I was on the hunt for another project to do on my CNC router. Not knowing what I wanted to do, I watched a video by Dennis Van Hoof on how he made a t-rex skeleton. You can see it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vkJOAVAYck He started with a 3d model of the t-rex and sliced it up using MeshMixer, a software program for manipulating 3d models for 3d printing. Then after cutting it up into several pieces, he used his CNC to cut the various pieces of the t-rex, and then some assembly and voila, a new piece of artwork.
Taking inspiration from Dennis, but not wanting to replicate what he had done (not that I could), I was on the hunt for a 3d model. I came across this beautiful model of an Ancient Red Dragon seen here. (The blue is because it was 3d printed using blue filament)
This is by:
https://www.thingiverse.com/EndDaysEngine.
This dragon just called to me so I downloaded it and went straight to work. No, my inspiration was not the House of the Dragon series on HBO. The decision to make a dragon predated the series start by about 3 months. However, I would not be lying if I said that the series helped to decide the final colour scheme of the dragon.
My first order of business was to import this into MeshMixer to slice it up. Slicing her up for cutting using my CNC was not going to be pretty or easy. In fact, I am not sure that I would be able to cut everything properly due to the size limitation of my CNC (32.5” x 32.5”). Therefore I decided to only do the head and mount it to the wall as a “trophy head”, thus avoiding the grief I would get for creating a huge model.
First things first, I had to slice off the head. Sounds easy doesn’t it, but the reality of chopping off the head of a beautiful creature was a bit traumatic. Once the head was free, I had to resize it. This was also a problem, as no one has any recent experience with the size of a dragon head. So I just guessed size and went from there. Then the fun began. Seventeen cuts and slices later, I had the perfect number of pieces to begin my creation.
From Meshmixer to Vcarve
After the slices were set I imported each piece into VCarve to start setting up each cut. VCarve is the software I use to program the CNC. I tried to make everything as large as possible to fit within my CNC. My first attempt was using pieces that were 6” thick of solid wood. Unfortunately, the max size that my CNC can handle is 4” thick. Back into Meshmixer to resize and re-slice everything. I could have made modifications to the CNC but it would have been a lot of work to set it up correctly, and an equal amount of work to restore it to its natural position. So, back to VCarve to set up all of the cuts. Seventeen pieces each with cuts on both sides, and multiple tool paths later, I have the models for my dragon head. Time to get the wood and make sawdust.
Here is a pic of how the wood starts out. Nice long, straight pieces of 2” cherry wood. A lot of slicing and dicing and gluing back together in order to carve out a dragon.
First Piece
I didn’t know it at the time, but I was about to become a denturist. The first cut was the teeth. I wanted them to be glow in the dark, so I decided to make them out of epoxy. The epoxy was coloured white and I added several scoops of the “glow in the dark” powder. I cut the mold out of MDF and then added the epoxy. I turned out the lights and everything glowed just as planned. Then the waiting game began. It takes 5 days for the epoxy to cure enough to be cut on the CNC. Luckily this is not a linear process and I went on making cuts until everything was cutout. This was not without issues, but for brevity’s sake, I made it through. However, I almost made a crucial mistake. My original plan had the pieces with the eyes to be cut flat on the table, doing both sides at once. This would have been a huge error as I would have lost critical detail on the face. Back to MeshMixer to correct my mistake. I had to cut the skull in half so that one eye was on each side. Then turn the half on its side to enable the eye sockets to be cut with all of the necessary detail. A much better decision even if it was twice the work.
Lots of Pieces
For the most part, the carving went well. Everything cut out perfectly. Almost. Well almost everything cut almost perfectly. About 5 days after my teeth were set in the mold, I put it on the CNC and carved out the teeth. 3 of the 5 sets of teeth came out perfectly (at least in my eyes) and 2 sections left a little to be desired. I decided to try and make them work if I could and almost succeeded. But there was one nagging small piece that wasn’t as exact as the others. I could have gotten away with it, but sometimes I get a little OCD and couldn’t accept it. Knowing that I could have fixed that minor flaw and didn’t would haunt me every time I looked at the Dragon’s Head. Back to the drawing board.
Cut out the mold for the teeth. Mix up the epoxy with the pearl white colouring and heaps and heaps of glow in the dark powder (the first set of dentures didn’t glow in the dark as expected). Then in Vcarve I tweaked the tool paths for the teeth and tried again. This time the teeth came out almost perfectly. The 2 middle teeth on the the bottom didn’t cut properly either time. So guess what, the dragon doesn’t have any middle teeth on the bottom. Show me a dragon skeleton and I will add the teeth, until then, no middle teeth. Just a disappointing side note: the glow in the dark didn’t work with the new teeth either.
Call the surgeon for a Nose Job
In order to set the teeth on both the top and bottom jaws, I had to assemble the two top halves of the skull into a single piece. Remember how I said earlier that everything cut out perfectly almost, well the right side of the skull was missing a big chunk of the the nose horn. So I glued the left side and right side together and and assessed the extent of the damage. There was no recovery from this issue. Only one thing to do. Back to Meshmixer I went and sliced off the nose of the dragon, exported it to Vcarve to create the tool paths and then cut it on the CNC. Not just the right side but the left side as well. Then the scary part came. I had to cut off the nose of the dragon. I was terrified that I would cut it in the wrong place and the new nose would not fit. But the cut had little extra wood left on so I could slowly sand it away until the new nose fit perfectly. Once the nose was in place, it was easy to glue on the teeth. I only had to file the teeth a little (a lot) to make them fit properly. Step 151 complete. You can see in the picture the line on the top jaw where the nose was replaced and the teeth glued on.
Paint or Assembly
Next came the decision to paint before assembly or after. Since I would have to use several angles of attack for the paint, I decided to paint each individual piece before assembly as this will be much easier. Now, what colour to paint. Since this is taken from an ancient red dragon, I knew that the colour had to be red, but what colour of red. Candy apple red? Cherry Red? Dark Red? Some other shade of red with no name? Yes. Yes. Yes. And Yes (several shades). In the end every colour used was red based or tinted with red. There are several shades of red used in the skull, the jaw, the neck, the neck frill, the face frills, the horns. I don’t have an exact count but there are at lease seven deliberately different shades of red on the skull with black highlights (or low lights), gold highlights, white highlights, and brown high/low lights. And I know what you are thinking. Why so many different shades of red. Well, I was trying to make it as realistic as possible and the colours just seemed to fit. I think my process was similar to an artist’s painting (not that I am comparing myself to an artist) where if they don’t have a particular colour, they make it up. The seven colours just seemed to fit.
Assembly comes next. I guesstimated the best position for the neck and drilled alignment holes through each of the neck sections. Once aligned, I slapped on a ton of glue, added a couple of alignment pins, and then clamped them all together. Somehow. The problem with this project is there are not many flat sections where I could put a clamp. Minor details. I was able to successfully assemble the neck pieces. Another problem arose. Not so much a problem, but a missing piece. I needed a shield to mount the dragon on and then to the wall. Back to Vcarve where I found a shield as part of the the shapes and models that come with the program. Just a little resizing of the shield, add a relief cut in the shape of the neck and cut it out. Perfect. This time no issues.
Next up, I had to mount the jaws to the neck pieces. Now was the time to use the extra alignment holes in the neck pieces to align the bottom jaw. I used a pencil inside the alignment hole to mark the spot on the jaw. Luckily the pencil was a perfect fit in the hole and made a perfect mark. Then I drilled the alignment hole in the jaw and went in search of a dowel pin that would fit. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the correct size. Or did I? The pencil was the exact size I needed so guess what. I used the pencil for the alignment pin. Not orthodox, but it worked.
The Eyes Have It
Time to work on the eyes. I was unable to find any dragon eyes on the internet. Lots of fake eyes, but none that would work for my dragon. Therefore I decided to make my own. As this is the first time making eyes, I didn’t know where to start. I decided on taking modelling clay and stuffed it inside of the eye sockets. This gave me an imprint of the eye socket. Then I added modelling clay to the sides and voila. A perfect mold for the eye. Each side was done independently of the other giving me two very similar but unique eyes. These were molded out of epoxy as well, with lots of red tint and generous helpings of “glow in the dark” powder, and you guessed it, two red eyes that do not glow in the dark. Not having any luck with the glow in the dark stuff. Maybe time to invest in another glow in the dark powder, for my next dragon head. The eyes were such a tight fit, they would stay in without any glue, but that was risky, so I glued them in.
The Top Of the Head
So, now that the neck pieces and the lower jaw are all glued together and fitting pretty well, it is time to mount the top of the head to the neck and lower jaw. Just place it on there with a little bit of glue and we’re done, right? Wrong!!! I expected that the head would be a nice snug fit as the pieces were all cut from the same model and in fact, I could reassemble them in Meshmixer and you wouldn’t see any gaps. Well, wood is not the same as a digital model. It did not cut anywhere close enough without leaving huge gaps. No big deal, an easy sanding and everything would fit. Nope! Not even close. I spent about 3 days sanding the back of the head to fit properly against the neck and the lower jaw. Most of that sanding was hand powered and not using any of my sanders. In the end, I got really close to nowhere near almost perfect, but I had had enough. I decided to add a couple of alignment holes and got some dowel pins to hold it in place and glued it on. Then I used some wood filler to close the gaps in the joint until you couldn’t see the misalignment anywhere.
Spoiler Alert! Beginning wood workers love using wood filler to correct small mistakes. Some even come close to hiding big mistakes, but not many.
The top frill was the next piece to be assembled. This too was cut from the model and should have been a perfect fit. However, “should fit” is never a measurement that carpenters/artists use when building something. The frill did fit but there were some big gaps between the pieces. Rather than waste 3 days trying to get a snug fit without destroying it by sanding, I added dowel pins and used wood filler. Can’t even tell that these pieces are not fully identical.
The face frills on the sides were a different story. These were cut with a much better percision than the top frill. I did spend 3 days of manual sanding to get them aligned but in the end, I had to use dowel pins to hold everything in place and filled with the wood filler.
The only thing left to do were to add the horns on the head. These were simple to add. After a lot of sanding to make them fit. However, these were mostly sanded using power tools. The biggest concern I had with the horns, is what colour should they be? I tried red, but it looked like too much red. Then brown, but they didn’t look right. In the end I took inspiration from cow horns which can be mutli-coloured where they start out red, turn to white and finally with brown on the ends.
Mounting on the Wall
I had to attach the dragon head to the mounting shield. This was very easy and almost not worth mentioning. However, mounting the whole thing to the wall, not so easy. What to use? A wire, picture hangers? Something else? I went to the land of the Home Depot, where nobody helps you and you can’t find anything you want quickly. As the Dragon Head weighs over 10 kg, I needed to have something strong enough to hold it up but without being too bulky or unsightly. I found the exact mounting bracket that definitely holds more than 10 kg. I know this because as I put the bracket on the wall, I momentarily grabbed a hold of it and suspended from it. It held and I am a lot more than 10kg.
Since I am disclosing the weight of the head, I might as well give you the dimensions: 304 mm x 280 mm x 457 mm (12” x 11” x 18”). Not huge but not small. I guess in the real world, this would probably be a young dragon given its size.
This project took about 6 months from start to finish. Not exactly world record pace but enough to get the job done.
Here is the final product hanging above the door in the garage.
