A friend of mine was really getting tired of looking at his dull, nearly mono-toned dragon, and asked me to work a little magic on it.  He had a spare body, so he gave it to me to try and spice it up a bit.  Below is a photo (courtesy of IPDB and Allen Shope) that shows what the typical dragon looks like:



I then stripped the dragon completely, to give me a good starting point.  There is actually quite a bit of detail in the dragon body, and I wanted to be able to see that detail.  So I started with the scales and back, working to highlight all of those areas.  I then moved on to the claws and spines, repainting ALL of them - since many were either only partially painted or completely unpainted.  I then focused on the head and chest, again accenting the scales on the chest, and cleaning up the teeth, tongue and eyes.  The teeth were cleaned and repainted (without any paint between the teeth) and the tongue painted a pearlized orange.  Here is how it turned out:

 

The dragon is now mounted on my machine, and looks great.  Here he is with wings painted to match:

   
Photo 1 - Natural lighting;   Photo 2 - with flash to show details;   Photo 3 - Close-up of head taken with flash.


I have finally incorporated the fiber optic lighting to the eyes and wings.  The eyes are a beautiful bright blue, and the nostrils flare a dramatic orange.  In addition, I have installed neon lighting under the wings.  The first attempts at using fiber-optics didn't work since side-glow fiber optic cables require a POWERFUL light source - far greater than the machine could handle.  The flexible neon cable, however, offered a much better solution, and looks great.  The wings can be left "ON" continuously to brighten up the dragon, or be patched through a relay and tied into the flasher.  Not sure which I prefer yet, but you can get the general idea from the pictures below how it looks.  I will also include a short video (as soon as my daughter, the budding film-maker, has minute to help me out).