Light Fury, "How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World"

Another Night Fury? She's more like a... Bright... a Light Fury!

With the recent release of two trailers for "How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World", the time has come to introduce you to the new dragon character - the Light Fury, a potential mate for Toothless. She does, and will, remain nameless, for she is "wild and untamed", and is never to be trained by any human. I say no more, in order to avoid spoilers for those of you who want to remain surprised by HTTYD: The Hidden World.

I have done my best in order the Light Fury as light (in terms of weight and figure) as possible, but since I could not give up on the wires running through her wings and body, her chest needed to be strenghtened accordingly, which resultet in the Fury to be slightly less fit than the original one. Sorry for that.

I used a very soft fabric that made the dragon super cuddly and pleasant to hold. What I sincerely admired about this dragon species is an extremely reduced number of all kind of spikes, claws, plates or nubs, so I could put much less work in her than I did to Toothless. It also made it easier to make tiny details, like ears.

The original dragon species has a subtle glitter covering all its body, creating some pretty ornaments. I'm thinking of the way to apply a glitter to my dragon, but it might mean using a glue, which would make the Fury tougher and less cuddly. And I'm not sure I'm willing to sacrifise that :)

 I've been afraid to apply wired legs, for it might mean applying more filling to the Fury's chest, which is too wide already.

 Here with Toothless. Neither one of them has wires running through their legs, but Toothless has them even weaker than the Light Fury (he's simply bigger and heavier. That's, by the way, the result I wanted to accomplish - to make the Light Fury look and be lighter than her male mate, for this is the impression she makes in the trailer. To me, at least ;)

 An outside picture session.

 Unfortunately, the Light Fury turned out to be too bright for the camera to capture her properly. I'm sorry for the shine, I might try to retake the session one of these days.

 Maybe not so much in the close-up, but as I verted browsed the pictures' miniatures, I thought that the Fury looks super realistic in these open-air pictures. 

 Two lizards.

The original image of a Light Fury from one of the movie's storybooks.

Razorwhip "Race to the Edge"

To break the airplane routine, I finally decided to work on a dragon which has been waiting to be finished for months.
Today featuring Razorwhip, a species introduced in "DreamWorks Dragons: Race to the Edge". A dragon representing the species, Windshear, is one of the main characters in the series.

The fabric used to make this dragon is the same fabric I use to make some of the airplane's leading edges of the wings, stabilizers and engines. It's thick, shiny silver and I don't know the name of it. There's huse difference in using it for straight parts of the airplanes and a very detailed dragon body, for it's really hard to sew through. However, in cases such as Razorwhip the fabric is irreplaceable. In the series, the species seems to have skin and scales made out of metal, and so this has been the effect I wanted to reach in my making.

Because of the fabric being so thick the dragon was pretty stiff on its own, but I've put wires inside the body and the wings so that I can form the dragon the way I want, for the Razorwhip to look even more gorgeous. And it does, really. It's currently standing atop the wardrobe and it's magnificent :)

 I have to admit that the shiny fabric made it difficult to take good pictures, for the light would reflect in it and ruin the picture. That's why the quality might be worse at times.

 

With its wings unfolded

Proudly standing atop the wardrobe :)

Razorwhip as seen in "Race to the Edge" (source: DreamWorks)

Piper Seneca V

Pararell to Tecnam, another airplane was being built - airplane which, too, is to be seen in the region of Polish Podkarpacie. Piper Seneca V, reg. nr SP-TUC - one of Senecas that belong to the Rzeszów University of Technology Aviation Training Center and serve future pilots as a training device.

It's the first twin-engine airplane in my fleet, and the first one to have a triple-blade spinner. Sewing it was a pure pleasure, mainly because I like the airplane itself a lot for its somewhat cubic shape (which, however, is hard to obtain in a stuffed toy), wings clearly bending upwards, uncommon shape of the wings, as well as the airplane's colors - light blue and white, with dark blue details. I also made the black attack edges of the wings and stabilizers (which in reality are made from a rubber).

It's one of these magnificent airplanes which, in my humble opinion, can be called naturally bonded with the sky :)

A tiny bump atop the fuselage is the result of the plane being hung from the ceiling.

Spinners do rotate, of course. Seneca has helped me develop a new system of building the rotatable spinners. The effect is magnificent and mesmerizingly realistic.

A special thing about the writing - pay attention to the white shading.

Tecnam p2008

I'm happy to introduce the first high-wing aircraft which, once completed, has recently joined my fleet. Tecnam p2008, SP-WBI, owned by Air Res in Rzeszów.

In the early sewing process I was close to getting discouraged by the wings that would bend down, but then I remembered from the aircraft's technical draft that it has wing supports. Having them included, the wings stay level the way they are supposed to.


Credit to Air Res Aviation for inspiration :)

Przy lotnisku w Rzeszowie
By the airport in Rzeszów

Rzut oka na wyszywanie logo. Na karteczce pierwowzór
Behind-the-scenes: a brief look at the process of embroidering the logo.

Zdjęcie rzeczywistego samolotu.
Picture showing the original plane.

SZD-51 Junior

A single-seat sailplane built in Poland.

Diamond DA-20 Eclipse

Such a beautiful name for an aircraft. Diamond. When speaking of the plane, I often think of the song "Diamond in the sky", which is so accurate! And when it comes to the name Eclipse, I picture the airplane passing the shield of the sun.
Diamond DA-20 Eclipse, which I've had a pleasure to fly, brought my attention by its sailplane-like look. Knowing just a little bit less than I do now about aviation, I thought that maybe this plane is a motorglider. Not exactly, but according to one of its pilots it's closely related to a motorglider (perhaps HK36 Super Dimona).
SP-AWM, presented below, belongs to Aeroklub Warmińsko-Mazurski, one of the aeroclubs of Poland. It actually took its registration from the club's abbreviation - AW-M.
Speaking of the handicraft itself, I put a lot of heart in it, and it was a truly challenging airplane. I didn't want to go for some easy solutions for the tail's design and I decided to embroider it, more or less accurately. I have devoted outstandingly much time on embroidering details themselves, which was nearly three days. The result, though rather symbolic, was definitely worth it.
Diamond is the second airplane of mine that has an engine with a rotating blade. The airplane has a lot of minor details such as clearly visible Pitot tubes, walk-in steps or engine pipes, but I limited myself only to these most vital.
Here comes the greatest challenge: landing gear. Diamond is the second aircraft of mine that has a fixed landing gear (I'm not counting gliders), but unlike Falke, it's not a tail-dragger, meaning that the gear is located in front and central part of the aircraft, and the tail is supposed to stay up. At the beginning, when I did the first gear attempts, Diamond would lean back and rest on its tail. I have eventually solved the problem by ballasting the front part of the fuselage, but I appreciate it as an important lesson of model building and the aerodynamics (mechanics, actually) in general. I learned the importance of the airplane being properly balanced and what determines the weight distribution.

The original airplane, picture taken from AW-M's website

http://aeroklub.olsztyn.pl/pl/galeria/event/Naszestatkipowietrzne 

Boeing 767, LOT Polish Airlines

Even though I've not been into aviation for too long yet, the airplane I'm featuring today represents a fleet which has already become a history, though no longer than four years ago it was still in service.
Boeing 767 of LOT Polish Airlines. This type was the first American commercial airplane to be introduced to Polish airlines in 1986 and it had been serving there till 2014. SP-LPA, replica of which which I've made, was the first one in LOT's fleet of seven 767s. But perhaps the most recognizable one was SP-LPC ('Papa Charlie'), known from the emergency landing performed by cpt. Tadeusz Wrona without the landing gear on November 1, 2011.
Between 2013 and 2014, 767s begun to be slowly replaced by 787s, known as 'Dreamliners'. LOT eventually ceased to fly 767s, selling its airplanes to other airlines.
That's why SP-LPA, among others, is never to be seen again in this livery, even though it still flew for the Polish airline not long ago.

An original Boeing 767 of LOT Polish Airlines