Making the Dragon Fire Candle Holder

In this post I show the creation process involved in making the Dragon Fire candle holder.

The dragon medallion.

It starts with a 3 1/2 inch tall glass candle holder and a medallion design I drew a few years ago.

I start by forming the dragon and shaping the base. He looks kinda like a giraffe! Don't worry, breathing fire and sitting on a hoard of gold will change his looks ;-).

This is my first dragon with feet. To shape them I press a blob of clay onto a small sheet of glass and using a knife, upholstery needles, and a clay shaper, I give them toes.

The claws.


He has feet! Now I shape his wing.


Arranged on the base.


His hoard of treasure.

I add a border around the outside of the base and then brush the surface with mica powder. Next I add "torn leather" all over the remaining open surface.

Each piece is textured with real leather and torn before pressing into place. Now he's off to the oven for 45 minutes.

After cooling, using the the same mixture of "amber" from Amber Winds, I fill in the rest of the candle holder, pushing the clay into place with a rubber tipped clay shaper.

Here he is after a final baking. Now all that's left to do is give the leather surfaces a black and brown wash...

... And here it is all finished! The washes were added and I painted in some gold highlights.