Once I had carved a rough shape of the head I then started to form the shape of the rest of the body. I didn't want to refine the carving too much at this stage until I had ensured there was enough wood to carve the dragon from and I had got the sizing correct.
By carving the entire dragon roughly first I felt there was still enough wood left on the top of the dragon and therefore the option of reducing the total size of the dragon if I felt I needed to.
With the rough shape of the entire dragon carved I then concentrated on refining the bottom part of the dragon a little more.
I was intending to try and make the dragon look like it was sitting on a tree stump with its tail draped down the back. Carving the tail wasn't too much of a problem but I found the back legs tricky since it was hard carving the holes under the dragon in such a confined space.
