How To Build A Snow Dragon in 3 Easy Steps!

How to build a Snow Dragon in 3 easy steps!
– Skylight Music Theatre Blog 12/19/17, 11(50 PM
How to build a Snow Dragon in 3

easy steps!
Jennifer Samuelson March 24, 2015
(Ok – many, many steps and lots & lots of pattern

pieces, but still really fun!)
Guest Blogger, Skylight
Properties Director Lisa
Schlenker
What an exciting project to fabricate!

To start with, our scenic designer
William Boles and I traded many
images and research materials before
he presented this final design concept for our snow dragon puppet. Much to
discuss when planning for a 24 foot long prop that has to smoothly move with
only 4 singers operating it. How long is too long? How short is ungraceful?
What are the qualities of the materials we can afford to use? (Inexpensive to
free, inherently flame retardant, light weight yet strong.) What are the
qualities we need for this prop to move beautifully and look great? Light
weight, resilient, flexible, strong yet delicate, floating, UV reactive,
diaphanous, ethereal, dreamlike, and graceful; all these adjectives and more
were important descriptors and considerations in the initial phase of
planning and budgeting. After trading fabric swatches and in close
collaboration with the costume designer Jason Orelnko, William and I made
the final surface treatment and materials decisions. I bought a pile of fabric
and foam core, and we were off to the races!
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How to build a Snow Dragon in 3 easy steps! – Skylight Music Theatre Blog 12/19/17, 11(50 PM
What now? The pattern. William’s design for the

dragon body was relatively simple, and I assigned
the patterning of the body to our Prop Apprentice
Madelyn Yee, who built a 3’ = 1’-0” scale body
mockup. Notes, sketches, and planning on paper is
always a great first step – we call this the step list
and we do one with a tentative schedule assigned,
for every complicated project.
Next is the Head – the brains of the puppet, as it

were. William’s fascinating design for our
Dragon’s head was inspired by a sculpture by Toby
Zeigler. Here’s the research on style and surface
texture we needed to reproduce:
I would like to say that getting from the

design sketch to the decision on the
head structure was a quick and easy
process. The fact is, it took many hours
of painstaking geometry and flat
patterning by our master prop artist
Jennifer Lyons to get from point A to
point B: from the designer sketch to a complete geodesic polyhedron
structural plan.
Then came the neck frills planning and patterning:
And the scale model almost complete:
From the rough scale model we could then trade opinions on the look of
things back and forth with William, and also with our stage director Matthew
Ozawa. Changes at this stage of the game are much more easily accomplished
that in the final phase of construction! The team of fabrication artists became
used to my daily comment “this is probably subject to change – ok this is how
we’re changing the plan now, and this impacts the next step of the build
process in the following ways…” This is the trouble shooting phase of our
planning process and we were able to problem solve a number of structural
and operational issues in the small model format, saving huge amounts of
“Oops – do over” style mistakes in the full scale build. The result was that
when we cut into full size materials and began real time real materials
construction on the actual puppet we had very few unforeseen concerns,
which made for a smooth build process, a happy team of prop artists, and a
very happy designer and director.
Some assembly required, of course. The light weight foam core components
comprising the head needed to be thoroughly sealed against moisture before
Carri Dahl, our Scenic Charge, gave the head the necessary painted texture
and ultra violet light reactive paint treatment. Assembly followed, with
Velcro, cloth ties, a variety of nuts and bolts, and some press fit pieces on the
side plumes as well. All this fastener variety is necessary because our dragon
needed to travel from the prop fabrication shop to the stage. This path goes
through a number of doors and a passenger elevator that are all too small for
the completed puppet. It’s not practical to fabricate something this large on
stage from start to completion since so many other departments need to use
the space, so to build it in our prop shop requires advance planning for
assembly – also a part of the mock up process that we used our scale model to
help with.
Dragon test flight: The first time with the cast, our singers were very game for
anything we suggested they try in terms of our dragon’s flight path. Skills
more choreographic than vocal were necessary right at this point in
rehearsals for this opera. We give our cast huge credit for making her look so
elegant and beautiful onstage! Ian Toohill has the guns to manage our
dragon’s head with ease. Erin Sura, Eric Madson, and Leigh Akin coordinate
the sinuous weaving flight of the body smoothly. The entire effect our cast
achieves is brilliant!
Once we delivered her to our stage space fully assembled, she needed a clean
resting place to live during scenic notes and other less than clean theatrical
processes during our load in and tech process. Her she is, resting comfortably
in the Cabot house.
If you’d like to see Her Majesty in action, looking otherworldly and

fluorescing under David Gipson’s incredible lighting design, come on down
the to Skylight this week and catch a performance. We run through Sunday
March 29!
The Snow Dragon puppet team:

Scenic Designer: William Boles
Properties Director: Lisa Schlenker
Master Prop Artist: Jennifer Lyons
Prop Apprentice: Madelyn Yee
Properties Artists: Andrea Alguire and Meghan Savagian
Scenic Charge: Carri Dahl
Scenic Art Apprentice: Nerissa Eichinger

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– Skylight Music Theatre Blog 12/19/17, 11(50 PM

How to build a Snow Dragon in 3

(Ok – many, many steps and lots & lots of pattern

What an exciting project to fabricate!

What now? The pattern. William’s design for the

Next is the Head – the brains of the puppet, as it

I would like to say that getting from the

Then came the neck frills planning and patterning:

And the scale model almost complete:

If you’d like to see Her Majesty in action, looking otherworldly and

The Snow Dragon puppet team:

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