1/9/24 Dragonsdawn Booknook

My oldest daughter loved the book nook I made her for Christmas so much that she asked for another one for her birthday, in two days! This time she wanted a theme based on Anne McCaffrey's Pern, another book series she loved growing up. I started it two weeks ago and modeled it after the Dragonsdawn book cover art by Michael Whelan.

This was a real challenge for me since I am not an artist or sculptor. I thought about it for some time and decided to go with a 3D flat image effect for the figures. I started by rough cutting out the girl and dragonets. I glued the girl to some 7/16" basswood, then cut the figure out with a Xacto knife, and sanded the edges smooth. I painted the exposed edges to match the front. The dragonets were glued to some cereal box cardboard scrap and cut out. The wings, tail, and heads were bent to give more of a 3D impression.

Next I glued up some packing foam scraps to form the cave. I filled in the gaps with watered down vinyl spackle, and sealed the whole thing with Mod Podge.

I used cosclay to make three of the larger tree trunks.

I had to make an attempt at a sort of alien landscape painting for the inside of the box.

My second attempt at the landscape and I called it good.

I worked in the trees, using the ones I made and some more made from weeds and wood putty.

The lighting consists of a yellow and two white LED chip lights, a coin battery pack and a secondary pushbutton switch mounted through the front.

It's hard to take pictures that do this one justice.