Quick & Easy Chinese Parade Dragon

Several years ago I shared with instructables my Chinese Parade Dragon for Under $75.  You have all been so kind in your comments, messages and over all good cheer. 

When I created that dragon I was working fast, in a hurry and on a budget.  I also was not very good about taking pictures of the construction.

This year I was asked to make a parade dragon for a small part in the play Mulan at the children's summer camp I work for. (This dragon was actually cheaper than my first, costing under $25)   I had 4 hrs to make this all happen, in good news building one before I knew I could do it, in bad news it's not nearly as cool as my first one. 

One day perhaps I'll make a really killer one with super detailed instructions.  In the mean time, let me see if I can't help so many of you who asked me how I made the first one get a better understanding of it's construction.

Let's get started

6 to 8 sheets of foam board

Sharpie

Hot Glue Gun

Hot Glue

Box Knife

Scissors

2 Cans Black spray paint (or base color of your choice)

1 Sky bouncy ball (or knock off version)  Or any hollow ball, I just enjoy those I can see through so I can put glow sticks in them if I wish

Black Acrylic Paint

Other Acrylic paint colors of your choice

1 Twin bed sheet (color of your choice)

Lion Brand Fun Fur Yarn or Bernat Boa Yarn

Rulers/Tape Measure

Take your bouncy ball and cut it in half.  You can use the outside of the ball and paint then pupils or turn it inside out.  For this dragon I scrapped off the words sky ball with a razor blade then turned them inside out. 

While not pictured I also painted the iris at this point as well.

Take a piece of the foam board and draw your bottom jaw. then cut it out with a box knife

Use the first jaw as a template to make the second on another piece of foam core

Create your upper jaw/head.  Make a duplicate with the first.

Hot glue the upper and lower jaw together.  Using a small piece of foam board, decided how wide you want the head and glue that width of foam core between the two sides of the head.

Use several pieces around the head in this manner to make the form sturdy.

Create a 90 degree angle to help attach the eye at an angle.  Hot glue in place.  Make sure you measure to get the same location on the other side of the head.

Use small pieces of foam core to create eye details.

Foam board will roll.  You will hear a snapping sound, breaking down the actual foam.  The paper on the foam board will hold everything together.  You can now cut down the rounded foam board to close the head together.

OK, so I clearly was bad about some pictures, so let me full in the blanks.

I added more detail to the dragon, teeth, horns, ears, eyelashes and so on.

At this point if I wanted to really seal everything together I could have used some calking and even used that calking to create details. If I had more time as well, I would have hand painted with all acrylic OR put a base acrylic layer down before spay painting.  Spray paint eats foam, and wrinkles the paper layer because of this.  It's not a horrible thing, but it's noticeable.   But as I said at the start I only had a few hrs to get this done.

I took the twin bedsheet out to the grass laid it out flat and sprayed scales.

I spray painted the head black.

Once the spray paint was dry I added two small pieces of foam core to the inside of the head sticking out from the head, this made a shelf of sorts.  (see picture notes)

I hot glued the sheet into place.

I then added acrylic paint details.

At the end I added the yarn for a beared and eye lashes.

Not bad for something I had four hrs to create.

Unlike my other dragon people just went under the bed sheet vs holding it with sticks.  Also, do to the time crunch I couldn't add the yarn to the body.

However, as I stated before this was for a small part in this play (it was in the play less than 7 mins) so it worked for what we needed.

I doubt this is my last parade dragon, I'm pretty determined now to create another, but with crazy detail and more on the high end of things.  I assure you, I will share it. :)

Please ask questions I'm happy to help!

TIME!:  A non-rushed dragon is a better looking dragon!

CHEAP! : If you can get to a dollar tree, foam core is so cheap there, you can load up and make a pretty huge dragon head if you desire.

Get creative!: Egg cartons could be use for texture on the dragon.  Look around at junk, sometimes you can find real gems to create something new!

This could EASILY be tweaked slightly to make a killer fort!