The Dragon Bow

Stolen Art No.4

The Art piece was stolen from Shurgard Maastricht Noord whilst in their safe area.
They were unwilling to look through their security video because the manager said the disk was full, but actually he just couldn't care less.
No claim was entertained and the police didn't even bother to take finger prints.
Excluding the materials, a total loss of well more than 4500 hours of work spanning over some 20 years.
Tough times.

This fantasy project was to create a 'Dragon Troop Carrier' that carried soldiers into battle, breathing fire and shooting cross bow bolts.
A Dragon a mythical fire breathing machine that would clear the world of all evil.
would carry troops into battle.
I kind of wanted a insect cross dragon that could also fly over the enemy and rain fire and bolts on the enemy below.

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I found this design of the internal mechanism on the internet, on which I based my design on.
Except for the safety catch, which I didn't think would be needed because I was not going to carry this around with me like a normal cross bow.

First order of business was to make the actual steel bow.

I tried a couple of different metals, like an old knife blade and a broad hack saw blade and eventually I found that an old wood saw was the perfect thickness and hardness, so I used an angle grinder to cut a strip off.

Two pieces of brass flat bar and a perspex center gave me the center part.

The perspex is nice material for carving and drilling so the internal components could be fitted with out too much of a mission.

Also it was easy to replace after I screwed the tenth one up.

This was all experimental. I had never even shot or actually handled a cross bow, so one can imagine the level of naivety.
I made most components more than a few times over until I was satisfied they would work smoothly. I made the trigger wheel out of brass after trying with steel, ( cut the bow string) and plastic ( too soft).
But brass worked just fine, even though it was a bit heavy.

The basic prototype ready to be tested with a rough trigger indeed.

I made about seven of these before I got a reliable and strong working model.

I loaded it with a piece of brass wire.
The pencil was to stop the trigger being depressed a shooting the bolt in an unplanned direction.

It worked very well and was a lot stronger than I had anticipated.
In fact, after testing this model, I was a lot more wary of it when it was loaded and cocked.
That's some tough plastic it went through, and that at a distance of some 4 meters.

The complete crossbow.

There are 63 different components.

Here is the bow drawn and loaded with a custom made bollt

(Cross bow name for an arrow) .

This picture shows the final version of the bow, with gem nuts holding the whole affair together.

I struggled to find an arrow that worked well.
The first three on the left were working proto types and the other one finished designs.
The shafts are made out of carbon fiber rod and tipped with stainless steel heads.
The other end I glued a aluminium tube over so that the carbon fiber does not split.
The carbon fiber bolts were very effective at penetrating up to five empty beer cans in a row, buy way of comparing strength.

Once the principle was established that the bow could shoot regularly, it was time to add the actual dragon.
I have the philosophy that if I am uncertain as to how to carry on with a design, just start from one end and see what come out.
I cut some cardboard out and if it looks sort of OK, then make it in brass and see if it still works. Mostly, this causes me to do things two or three times but that's OK with me.

The legs being a typical example.

I wanted an kind of insect look.

And there had to be six, because insect and all..

This is the base of the leg structure.

It is all black from solder heat.

Here I am graduating from just bending some aluminium welding rods into 6 mm brass round stock . It's much easier to make quick little models and get the feel, rather than drawing it out. Nothing pops like 3D.

My cockatiel was the work shop foreman, just checking if I am doing my job properly.

Moving on to 6 mm round bar. The basic universal joints designed and tested.
This allowed the legs to be articulated, so that the final model can be 'posed' in different leg configurations.

The Central Tower.
This was the heart of the dragon bow, where the troops would be transported and the power unit was housed and where the cross bow would be loaded.
The legs would also be attached here.
The first order was of course, to make the legs the right length.

A second joint was added to the legs that was also articulated.

I made the rear legs more substantial, and gave them a kind of 'exposed tendon' look.

Like this. Like a kind of mechanical tendon, if you will.
I can imagine them pushing and pulling as the dragon walks over the battle field.

Now the wings.
I first made some basic cardboard cut outs and then graduated to actual metal.
I just tied the proto wings to the body with cable ties, to get a feel for the look.

I covered the wings with copper sheeting and then the look and feel of the Dragon got more direction.

I cast two bars of silver and then cut and filed the teeth out, one for the left and one for the right hand side.

Working on the head.
At first I made two spines that faced forward but it had to much of a 'puppy listening' look.
I made some proto teeth out of sterling silver and cut the jaw apart and made it movable.

Turned the spines around and added another set.
Much better. Much more aggressive. We wouldn't want a dragon looking like a little wimp, would we now?

I made some opposing teeth facing upwards earlier on and this picture shows them looking quite 'dragonish'. The face of any sculpture is always critical.
It can make or break the piece.

Making a large front tooth out of silver.
I wanted a big ass tooth and a couple of smaller ones on either side.

Even though I was very uncertain at this stage, I thought this was more or less the direction I was wanting to go.

With the mouth open.

Designing the tail. As always, I first draw on paper, then cut a few links out of cardboard and once I get the drift and it looks balanced, I progress to actual metal.

Each pair is progressively smaller.
All of them were eventually filed half round on one side and then polished.

Testing them together with some placer bolts.
This was to check the 'feel' of the articulation that the tail has and in fact, to see if the thing worked. There's that as well.....

The dragon wings on the end of the tail were just put there to see what little wings looked like with the representative from the Ministry of Wings present to check that my design would comply with current regulations.

The body panels were sanded down and bent towards the middle.

Then I added some spines to the body. Dragons have a lot of spines.

All the spines in place. The spines can also be moved up or down.
Later on I decided that the spines look more aggressive when they are forward facing, so I changed them around to face forwards.

Then I made the tail winglets.
They are made out of filed brass rods and then a thin sheet of copper is distressed and colored and bent and riveted in place.

Not only is the face of any sculpture important, but even more important are the eyes.
Get them wrong and everything can look funny.

I experimented with many different colours and combinations until I settled on Citrine orange on a black background.
Basically, the stone is set into sterling silver that was soldered into the head and then the silver is blackened with Liver of Sulfur .

I also cast a copper plate and cut out some more 'spines' and mounted them on top of the Dragon's head.

Adding spikes to the middle and front legs.
Dragons have a lot of spines and spikes.

Steampunking the central tower.

The other side of the tower.

The tower and the leg base being finished off.
The tower rotates on the leg base, so the head and wings and cross bow can be turned to face any oncoming enemy.

Once the components were all manufactured, the dragon was disassembled and each component was polished and then stabilized with a poly urethane anti tarnish layer.

OK, so that covers the basic construction, so now I am going to show some boo-teek pictures of the Dragon components.
The breast plate is made out of distressed copper and a sterling silver dragon motive.
The garnets are set in silver tubes

The last sight an enemy sees just before the Dragon Cross Bow overwhelms him.
With him standing like that, he can swivel right around to shoot at enemies from all sides.

All the various nuts and bolts are set with natural gemstones like amethysts, citrines peridot and topaz and garnets.

Close up of the breast plate dragon.
Made out of distressed copper and sterling silver.

The head after assembly.

And a close up.

Making what I call gem bolts.
The red on the metal is not copper, but a copper flashing that is removed with polishing. The flashing occurs when the pickling acid is contaminated with iron.
These are topaz gems that are being set.

I made the display box out of brass angle sectioning, clear glass and stained glass.

The frame brazed together.
The frame also has small legs so the box is slightly raised for underneath lighting.

Making the hinges for the lid.

Cutting glass.

Fitting the stained glass bottom.
The stained glass allows for a light to be shone through the base, giving a very nice surreal effect on the sculpture.

Safe and sound in his new home.
The raised legs allows for a light fitting to be installed under the box.

There are about 450 separate pieces in this sculpture.
Build time is 470 hours.

Shootinh and breaking a glass bottle filled with water.