Guardian of the Apple Tree

Two explorers have been wandering the forest for days when they come across a beautiful apple tree, adorned with the freshest, brightest red apples and surrounded by the most delicate colorful vines. But look closer and they'll discover that those aren't vines! They're the tail, wings and head of a giant, ferocious dragon, guarding the apple tree! Are they going to throw caution to the wind for that scrumptious apple, or is it suddenly not so important...

His name is Emerald the Vine Dragon, and whether or not he got his name from his dark emerald skin or the little glints of emerald scales dotted on his head and on his body, you don't want to mess with him!

I started out by building Emerald's body, making sure it curved around the tree nicely. After playing with the length of his body and tail, I added little glints of semi-transparent colored 1x1 circles and squares to represent scales.

Later on I started to think about his wings, which I wanted to look cute and little, but first, I had a head to build!

Emerald's head was probably one of the hardest things to build. The tree was easy, the tail and body were simple enough, but a head? Dragon heads are known for behind very hard to sculpt, especially out of LEGO, so I had to make sure I did it right. I started with the back of his head, then with the eyes and the back teeth, before adding a nose and his front teeth. A couple adjustments, and he was done!

Now all I had to do was add the polishing details, such as the plants on the bottom.

And I don't know what the explorers did about a dragon in front of the apple tree, but hopefully everything ended happily, because I know this post did.

- create_sparkle