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Description
Sooo... the story of this guy is long. I wanted to make him on previous edition of BipolarNonsense contest. I thought that it would be epic if the wings will be poseable, so I ordered genuine green leather, thin enough to make it look like dragon's skin membrane. And feathers, a lot of them. Everything would be perfect but... the feathers I received were BLUE. Beautiful blue color, but damn, I needed green! The seller promised me to send ordered color again, without any costs... as you can guess, I never received it. The second package, with primaries, were lost somewhere, out of 3 I received only 1 I wanted, the striped ones for tail. Never again I will order feathers from China
That time, without feathers (here in my country there isn't much variety in types and colors for crafting, and even if tou find something, they are crazy expensive) I knew I won't make it on time. So Kazu was there, incomplete, waiting for one day when I'll have time to finish working on him, as he was such a challenge and I invested already so much time and money for supplies.

Then he was just a basic shape over wire armature, pre-baked, with finished feet and shape of head, without any detailing, wings, horns, scales, literally nothing. Because the legs were too thin for his overall weight (he can stand without any additional support when cooled, but clay heated in the oven is more soft and able to break under too much pressure) they cracked several times. And the additional sculpey over his body - it wasn't baked, 'cause after I realized it can't be hardened in the oven in the stading position, I wanted to avoid it until the detailing stage to not make him any more damage - the sculpey... dried out. Well I guess several months were too long for it to keep its freshness.
So... The only parts I "recycled" were the legs and eyes I had to remove all the dried out clay and in fact make it all again, over the same wire and tinfoil skeleton.

Basing on my previous experience with ordering feathers, I decided to... dye them myself. I had a bunch of white feathers, long and short, primaries and fluffy ones, so I ordered fabric dyes, I watched a lot of tutorials and read the fishing forums (yep, fishing xD as they dye feathers to make fly-ties). And the first attempt was horrible and I needed to order another brand and make it all again. The second try was perfect! The white feathers were now beautiful, deep green - however a bit brighter than the leather but it's really close and matches well the colors of paint.

It was a loooooong process, but I learned a lot when I experimented with new things and techniques. Most were trials and errors, like the leather and how to correctly attach it to wing skeleton. I burnt my fingers two times with hot glue gun, and glued them together with superglue (it still hurts, pro tip - hot glue is really HOT)

It took me literally forever, and the details, oh man, the details... Kazu seems to have rather simple design, but to make it all look decent, you need a lot of time and patience. All those scales, chest plates, and even feathers on his head (that were plain green and I trimmed them and painted in stripes). Glass eyes have "following" effect so he looks on you e v e r y t i m e (a bit creepy, huh?) and shine brightly in the direct light.
I made some small alterations to details, to make him look more realistic and easier (or even possible!) to sculpt. For example, inside his wings there are not primaries like feathers, as they are too thick and could break when posing, so there are only soft ones.
5 brushes were sacrificed and destroyed for dry brush painting technique.

The wings are almost fully poseable, can be gently folded, unfolded, bent, and when right placed, they make a support for him to stand on his own. The leather was painted to make gradient to a lighter shade, and I burned out holes near the edges.
He has small rings hidden in his wings, so if you attach strings there, they can be pulled up, as they are too heavy to maintain that position on their own.

I can say for sure it was my most challenging project, the biggest and the most detailed. And I'm more that happy with how he came out

Wingspan: 70cm/27", lenght from nose to tail: 30cm/12", height: 25cm/10"
Materials used: genuine leather, feathers, feathers, more feathers (around 300 I think), fabric dyes, hand painted glass eyes, hot glue, soft pastels.
Sculpted with mix of Super Sculpey, Sculpey Firm, Sculpey Medium Blend and Premo, painted with acrylics, varnished with gloss varnish and shiny finish here and there.
Time taken: 120+ hours (I think a lot more)

Detail shots:

Wings:

More:

Contest entry:

Kazurramah (c) BipolarNonsense
Art (c) Bordowa

Description
Sooo... the story of this guy is long. I wanted to make him on previous edition of BipolarNonsense contest. I thought that it would be epic if the wings will be poseable, so I ordered genuine green leather, thin enough to make it look like dragon's skin membrane. And feathers, a lot of them. Everything would be perfect but... the feathers I received were BLUE. Beautiful blue color, but damn, I needed green! The seller promised me to send ordered color again, without any costs... as you can guess, I never received it. The second package, with primaries, were lost somewhere, out of 3 I received only 1 I wanted, the striped ones for tail. Never again I will order feathers from China
That time, without feathers (here in my country there isn't much variety in types and colors for crafting, and even if tou find something, they are crazy expensive) I knew I won't make it on time. So Kazu was there, incomplete, waiting for one day when I'll have time to finish working on him, as he was such a challenge and I invested already so much time and money for supplies.

Then he was just a basic shape over wire armature, pre-baked, with finished feet and shape of head, without any detailing, wings, horns, scales, literally nothing. Because the legs were too thin for his overall weight (he can stand without any additional support when cooled, but clay heated in the oven is more soft and able to break under too much pressure) they cracked several times. And the additional sculpey over his body - it wasn't baked, 'cause after I realized it can't be hardened in the oven in the stading position, I wanted to avoid it until the detailing stage to not make him any more damage - the sculpey... dried out. Well I guess several months were too long for it to keep its freshness.
So... The only parts I "recycled" were the legs and eyes I had to remove all the dried out clay and in fact make it all again, over the same wire and tinfoil skeleton.

Basing on my previous experience with ordering feathers, I decided to... dye them myself. I had a bunch of white feathers, long and short, primaries and fluffy ones, so I ordered fabric dyes, I watched a lot of tutorials and read the fishing forums (yep, fishing xD as they dye feathers to make fly-ties). And the first attempt was horrible and I needed to order another brand and make it all again. The second try was perfect! The white feathers were now beautiful, deep green - however a bit brighter than the leather but it's really close and matches well the colors of paint.

It was a loooooong process, but I learned a lot when I experimented with new things and techniques. Most were trials and errors, like the leather and how to correctly attach it to wing skeleton. I burnt my fingers two times with hot glue gun, and glued them together with superglue (it still hurts, pro tip - hot glue is really HOT)

It took me literally forever, and the details, oh man, the details... Kazu seems to have rather simple design, but to make it all look decent, you need a lot of time and patience. All those scales, chest plates, and even feathers on his head (that were plain green and I trimmed them and painted in stripes). Glass eyes have "following" effect so he looks on you e v e r y t i m e (a bit creepy, huh?) and shine brightly in the direct light.
I made some small alterations to details, to make him look more realistic and easier (or even possible!) to sculpt. For example, inside his wings there are not primaries like feathers, as they are too thick and could break when posing, so there are only soft ones.
5 brushes were sacrificed and destroyed for dry brush painting technique.

The wings are almost fully poseable, can be gently folded, unfolded, bent, and when right placed, they make a support for him to stand on his own. The leather was painted to make gradient to a lighter shade, and I burned out holes near the edges.
He has small rings hidden in his wings, so if you attach strings there, they can be pulled up, as they are too heavy to maintain that position on their own.

I can say for sure it was my most challenging project, the biggest and the most detailed. And I'm more that happy with how he came out

Wingspan: 70cm/27", lenght from nose to tail: 30cm/12", height: 25cm/10"
Materials used: genuine leather, feathers, feathers, more feathers (around 300 I think), fabric dyes, hand painted glass eyes, hot glue, soft pastels.
Sculpted with mix of Super Sculpey, Sculpey Firm, Sculpey Medium Blend and Premo, painted with acrylics, varnished with gloss varnish and shiny finish here and there.
Time taken: 120+ hours (I think a lot more)

Detail shots:

Wings:

More:

Contest entry:

Kazurramah (c) BipolarNonsense
Art (c) Bordowa