Is There A Way You Could Make A Core To The Dragon Tails So You Could Move It The Way You Want? Like

Is there a way you could make a core to the dragon tails so you could move it the way you want? Like if you didn't want it swinging around so much or if you're being still but still want the tail to move.

In theory yes, but not yet.

Years ago I had a basic idea for a way that I could make my tails move on their own, involving some motors and some stiff cables that ran the length of the tail. But motors and things like that are not things I have any experience with, and life is busy, and I never worked actively on it.

But sometime last year I saw a kickstarter for some people making animatronic tails, and they seemed to be doing it in basically the same way I had figured would work. I was excited. They were offering them with fur coverings like cats and dogs or what have you, but I got one that was just the mechanism and control box so I could at some point build a tail of my own around it.

But life has been busy, and I haven't gotten around to making it yet. Eventually I will, and once it's worked out I'll surely make it available for commissioners.

If people are curious, here's the website for the people who made the animatronic tails: http://thetail.co/

Chandelier Saga Part 1: Conception

A bit over two months ago, I was contacted by someone with whom I used to work, who now works with The Possible Project, a non-profit youth entrepreneurship outreach program thing. They were having a huge fundraiser gala at the beginning of October, and wanted to commission a big hanging chandelier as a focal point for the banquet. They're getting ready to build themselves a maker space, complete with a laser cutter and other tools, so they wanted the piece to show off rapid fabrication in some way, probably by having the piece made largely of laser-cut wood.

I was given pretty free range, with the understanding that I would come in every week or two and show the kids in the program what I was doing, giving them a view at how one might go about making a big project, and getting input from them about the design. The goal was to be able to have them also help with assembly, if possible.

Since I don't especially want to take up too much vertical space on people's feeds, jump the break for the early stages of my design process:

The first thing I did was to stay up for a while one night when I was already kind of punchy and just spew ideas down onto a page. Most of them were laser-cut wood ideas, though a few of them I was less sure about how to actually make them.

Having done that, I crawled the internet for precedents, and gave my first talk to the kids about what sort of things are possible with the medium. When doing something new, I always think it's a good idea to look around and see what sorts of solutions other people have come up with. It's a way of getting some inspiration going, finding ideas that you can riff on, and also get a sense for what sorts of ideas people haven't much tackled yet. (In fact, a large part of why I started working with leather was that, while working at a laser-cutting shop, I was looking around for materials that lasered well but not many people were using. And I ended up with leather.) Here are some of my favorites. Actually, one sentence is not quite enough.

And then I started sketching, both digitally and physically:

There was a major consideration that steered my thinking at this point: size. They wanted the final piece to be just about as big as could be made while still fitting inside someone's car to travel to its final destination. The thing is, the laser cutters I have access to are only so big--18 by 32 inches, to be precise. So anything large has to be constructed of smaller pieces. At the same time, I was told that the heaviest the riggers would hang something for the event was 75 lbs. That meant the ideas that involved big planes of material were right out.

So I decided to try to make it as a surface built up from small units connected together, making a skin that was light and self-supporting, without needing all the pieces to be hung off of a structural skeleton. This also meant that I shouldn't need to construct large structural ribs up out of smaller parts, which I was glad about. I was thinking about going for something built like one of the concepts I prototyped in paper, but with a more expansive and amorphous shape, and possibly with a second layer of skin inside the outer one.

But, everyone loved liked the idea with the overlapping scales and light emanating out from inside. Including me. I was a bit hesitant because I was pretty sure it would take more careful geometry shenanigans and tweaking than the other ideas, and I had only so much time to work on it. But I went for it.

What followed were quite a few rounds of strenuous modeling in Rhino broken up with cutting and assembling prototypes. But I think that's enough for this post. Stay tuned for Part 2!

Wow, this month.

Sorry for the radio silence this month, Internet. Between a huge pile of stuff to do at work plus a family wedding plus obligations to friends plus two craft fairs, I had basically no brainpower left to deal with commissions or updates.

To help me deal with the stress, though, I did make a large thing just for myself. (Well, it was also related to the big friends obligation.) I made an aluminum and rubber ring shirt in European 4-in-1. It's been at least a year or two since I made something large like that just for myself, and I'm really happy that I made it. Photos will be uploaded once I have a chance to take them.

Anyway, my obligations are back down to a manageable level now, so I'll be picking things up again and starting back up on commissions, and on the backlog of correspondence that's piled up.

This project is the reason I kind of dropped off the internet for a couple months there. But isn't it beautiful?

It's a chandelier I was commissioned to design and build for a big fancy fundraising gala. It's being installed in two days.

I'll make a longer more in-depth post with in-progress shots and explanations later, but for now:

laser cut

1/16" thick okoume plywood

bolted together

1/8" birch plywood internal frame

14 light bulbs inside

about 50 lbs

about 50 inches in diameter

currently taking up most of my living room

f***ing awesome.

What is your process for making your scaled pieces, and how do you link them? I've made a few gauntlet and mail shirt sets with similar scale-like pieces (out of steel, or aluminum for lighter weight commissions) and have had trouble making the scales so uniform. I imagine you use a laser cutter, but what would you suggest if I don't have access to something like that?

I buy my metal scales from a chainmail supply manufacturing company called The Ring Lord. Here's the order page with their scales. I generally use the large sized scales for big projects like tails, and the small size for jewelry. They also put together a simple instructional video for how to weave the scales together. 

I have started making a few pieces with wooden scales that I did laser-cut myself, though. I hope to do larger, more involved pieces like that in the future, but laser cutting that many scales is kind of expensive, and I haven't had a chance to toy with it too much. I would love to have access to something that would let me cut metal parts to integrate into chainmail pieces.

A black dragon tail with a purple underbelly. This one I made and shipped out last week, but was busy and didn't have a chance to go through the photos until just now.

As is most common on these, the scales are anodized aluminum. To fit the commissioner, this one was slightly long, measuring at 37 inches from top to tip. Which was too long for my friend who's modeling it. But she swings it admirably anyway.

Feel free to peruse this wall of text if you're interested in these tails!

Brownie points to anyone who can guess the architect for what's in the background.