Custom Pattern - Tumblr Posts

This dragon tail commission is patterned to suggest a tropical sea. It’s got blue and green mixed together with flashes of silver, over an underbelly of sandy yellow. And it’s got a full line of spikes down the spine, and the leather spade tip is dyed turquoise.

It measures in at 29 inches long (31 with the spade tip), and weighs 3 pounds 2 ounces.

This was the last tail outstanding on my queue for now. I’m going to take a couple weeks and either work on personal projects (like maybe something new for Magic Meat Week? Is that happening again this year?) or spending my free time volunteering for Hillary Clinton in whatever capacity I can. Towards the end of the month I’m planning to open for tail commissions to be completed during November, keep your eyes peeled if you’re interested.

This dragon tail has a golden flame pattern to it. Made of anodized aluminum scales, mostly yellow/gold with some orange and red. And it has a spade tip made of fluorescent orange acrylic plastic.

It measures in at 32 inches long without the spade tip, 35 with it, and weighs 2 lbs 15 oz.

I’d fallen a bit behind, but nearly finished up March’s commissions in time. I’ve got 2 more tails incoming.

Anodized titanium dragon tail! Wooooo! I love the almost iridescent quality these scales have.

It’s been quite a while since the last time I got to work with these scales. For this commission I custom ordered a batch of them from the manufacturer. This tail uses purple, violet and dark blue anodized titanium scales, plus “Bright” anodized aluminum scales on the underbelly (in red and bronze color). It also uses gold-colored cat claw-shaped spikes. (I had to track down a random amazon supplier for those, since the place I normally get spikes from only does chrome. But nowhere but them seems to have large sizes, so these are all just the small 1-inch ones.)

I ordered enough extra titanium scales that I’ll probably make another tail with it. Probably leaning towards green tones since I got green too. Probably just go for stainless steel on the underbelly though. While these bright aluminum scales are super reflective and pretty, I don’t think they’re pretty enough to justify ten times the price as normal aluminum. Especially on the underside where you don’t seen them all that much. But, the commissioner was wanting to match their character, and they were happy to pay for the premium materials.

Ooh look another dragon tail!

This month was worse for working than I’d hoped, so my commissions are behind schedule, but here’s the first one!

The client drew up this pattern themselves, and I thought it was super pretty. It’s red on top with gold/yellow underbelly, a sequence of Vs in bronze/brown, and a single yellow scale at the peak of each V in the front, which turned out to pop really well.

This one measures in at 33 inches long, and 3 pounds even. It’s got a lobster clasp at the tip.

This dragon tail is made with a camo pattern! Or at least, a reasonable approximation of one. 

Primarily green, with blotches of brown, and scattered flecks of black and yellow. All scales are anodized aluminum, linked together with stainless steel rings. The commissioner’s character has a removable blade at the tip if their tail, which they may fabricate themselves later, so I included some lobster clasps for them to be able to easily attach it in.

This tail measures in at 33 inches long, and weighs 3 pounds 1 ounce.

I had two dragon tail commissions in a row that involved non-standard spade tips. Normally I do them horizontal/flat, in whale-fluke orientation. For this tail though the client wanted a vertical shark-fin orientation. I turned out to rather like it! 

The other sort of funky thing about this tail is thankfully impossible to see. The purple scales scattered throughout are anodized titanium, which is a harder metal than the aluminum. I usually try to avoid mixing metals of different hardnesses, because the softer one will tend to get scratched up relatively faster. So to mitigate this problem, I cut a little scale out of suede to weave in beneath each titanium scale, as padding to prevent it from touching the aluminum scales below it. Maaaybe overkill, maaaybe more time consumptive than it was worth, but hey, it won’t scratch itself now.

Primarily made of anodized aluminum, red on top with an orange underbelly. Speckled through the red are some purple anodized titanium scales. It measures 29 inches from tip to belt line without the spade tip, 34 inches with it on. It weighs in at 2 pounds 14 ounces.

Pics of the other tail I’m finishing will be up tomorrow.

And here’s the anodized titanium dragon tail I was working on! I was super happy to get a chance to work with this metal again. Getting these takes putting in a special order to the manufacturer, and there’s always variability between batches, but it’s totally worth it. (There was a bit of a snafu getting started with this one because paying taxes had drained my bank account, and I didn’t have the cash to be able to put in the order for the scales until I had finished another commission... Anyway, it eventually worked out.)

This one also has a funky tip, which took rather a while to work out the specific dimensions on. The upper part goes clear through the tail, and the tail is slitted to provide the space for it. Like my normal spade tips, it attaches in to the tail with lobster clasps, so it’s removable. I’m pretty adamant about doing it like that, because I know that the materials I use for the tips will wear down more easily than the metal of the tail, so I want to make sure they can be easily replaced by the owner without needing to ship the whole thing back to me to take apart the chainmail. 

Oh right, this tail also used a different style of spikes than I normally use. These are shaped like eagle claws. I rather like the side view of them, but for some reason they’ve got a strong twist to the side, which I was not a big fan of. The client liked it, though, so that’s fine.

The scales are all anodized titanium, primarily a mix of light blue and dark blue, with a pattern of violet diamonds down the spine and a scattering of teal and green on the top side. Spade tip is Baltic birch plywood with black acrylic paint. It measures in at 35 inches long with the spade tip, 33 inches without. It weighs 3 pounds 11 ounces.

This dragon tail is made of anodized titanium, and it’s got a couple new details!

First is the spade tip. The client wanted this more complicated shape, so I worked out how to get the upper piece to attach through a slit in the pattern of the tail. Like my normal spade tips, it also attaches in with lobster clasps, so it’s removable and swappable for different colors/materials. In this instance the client went for black painted plywood, and I threw in a plain un-painted birch plywood one as a spare. 

The second new thing the client requested was the type of spikes used down the spine. The manufacturer refers to these as an eagle claw shape. I do like their profile, but instead of being symmetrical like the rest of the spikes I use, they curve to the side pretty dramatically. I could see it working really well on a big leather collar or super-spiked-out jacket, but for this application I was not super fond of them. But the client liked them, so that’s what matters.

The tail itself is made with a bunch of different colors of anodized titanium: violet diamonds beneath each spike down the spine, a mix of dark and light blue for the background, and a scattering of teal and green. I clustered the teal and green scales towards the top surface, and faded the blues darker on the underside. I got photos of it in a bunch of lighting conditions because the colors can really vary depending on the type of light they’re in.

Scale mail dragon tail commission I just finished. One of the prettiest patterns of colors I’ve had the pleasure of working with.

It’s got a custom pattern of anodized titanium scales in purple, violet, dark blue and teal, and it’s got a stainless steel underbelly. The anodized titanium has to be special-ordered from the manufacturer, and it’s pretty pricey, but it’s worth it. The spade tip’s shape was based on a reference from the commissioner, and it’s 1/8″ birch plywood that I laser-cut and painted with acrylic paint.

It measures in at 34 inches long without the spade tip, and the spade tip adds 4 inches, bringing it to 38 inches total. It weighs 3 pounds 13 ounces.

I’m currently open for more tail commissions like this! Info here: https://armoreddragon.tumblr.com/tails

A new dragon tail made in anodized titanium and blackened stainless steel. It uses teal, purple and violet titanium, in a pattern that gives an image of larger scales overlapping down its length. It’s got a full line of metal spikes along the spine, and a lobster clasp at the tip to attach things onto.

The anodized titanium is a rare treat to work with. It’s expensive and I need to custom-order it from the manufacturer and I’m always low-key worried they’ll tell me to go away one of these times, but damn if it isn’t just stunningly beautiful when it’s good. I really love the variation and texture on every scale, and I like putting together patterns to mix the colors in with each other and try to enhance that effect. In this batch the teal scales shifted on the edge of sea green and blue with hints of purple, the purple was a more muted maroon-ish tone with a blue base, and the violet was a great vibrant tone with occasional shifts towards rose-gold. The colors aren’t quite iridescent, but they definitely look like they were pulled out of the swirling colors of a soap bubble and pumped up to full saturation.

The blackened stainless steel is fun too. I guess I just really enjoy coloring processes that don’t rely on dyes like anodized aluminum does.

This tail is a medium length, measuring in at 31 inches from the tip to the top of the belt line, and it weighs 3 pounds 11 ounces.

This dragon tail has a pattern of gold scales branching off the spine, to match the circuitry patterns the commissioner’s character has. 

Green and yellow anodized aluminum scales, linked together with stainless steel rings. It measures in at 33 inches long and 3 pounds 6 ounces.

New dragon tail commission! This one has a complex custom pattern--red mottled striped and brown speckles on a purple background, with an underbelly of yellow with brown stripes. It’s got clusters of spikes down the spine, and a custom 3D shaped spade tip.

As per usual, it’s made of anodized aluminum scales linked with stainless steel rings. The spade tip is leather, and attaches via 3 lobster clasps. The tail measures 34 inches long, 38 inches with the spade tip, and weighs 3 pounds 14 ounces.

A very green dragon tail. The base color is the standard green, the stripes are a darker shiny/premium anodized aluminum.

This one measures in at 35 inches long, 3 pounds 6 oz. It’s got a lobster clasp at the tip for attaching things to.