detailing the dragonskin

I tried detailing the skin of the head I made earlier with paint, because I wanted to get a clearer picture of the end-result and finally decide if I would use texturing in PepaCura or not.

So I looked at iguana's and then painted some colorfull scales on a piece of paper and finally on my dragonhead. I liked the result in the shadow and because it's wintertime and not much direct sunlight is available, I was convinced for a while, that this was the way to go.



I was using a kind of trompe l'oeil effect on the scales, which worked fine in the shade, but when it came into direct sunlight it just looked flat.



So I tried something, which you can see around the nose area. I made a layer of clay and drew the scales in and then spraypainted the area in two shades of blue and silver. After this I used a black CD-marker to fill in the bits between the scales in black.
After the marker was applied I used a mother-of-pearl glossing spray, which turned the black a bit purple. The effect was MUCH cooler in direct sunlight.

Here is a close up of my real-life scales:
These were drawn as a experiment with the back of a brush. At this point I was using my expensive synthetic filler for smooth surfaces as a kind of clay, so I decided to get some cheap clay and try it again with that.

I should have expected that clay is much easier to handle, but I was still surprised at how well it stuck to the surface and how little I needed.
The head did get about twice as heavy when I did one half, but the result is very cool.
After seeing what I did whith the scales my daughter (8) decided that the dragon is now a girl.
I understand what she means, I tried to get some beauty into the monster.
If you put it all together this is what I have now: