Carving the Dragon Continued

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.

Carving the Dragon

I first tried to ensure I had the slope of the back of the dragon right and that the dragons proportions would fit in the block of wood. I also left a section of wood running down the back that I intended to carve spines from at a later date.









I then started carving the rough shape and position of the back and front leg on the right side of its body, whilst leaving my pencil drawing the other side.


I didn’t want to carve too much detail at this stage but was concentrating more on getting the positioning right.










I had also refined the shape of the head although I left the bottom jaw fairly thick at this stage so that I could make more refinements if needed. I was really pleased with how the eyes had turned out and could really imagine what the head would look like when it was finished.

Initial Carving Stage

I started of with a block of Lime about 6" (150 mm) wide by 16" (400 mm) height by 4" (100mm) thick. At this stage you can see I had already drawn in the rough shape of the head and body on the side of the block with a pencil.






I then carved out the rough shape for the top of the head and back of the body. I wanted to make sure I had got the proportions correct before carving any fine details.



As I carved the head down I kept redrawing the dragon, adding more detail to try and ensure that the eyes would end up in the right place.










I found it quite frightening at this stage and I did begin to wonder if it was ever going to look like the dragon I had envisaged. I was starting to see the head emerging though and that gave me the encouragement to continue.

Dragon Sculpture

Although I am a professional woodturner, I have slowly incorporated more and more woodcarving into each piece and finally decided to carve a snake as part of one of my sculptural forms called Guardian.

Despite the fact that not everyone likes snakes and I had actually managed to scare one or two people with the realism of the snake’s eyes, I still got a lot of positive feedback about the piece. People seemed to really like the fact that I had combined woodturning and woodcarving to produce something really different.

I hadn’t known anything about woodcarving when I had started carving the snake but after a lot of trial and error I was really satisfied with the results and encouraged to try something more challenging. My new idea for a sculptural piece incorporated a dragon about to take flight.

I will keep updating this category with pictures charting the progress of the dragon and what it looked like at each stage of the project.

Dragon Wood Sculpture

Dragon Sculpture – About my latest woodcarving piece.
Initial Carving Stage – Pictures of the initial carving of the dragon.
Carving the Dragon – Pictures of the dragon after more shaping.
Carving the Dragon - Continued – Pictures of the dragon after more carving.