Fire Wings w/ mounted Beelphegor Part 10

Assembly continued...

So up until this point I haven't made any mention of what color I am planning to paint the dragon. I realize that the kit is called Fire Wings, however I believe that the title of my piece would be better suited as Ice Wings. That is correct, I will be painting a blue dragon...

Why is this important, well this post outlines the modifications that I am making to the base and they wouldn't really make much sense without divulging that little tidbit of information.

Let's make some icicles.

The photo below shows some pins cut to various lengths and pinned through a piece of balsa wood. The wood is there to provide me a way to work on several of these at once with the added benefit of providing a flat top surface to the icicles themselves.

Now comes the fun part, making the icicles themselves. The following pic shows the final product of two passes using Golden Regular Gel (Matte) medium. The gel was applied liberally with a brush for both coats and shaped accordingly. The gel dried semi clear which doesn't phase me as I intended to paint the icicles from the beginning. If I had desired clear icicles I would have had to use something other than pins for the basis of my forms and a different product such as Woodland Scenics Realistic Water.

All in all I was thrilled with the results especially given the fact that this was my first attempt at making icicles. After allowing the medium to dry fully, I then used a hobby knife to cut around the base of the icicle where it meets the balsa wood. Next came the task of separating the pins from the wood which took a little doing. In hindsight I should have used much thinner balsa wood, but I went with whatever scrap I had laying around at the time.

Finally we have the photo of the base with the icicles attached. In the end I used a total of 5 icicles, but I created many more so that I could choose what worked best in the end. The icicles are all attached via the excess pin that went into the balsa wood.

To be continued...

Fire Wings w/ mounted Beelphegor Part 9

Assembly continued...

In this post we are going to feature the base.

This first photo shows the bottom of the base. I drill out a hole in the bottom of all of my bases and insert a nut that is fixed in with epoxy. This allows me to use a screw through a piece of wood to mount the finished piece for transport without having to worry about it shifting around and potentially breaking fragile pieces.

The next pic shows the dragons base which will connect to the display base using a piece of brass tubing. I opted for a medium sized piece of brass tube in order to ensure a strong connection point. The dragon as we have seen is rather large and I wanted to make sure that the join to the base was as strong as possible. Upon completion the brass tube will be epoxied into the base and I will also be rather liberal in my application of epoxy between the two pieces.

To be continued...

Fire Wings w/ mounted Beelphegor Part 8

Assembly continued...

Today we have the mount points of the dragon to the base. Below you can see the individual feet and how they will be pinned to the base.

Below we have the mostly assembled dragon temporarily attached the base as they will be painted separately. These pieces fit together perfectly and won't require any extra work during final assembly.

I've included the picture below in order to provide a size reference, as this dragon is anything but small.

 To be continued...

Fire Wings w/ mounted Beelphegor Part 7

Assembly continued...

And today we have the assembled wings shown below. The assembly of the wings was extremely easy since the separate parts were only the two front claws and a single spine.

The following picture shows the wings and the body. The wings and fully assembled body will be painted separately and due to a pretty good fit, very little work will need to be done after the parts are painted for final assembly. I'm expecting that at most a little putty and touch up will be required at.

To be continued...

Fire Wings w/ mounted Beelphegor Part 6

Assembly continued...

We are finally getting close to having everything all put together. The picture below shows the body and neck.

And below we have the assembled body.

To be continued...

Fire Wings w/ mounted Beelphegor Part 5

Assembly continued...

The photograph below shows the main body and tail pieces.

 And here we have the body and tail assembly.

 To be continued...

Fire Wings w/ mounted Beelphegor Part 4

Happy New Year!

Assembly continued...

Below we have the body and the feet. Each leg has a pin inserted into it to connect the individual feet to. These pins are meant to provide stability since the bulk of the weight of the fully assembled figure will rest on the connection of the feet to the legs as well as the connection of the feet to the base.

And here we have the assembled and puttied product of the body and feet.

To be continued...