The Dragon Live

Live on stage!

Here's the dragon live on stage for Shrek the Musical. The puppeteers did a great job bringing her to life. The singer can be seen on top of the set pieces. They made her a matching costume.

If we didn't have the limitations of getting on and off the stage via a narrow staircase I would have gone with bigger wings. All in all I'm very happy with the way she turned out.

I hope that if you find this and are looking to build your own dragon my experience with the build can be a help to you. If you have any questions you can reach me at cary at snarfy dot com.

The Stage Test

Well, here she is on stage in front of some of the sets. Curtain goes up in two days. I hope it all goes well!

The Switch

I found a three position switch at Radio Shack where I could have off/yellow/red lights. I attached the switch to the pole with, you guessed it, duct tape, and covered the wires with a short length of fabric and double-stick Velcro.

Skinning the Body

For each of the bones along the back we sewed triangles together, leaving a slot for the plastic vertical spar. We then draped the fabric over the side and used clamps to hold it in place while we draped fabric over the other side. After a rough cut where I thought the top and bottom fabrics would join, we took the section off and sewed it together, leaving the opening for the spars. We repeated this along the top of the dragon, sewing each section together then to the previous section. Flat fabric doesn't naturally want to go around curved shapes. In retrospect I would have used scallop scissors to give the edge a rougher look, which would feed into the "dragon scales" look. We carried the fabric all the way to the tail. for the foam legs and foam tail I thought I was going to use the spray foam, but it proved to be too difficult in the shop I was in. Instead I used the pull-and-shove-in-a-nail method, working my way down the legs and around the back of them, trying to match the curves I created in the foam. I was running out of fabric at this point and actually had to use a little of the wing fabric on the bottom of her back left foot.

Testing the spikes

We went section by section.

To accommodate the flapping wings, I cut a square sleeve and sewed it into the dragon back fabric. It allowed for the wing joint to move. I cut a small hole in the top of the sleeve to put the pin in and out.

Cut slits to accommodate the talons.

The legs were another exercise in pull and tuck and pin with small nails.

Now, to the belly fabric. Starting with the neck we worked our way along. First rough-cutting the fabric. After much thought, I had settled on using sticky Velcro tape to connect the back and belly fabric on the dragon. This would provide what I hope will be a strong connection, it's easy to adjust, and easy to remove and replace. We would sew each section, take it off, sew the next section, put it back, measure, and proceed. It was a real hassle to work around the poles. I should have stood up the dragon on two tables side by side, allowing free space underneath. The dragon can rest on her feet if on the side by side tables. I thought skinning the dragon would take just a morning, but it took all day.

After a couple weeks backstage and a jaunt over to the Jr High kids chapel, it became evident that the Velcro would not cut it. I came back in with upholstery thread and needle and re-sewed all the edges where we had the Velcro. The Velcro was worth it because it held it in place during construction. It's not easy adding fabric around curvy shapes.