Maji the Water Dragon

[Henjin_Quilones]

Maji the Water Dragon

A freebuild for Avalonia

 

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Maji is the Water Guardian of the coastal regions of the land of Mwamba, together with her elf rider, Lady Mvua. They work together to keep the land safe from any threats from the water, and preserve the water from any threats from those who would wish to harm it. They were some of the first to welcom Henjin Quilones and Galaria to Bandari, and to show them around Mwamba, when they arrived there in their exile. 

 

 

More pictures:

Spoiler

 

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Back with another elemental dragon, this time water. This one was much harder to photograph with my setup, due to the dark color of Maji's hide. Still very posable and all that, but I have to admit I don't like her as much as Kijani. C&C welcome, as usual. 

Edited September 5, 2018 by Henjin_Quilones

[Spader]

Now this thing is bad news.......

IDK if the Dragon is your design but it looks great. 

[Basiliscus]

Really nice design! Love the dark blue dragon, it's a great colour choice. In particular the technic wing design is very clever, fits perfectly for those wings.

I like the presentation base, it should be on your mantelpiece!

[zoth33]

Like the design of the dragon.  The food piece you use for the eyes works well.  I like the wings too, I just think the body of the dragon could use more green to accent the wings better.  Overall nicely done.  

[TitusV]

I can understand you favour for Kijani, but this one's still a beauty for sure! Dark blue is such a lovely colour for a dragon... One of the biggest differences is the base, IMHO. I'm not completely sold on the water technique, and the sand isn't as cool as in your previous build. 

That being said, I still really like your dragons, may I hope to see some more of them?  

Edited August 31, 2018 by TitusV

[TheLordOfBricks]

Awesome work Henjin! Pretty Much I second what Titus said, but I still like the water. :) Really well done, keep it up!

[mccoyed]

Another great dragon, Henj. I like that water technique a lot. One of the problems with the round stud technique I use is that it's sort of hard to build convincing surf without going too high (because I like to keep those lt and dark translucent blue under studs), but this approach looks pretty good especially with the sloped beach.

[Henjin_Quilones]

22 hours ago, Andrew Spader said:

Now this thing is bad news.......

IDK if the Dragon is your design but it looks great. 

Oh, Maji just looks angry, but she is really quite nice when you get to know her. The dragon is my own design, though some elements of the basic sub-structure have been taken from Nuju Metru's dragons. Beyond the core of the friction joints, though, and some other bits of inspiration, everything else is unique to me. My first dragons (like the black one on the City of Bandari) were pretty much copies of his work, but I found the look too stripped down and have added quite a bit of bulk and shaping around a similar skeleton. 

22 hours ago, Basiliscus said:

Really nice design! Love the dark blue dragon, it's a great colour choice. In particular the technic wing design is very clever, fits perfectly for those wings.

I like the presentation base, it should be on your mantelpiece!

It is on a shelf, not a mantle, but she is currently on display at my house, until I take her apart to make other things...

I only have enough blue in dark blue, so that limited my choices for color. I thought it turned out pretty good. 

14 hours ago, zoth33 said:

Like the design of the dragon.  The food piece you use for the eyes works well.  I like the wings too, I just think the body of the dragon could use more green to accent the wings better.  Overall nicely done.  

Thanks! I ran out of printed eyes, but thought the pastry looked decent as a substitute, especially with part of the Bionicle mask covering the corner. 

I totally agree about the green, and the first and second version of the dragon had a lot more green, especially lime green, but I had trouble making it look good. It just never seemed organic enough for my liking. 

1 hour ago, TitusV said:

I can understand you favour for Kijani, but this one's still a beauty for sure! Dark blue is such a lovely colour for a dragon... One of the biggest differences is the base, IMHO. I'm not completely sold on the water technique, and the sand isn't as cool as in your previous build. 

That being said, I still really like your dragons, may I hope to see some more of them?  

Kijani is actually probably my fourth favorite dragon currently, and Maji is the fifth. I have three more complete and ready to post (you have probably seen them on Flickr already, since I entered them in the Joust) that I like better. Once I take a group picture of the four Mwamban Elemental dragons with their riders, I will take them apart and build up Galaria's dragon crew. Henjin might be the Master of the Druidi Order, but Galaria is Mistress of Dragons. 

The base turned out wider than I would have liked, and the I agree that the sand is not as good as the dirt of Kijani's. I rather liked the water as I made it, though. I think it gives a feel of dynamism, with the waves crashing and foaming against the shore. I needed to give the appearance of a beach without making a full beach, so this was the best I could do with the parts I had available at that time. 

58 minutes ago, TheLordOfBricks said:

Awesome work Henjin! Pretty Much I second what Titus said, but I still like the water. :) Really well done, keep it up!

Thanks! Glad you like the water. 

12 minutes ago, mccoyed said:

Another great dragon, Henj. I like that water technique a lot. One of the problems with the round stud technique I use is that it's sort of hard to build convincing surf without going too high (because I like to keep those lt and dark translucent blue under studs), but this approach looks pretty good especially with the sloped beach.

Thanks, mccoyed! I am not as partial to the round stud technique myself (though it often looks great) so I usually use tiles, but I used plates here for the dynamic look that studs and layers can provide.

[de Gothia]

Wow! So impressed and so jealous of people like you, that could build such great and organic looking models!! Love it!

[soccerkid6]

Dark blue is a fun color to work with, but can be frustrating due to the parts limitations. You did really well using it as the main color for the dragon
I like your wave effect too, I think it does convey motion well

[adde51]

Nicely done. The dragon looks good, especially like the head and claws. I just wondered if maybe something could have been added underneath the wings to sort of hide the technic parts (or maybe just angle the wings a bit differently for the shot). Great work with the base!

[narbilu]

Awesome beast, even better positioned on the surface, which is very well done.

[TitusV]

Aye, I get that you wanted to represent waves, but I still feel like the division between foam and water is too 'clean', an almost straight line. Maybe mixing them up would add some extra effect?

[Henjin_Quilones]

On 9/1/2018 at 8:54 AM, de Gothia said:

Wow! So impressed and so jealous of people like you, that could build such great and organic looking models!! Love it!

Ahh, thanks, dG! Don't be jealous though - start making some creatures yourself. Copy what others have done to start, if you are unsure, and then make the designs your own. That's what I did, at least. 

19 hours ago, soccerkid6 said:

Dark blue is a fun color to work with, but can be frustrating due to the parts limitations. You did really well using it as the main color for the dragon
I like your wave effect too, I think it does convey motion well

Thanks, SK! It is a good color, but there is a limit to what it has, for sure. It is actually less limited than many colors, though, since it has some fun pieces in it, largely from Ninjago and Bionicle sets. 

14 hours ago, adde51 said:

Nicely done. The dragon looks good, especially like the head and claws. I just wondered if maybe something could have been added underneath the wings to sort of hide the technic parts (or maybe just angle the wings a bit differently for the shot). Great work with the base!

Thanks! If I had enough of the technic parts in one color, like all black, the wings would look better. I would not want to hide them entirely, since they represent the "finger" bones of the wings, and are thus quite important to the overall design of the dragon. But I agree that I was a bit sloppy with the colors here, with dark grey, light grey, and black all together there. 

12 hours ago, narbilu said:

Awesome beast, even better positioned on the surface, which is very well done.

Thanks, Narb!

34 minutes ago, TitusV said:

Aye, I get that you wanted to represent waves, but I still feel like the division between foam and water is too 'clean', an almost straight line. Maybe mixing them up would add some extra effect?

The water and foam division is actually not straight, but it is hard to tell exactly what it is doing in the picture, so I can understand your critique. There is about three or four studs of play between the two boundaries, curving and cutting between trans-light blue and trans-clear. 

[Gabe]

Your dragons are all beautiful, it's been a real treat to see them on Flickr and as part of the Summer Joust.   The colour scheme on Maji is particularly striking and the base is lovely as well. Is it my imagination, or is Maji slightly smaller than your other dragons? The head construction is interesting... i do like it, but it also looks a little rodent-like with the 'ears' standing up like that!  

[Henjin_Quilones]

On 9/6/2018 at 10:01 AM, Gabe said:

Your dragons are all beautiful, it's been a real treat to see them on Flickr and as part of the Summer Joust.   The colour scheme on Maji is particularly striking and the base is lovely as well. Is it my imagination, or is Maji slightly smaller than your other dragons? The head construction is interesting... i do like it, but it also looks a little rodent-like with the 'ears' standing up like that!  

Thanks, Gabe!

Maji is about the same size as Kijani, but smaller than Hewa and the others I posted to the Joust. I wanted to make a distinction based on size between male and female dragons, though one of the three larger ones is female, too (which will play a role in the story when I get there). I agree about the ears, and it was actually deliberate, as I liked the way they made her head look. She looks a bit like a rodent with wings, in my own opinion.