Here we begin with an armature. It's simply aluminum foil molded into the general shape of our project. This way we have less concern about the project baking unevenly, slowly, or bending and breaking while baking. We then wrap a thin layer of clay around the armature to give us a base to apply our future work to. This is baked, so that everything else can be applied without concern of ruining the overall shape of the project.

Now we apply our first features. Each of the spikes on the back is applied individually, starting at the bottom, with their sides spread smooth to help them adhere to the base. The chest plates follow, but they're left with a rolled edge all around. We then bake to harden all of these.

The scales are next. Each is created from a small ball of clay rolled into a teardrop shape. Press the teardrop flat (point upwards) with just enough pressure to make it stick. Too much pressure will flatten it overmuch and make it smear with the adjoining scales. One row at a time, moving upwards. Overlap a little to hide the gaps. Inconsistencies in size lend it a more organic appearance and give the impression that this dragon has lost scales from fights and regrown them at odd intervals. I baked once one side was complete, applied the other side, and baked again so that I could safely lay the project on the opposite side.

Once all this is complete, the head is next. I started by applying a lower jaw, just a narrow strip of clay with a bit of a chin at the end and abutted it to the uppermost chest plate. I tried to give it a jawbone much like a horse, but the prominence of those disappeared when I added the extra scales leading up the jaw - next time I'll probably apply those scales first. I layed two narrow needles on each side perpindicular to the jaw. These, when covered with the clay layer of the upper jaw, become jutting teeth. For the eyes, I have a collection of prebaked balls of various sizes. Securing these to the figure with eyelids is much easier than sculpting orbs from soft clay.

The rest of the head was mostly adding small bits of clay and smoothing it out. I added some more scales to bring the line up a little higher and smoothed them into the clay of the head. The nostrils were just dug in with a narrow-pointed tool. The horn was smoothly attached and a small ring was layed around it to give it a growing look, but it still broke off right after baking (I super-glued it back on and added a bit more clay to hide the crack). Next time I may try pre-baking a horn and actually embedding it into the soft clay. For baking the head, I placed the project in a muffin pan so that it wouldn't be pressed flat from laying against anything.

Now that the dragon itself is finished, I needed to create a base for it to stand on. I began by simply creating a disc of clay of about the right size, which I baked. I then layed a large ring on the disc, smoothing down the inside edge to attach it and repeated with a smaller ring. These are supposed to be wave-like ripples, but are rather stylized. The bits applied to the dragon itself are water running of its body (it's a sea serpent rearing from the water), but are primarily there to attach the dragon more securely to the base. These bits were smoothed, an extra ring was applied around the outside of the base for effect and the whole was baked. I do all my baking on a sheet of parchment paper on a cookie sheet. The instructions on the clay recommend glass pans to prevent burns, but this works just fine for me.

And the finished project. The uppermost spine-spike looks a little singed in these photos, but is much less obvious in person. I also dribbled a bit of super-glue into some of the minor gaps between the dragon and the innermost ring of the base, for good measure.