The Dragon EYES!

I knew I wanted to get the eyes to light up. On the internet the dragons that stood out on stage had light-up eyes. I looked around for quite a while and settled on 4" hamster balls as the eyeball. I bought two so that I could use the side that didn't have the twist-off opening. As I was shaping the eyes I made sure that I could slide the eyeballs into a tightly fitting eye socket. I drilled holes and inserted tubes to allow for wire runs between the eyes and from the left eye to the back of the head.

To light up the eyes I settled on hotwiring a couple of those cheap LED flashlights that take the three AAA batteries. I drilled a hole in the side of the battery, ran some wires in-between the battery and one connection, and out to a switch I bought at Radio Shack. The first one was a snap. The second try drove me crazy! It kept lighting up a little bit like it was crossing a wire somewhere just enough to give it some power. I must have rewired and swapped out the battery pack four times. I finally went with soldering the wires to the battery connections.

A quick trip to Michael's craft store provided the thick orange glitter paper for the back of the eye and a big yellow Easter basket bag (cut in half) scrunched into the clear hamster ball provided a nice yellow glow. A Sharpie-drawn eye slit in black provided the finishing touch. The eyes were in business!

The first round, when I only had one color

Yes, that's an Easter egg basket bag in the eyeball.

I colored the LED light lens on the bottom with red Sharpie, and colored the bottom of the eyeball with red Sharpie to give it a red glow.

Given our tight budget, I went with cheap LED flashlights. Had I more money I would have gone with high-power flashlights or some soft of color change LED. Oh well, next time.

I considered for a while how to make the eyelids blink, but given the amount of time that I had available I decided to pass on that particular feature.