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Another repair project I’ve been working on is an Emerald Lap Dragon whom I purchased on Ebay not long ago. He had a small chip on the top of his tail, and a couple of chips in his claws, so I got a very good price on him! Once he arrived, I discovered he also had suffered a lot of scraping to his gold trim on the unchipped claws and along the edge of the tail near the chip there; there was also a chip to the inside of his eyelid on one side (how?!?) in need of help.
Chips, scrapes, and dents, oh my!
I didn’t get a good picture of the tail chip or the eyelid (actually, I didn’t even discover the eyelid chip till about halfway through my other repairs!)
Interested in buying or trading for: GB Pebble Sitting Red Fox in dark grey, Lap Dragon Test Paints (Water Sprite, Glacial Pearl, Opulence, Pastel Rainbow, and many others - see my Classifieds ad), Blue Morpho OW, GB Pebble Loaf dragons in blue/aqua/teal, and Griffin Test Paints (Black Rainbow or Frosted Jade).
Finished!
Claws all pretty!
Tail all pretty!
Face all pretty! (Okay, after looking at this first pic, I may need to do a tiny bit more touching up to that eyelid…)
Interested in buying or trading for: GB Pebble Sitting Red Fox in dark grey, Lap Dragon Test Paints (Water Sprite, Glacial Pearl, Opulence, Pastel Rainbow, and many others - see my Classifieds ad), Blue Morpho OW, GB Pebble Loaf dragons in blue/aqua/teal, and Griffin Test Paints (Black Rainbow or Frosted Jade).
With a little Apoxie Sculpt, I filled in the hole in his claws and resculpted his missing scaletip on his tail.
Rough fill-in:
Since his claw is a smooth, broad (well, relatively) surface, I didn’t worry too much about filling the gap precisely! It was much simpler to concentrate on making sure the apoxie went all the way down inside and securely filled the holes, without worrying about the outer surface. You can see in these pics that it bulges a little and has an irregular shape round the edges!
Once the filling was completely dry, I used a nail file and then a nail buffer (super-fine grain, and flexible!) to smooth out the filling — since I was going to be applying gold over the whole claw, I didn’t need to be concerned about damaging the finish around the repaired area! It made more sense to strip the whole side of that claw and then reapply gold smoothly; any ‘leftover’ from the old paint would’ve made it lumpy, and shiny surfaces show lumps!
Claws all nicely apoxie-filled, and the filling filed down as evenly as I can get it:
Claws from another angle (you can also see how worn his gold is on the unchipped toes):
Tail, with chipped scaletip rebuilt (I dabbed a bit of emerald-ish paint over the apoxie, to minimize any color difference that might show through the gold):
For the chip inside the eye socket, I didn’t attempt any resculpting; it was so deep that it doesn’t show except when viewing the dragon from almost directly beneath, and I was more afraid of getting apoxie crud on the eyeball/face. Instead, I went with camouflage – I mixed up a close match for the paint and painted over the exposed gypsum.
Interested in buying or trading for: GB Pebble Sitting Red Fox in dark grey, Lap Dragon Test Paints (Water Sprite, Glacial Pearl, Opulence, Pastel Rainbow, and many others - see my Classifieds ad), Blue Morpho OW, GB Pebble Loaf dragons in blue/aqua/teal, and Griffin Test Paints (Black Rainbow or Frosted Jade).
Great job! I’m still wary on trying repairs myself, so I haven’t been able to take advantage of any eBay deals like you did! I would so love a lap.
Love baby kirins, safari poads, mini keepers, and anything BLUE, BLUE, and, oh yes, BLUE.
Very cool! And great idea to use the nail file and nail buffers for smoothing in those tight spaces. I’ll have to remember that tip for the future!
You can check out my work on dA & Redbubble!
https://prezaurian.deviantart.com/
https://www.redbubble.com/people/prezaurian?ref=artist_title_nameGreat job! I’m still wary on trying repairs myself, so I haven’t been able to take advantage of any eBay deals like you did! I would so love a lap.
I really got a screaming deal on this one! I was so surprised. 🙂 The seller had noted the claw chips (and possibly the tail chip, I don’t remember), but I don’t think they knew about the eyelid – I didn’t realize it myself till I started working, since repair work tends to involve holding your dragons at really weird angles. 🙂 Thankfully, paint was all it needed.
This is my second (actually, third; I fixed a chip in a Pebble’s ear in between the Laps, but between how easy it was, and the fact I’m not brave enough to attempt repainting yet, I didn’t post about it) repair, and my advice is: go for it!
Something like this Lap would be ideal for a beginner (good, since I am one!) — all the damage was in areas where there’s minimal risk of causing further problems while doing repairs, so there’s less worry about making things worse by trying!
Interested in buying or trading for: GB Pebble Sitting Red Fox in dark grey, Lap Dragon Test Paints (Water Sprite, Glacial Pearl, Opulence, Pastel Rainbow, and many others - see my Classifieds ad), Blue Morpho OW, GB Pebble Loaf dragons in blue/aqua/teal, and Griffin Test Paints (Black Rainbow or Frosted Jade).
Amazing job! I can’t even tell she was broken at one point!
Thanks! I practically tied myself in knots trying to get a picture of the eyelid that would even show the damage. It was such an awkward place for an “injury” – and it would’ve been a nightmare to have to repair an eye socket, so I’m very grateful it was such a stealthy bit of damage.
I’m glad to hear it looks good to your eyes; I’ve been staring at this dragon too long, I might overestimate how good my repair job looks. 🙂
Interested in buying or trading for: GB Pebble Sitting Red Fox in dark grey, Lap Dragon Test Paints (Water Sprite, Glacial Pearl, Opulence, Pastel Rainbow, and many others - see my Classifieds ad), Blue Morpho OW, GB Pebble Loaf dragons in blue/aqua/teal, and Griffin Test Paints (Black Rainbow or Frosted Jade).
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