Cracked/Disintegrated Old Green Dragon Eyes

[JynXx]

Hey Windstone!

Don’t know if this is the right Topic to post this under, but I have this Mother Dragon who I just brought out of storage after a few years. She was packed securely in a Mother Dragon box w/inserts, but I think her eyes were damaged due to the dramatic weather and temperatures we’ve had over the past year in California. The display side eye was badly cracked, and the non-display side eye was pretty much crumbling. Unfortunately, I don’t have pictures since my phone has been out of commission for nearly a month 🙁 I’m posting this here to ask if anyone might have eyes like these to replace hers with? I know that they’re really uncommon, but figured I’d ask anyway. Thanks to anyone who can help :3

↞↞≪∙ FOREVER SEEKING •↟•

• ► By Patricia Smith ◄ •
☙ "SKY BRONZE" Emperor Dragon
✾ "RAINBOW ASAGI" Moon Oriental Dragon
✾ "RAINBOW TIGER" Sun Oriental Dragon

• ► By Melody ◄ •
☙ "Test Paint #5" GB '15 PUMA
☙ #170 FANTASY GB '22 Young Qi'Lin
☙ #224 KOI GB '22 Young Qi'Lin

[JynXx]

Bump?

↞↞≪∙ FOREVER SEEKING •↟•

• ► By Patricia Smith ◄ •
☙ "SKY BRONZE" Emperor Dragon
✾ "RAINBOW ASAGI" Moon Oriental Dragon
✾ "RAINBOW TIGER" Sun Oriental Dragon

• ► By Melody ◄ •
☙ "Test Paint #5" GB '15 PUMA
☙ #170 FANTASY GB '22 Young Qi'Lin
☙ #224 KOI GB '22 Young Qi'Lin

[StormDancer]

Maybe you can find an old green mother that has been badly damaged to get the eyes from?

Looking for:
"COSMIC SHIFT DRAGONS and KI-RINS" and the "OCTOPUS TANUKI TEST PAINT #1"

[Kim]

Maybe you could find similar eyes from here? https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/dreamingtreestudio

Looking for rainbow or pink & teal grab bags!

[siberakh1]

Those are the really, really old eyes (the dragon doesn’t have a pad underneath, does she?). The paint is pulling away from the eyes (the eyes used shortly after were fired on and don’t have that issue). The ones from dreamingtreestudio aren’t the same (they are resin, not glass). Other than getting something from Windstone, Tohickon or similar taxidery glass eyes (https://www.tohickonglasseyes.com/) will be your best bet. Tohickon will also do custom, but it can take some time (I have gotten custom eyes done through them, but larger for a non-Windstone project).

[JynXx]

I appreciate your suggestion, StormDancer ♥ if I could do just that, I would. Sadly, aside from this pretty mama and another I saw posted by a Forum member on here some time ago, all the Old Green Dragons I’ve ever seen have orange glass eyes. These were amber, and had a sort of… dichroic? look about them.

Thanks for your suggestion, Kim! Dreaming Tree’s resin eyes are great, but they just don’t possess the same character as glass. These made her seem alive.

Nope! No felt pad. Thanks also for your suggestion, Siberakh1 🙂 I’ve looked at Tohickon, so I might try getting them custom ordered. Do you know if I sent them the cracked eye, if they would accept it as a reference piece? I know Windstone doesn’t normally do eye replacements, let alone for eyes THIS old. I may contact Susie anyway to see what she says. The only real problem is the lack of photographic proof of damage.

↞↞≪∙ FOREVER SEEKING •↟•

• ► By Patricia Smith ◄ •
☙ "SKY BRONZE" Emperor Dragon
✾ "RAINBOW ASAGI" Moon Oriental Dragon
✾ "RAINBOW TIGER" Sun Oriental Dragon

• ► By Melody ◄ •
☙ "Test Paint #5" GB '15 PUMA
☙ #170 FANTASY GB '22 Young Qi'Lin
☙ #224 KOI GB '22 Young Qi'Lin

[Jennifer]

Even if they can’t replace the eyes for you, Windstone should at least be able to tell you the exact size for those eyes. I have a good number of glass taxidermy eyes here (I do dabble in taxidermy, but I also make little bird sculptures), if you want to let me know what size you need, I can see if I have any that are the same color as the eyes in my old green male, should be the same.

Volunteer mod- I'm here to help! Email me for the best response: nambroth at gmail.com
My art: featherdust.com

[StormDancer]

I’ve not had any eyes custom made by Tohickon but I have bought some glass eyes from them for PYO’s twice and they were easy to order from and the eyes arrived much quicker than I had expected.

Looking for:
"COSMIC SHIFT DRAGONS and KI-RINS" and the "OCTOPUS TANUKI TEST PAINT #1"

[Melody]

That old girl is at least 30 years old, maybe older! Those are the old type of eyes we used when we first started Windstone. The very first Windstones had glass eyes that were painted with enamel paint. We soon found that the enamel paint pulled off of the backs after a few years.
Now we only use real glass paint that is fired onto the eyes.

I have a couple possible solutions, but they all hinge on removing the eyes.
Removing the eyes is the first hurdle. This may not be easy, and it is very easy to damage the dragon. Please get advice from a forum member that has done this surgery before!
If you CAN remove the eyes, you could clean off the old paint with acetone, (or lacquer thinner) and repaint them with gold enamel paint, (and black , if the pupil is damaged) This will restore them to their original condition.

Then, step 2…
I haven’t tried this myself yet, but this is one suggestion somebody gave us for solving this problem: If you can glue a bit of thin Ultraswede fabric between the dragon and the eye, (if it will fit) that would allow the eye to shift a little in the socket without shearing the paint off.

Or, another way around this is to carefully place glue only on the edges of the eyes, so that the glue doesn’t touch the enamel painted backs.

OR- We can send you a pair of new eyes that won’t fall apart no matter what, of the type we use now. However our glass-painted eyes won’t match the color of those old, golden-amber ones.

OR- you can replace them with other available eyes. They are 11 mm .

[Melody]

I would check with Tohickon to see how the color has been added to the eyes, if they use enamel paint, that too may come off.

[Melody]

This might be one of the veryfirst Windstone dragons we sold! See how badly she is painted on the underside? I didn’t know what I was doing.

[PrairieVixen]

Give Tony at Tohickon a call (or send him an email). If you’re able to get the eyes out, you could send him one and I’d pretty much guarantee you he can make you a custom pair to match identically. 🙂

.*ºSearching for Spectrals and Rising Spectrals in all patterns and colors!º*.

[JynXx]

Hi Jennifer!! The lovely Ms. Melody responded with the eye size, 11mm. I have been following your work for quite some time now, and have always admired your creativity ♥ if you have the time, and have any similarly colored eyes laying about, I would be curious to see them 🙂

Hi Ms. Melody! Thanks so much for taking the time to respond to my plea ♥ The amber/gold really resonates with me, and so far the only eyes that come close to their liveliness, are some of the dichroic eyes that I’ve seen in Emperor, Old Warrior, and Secret Keeper test paints. Would you guys happen to have any in 11mm? I’ll check in with Tohickon in the meantime about what methods they use for their eyes.

I’ve only ever removed a cracked eye from a GB Colt once, and that involved soaking the eye socket with warm water to dissolve the glue enough to wiggle it out. Super scary business, as I feared destroying the piece the entire time, but it all worked out fine. However, with the age of this Mama Dragon, I’m worried it might just break her to do that. Though, I was able to scrape out the decimated eye pieces from the non-display side without harming her.

The way she had been painted was one of the reasons which prompted me to snap her up when I saw her! I love the “weathered” look she has, it makes her realistic, in a way. Very different from the more recent Old Green dragons.

Thanks for the info, PrairieVixen!! I’m most likely going to end up at least having to try to wiggle out the cracked eye, so if I do manage to pry it out, I’m seriously considering giving Tohickon a shot 🙂

↞↞≪∙ FOREVER SEEKING •↟•

• ► By Patricia Smith ◄ •
☙ "SKY BRONZE" Emperor Dragon
✾ "RAINBOW ASAGI" Moon Oriental Dragon
✾ "RAINBOW TIGER" Sun Oriental Dragon

• ► By Melody ◄ •
☙ "Test Paint #5" GB '15 PUMA
☙ #170 FANTASY GB '22 Young Qi'Lin
☙ #224 KOI GB '22 Young Qi'Lin

[Jennifer]

Alas! I don’t have any with that amber-gold color, I could only get you “sorta close” with an orange. If you want to match it you’ll probably have to get in touch with Tohickon.

Volunteer mod- I'm here to help! Email me for the best response: nambroth at gmail.com
My art: featherdust.com

[Melody]

Yes, if they were glued in with white glue, soaking them with warm water is the way to do it.
It doesn’t look as though the actual glass eye is damaged, just the paint on the back, so the eyes are probably salvageable.
Unless your new glass eyes are made with a fired-on glass paint, don’t glue them back in with white glue touching the paint. It will eventually pull paint off of the glass. It will even pull off epoxy paint. We tried that!
(However If the eyes are painted with epoxy paint and glued in with epoxy, they seem to hold together. The experimental one I have is still good after 7 years.)
I don’t know about acrylic eyes. We’ve never used those.

[Author]

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