Canada seems like a pretty cool place, though.

Is there a way you could make a core to the dragon tails so you could move it the way you want? Like if you didn't want it swinging around so much or if you're being still but still want the tail to move.

In theory yes, but not yet.

Years ago I had a basic idea for a way that I could make my tails move on their own, involving some motors and some stiff cables that ran the length of the tail. But motors and things like that are not things I have any experience with, and life is busy, and I never worked actively on it.

But sometime last year I saw a kickstarter for some people making animatronic tails, and they seemed to be doing it in basically the same way I had figured would work. I was excited. They were offering them with fur coverings like cats and dogs or what have you, but I got one that was just the mechanism and control box so I could at some point build a tail of my own around it.

But life has been busy, and I haven't gotten around to making it yet. Eventually I will, and once it's worked out I'll surely make it available for commissioners.

If people are curious, here's the website for the people who made the animatronic tails: http://thetail.co/

Wow, this month.

Sorry for the radio silence this month, Internet. Between a huge pile of stuff to do at work plus a family wedding plus obligations to friends plus two craft fairs, I had basically no brainpower left to deal with commissions or updates.

To help me deal with the stress, though, I did make a large thing just for myself. (Well, it was also related to the big friends obligation.) I made an aluminum and rubber ring shirt in European 4-in-1. It's been at least a year or two since I made something large like that just for myself, and I'm really happy that I made it. Photos will be uploaded once I have a chance to take them.

Anyway, my obligations are back down to a manageable level now, so I'll be picking things up again and starting back up on commissions, and on the backlog of correspondence that's piled up.

Here's a quick photo of this dragon tail commission I just knocked out. It's done in anodized aluminum, primarily black with a purple underbelly.

I just finished the scale shirt I was slogging away on for a long time, and was feeling like I hadn't finished very many things for too long of a time, and was antsy. So I pounded this out in a day and a half.

Tomorrow I'll take some nice photos of it being worn outside in some natural light, but today it was rainy.

If you're curious about these, check out my tail commissioning guide!