Needle Felted Dragon

This Instructable will give you a general idea of how to make a needle felted dragon. I have done 3 or 4 of these before and they always look different because of body shape, color, and theme that I choose. This dragon I wanted to do a floral theme.

-white roving wool or A LOT of the color you are using for the body

-variety of colors of wool

-felting needles for fast felting, attaching, and detail work. (Technically this project could be done with one needle, but it works and looks SOOO much better to have a variety)

-needle felting pad

-imagination!

The first thing you want to do is fluff the wool by gently pulling it apart repeatedly.

Next you should create a general shape with the fluffed wool and start shaping it with your fast felting needle. I did the head separately and attached it.

Next I made the legs and attached them to the body with the needle for attaching.

Tip: Leave an end fluffy on the limbs you want to attach. It makes it much easier to have an unfelted end for attachment. (Sometimes I forget to do this, don't pull a me.)

I also made the tail longer after adding the legs. Originally I wasn't sure how I want to position it so I waited for the legs to be on first before deciding.

Because this dragon was flower based, most of the additional shapes I made were leaf/petal shaped.

To make this leaf shape I pulled the wool apart and then shaped it into a flat, oblong shape with pointed ends. I felted one side and then I would flip it to felt the other side. I repeated the flipping maybe 3 times.

Fortunately, I didn't forget to leave a "tail" of unfelted wool on the additions this time! It made attachment SO much easier.

I used the fast felting needle for the leaf base, and switched to the detail needle for the leaf veins.

(I must apologize for not showing a photo of just one "leaf" attached; the photo didn't turn out for that step.)

Finally You want to add the details to the body before you put on the spine. I added small flowers off to one side and a zigzag of shiny synthetic "wool" to the back.

Getting the shape of the leaves for the spine was probably the hardest part of the whole process because they were SO tiny and odd-shaped. I recommend for a first time dragon-maker that you just do a regular triangular spike shape.

Finally I added the eyes, nostils, and a little smile. First I made an oblong shape with pointed ends out of the green and attached it to where I wanted the eyes. Next I added the black pupil, and a smaller white dot for "cuteness factor." To finish it off, I lined the edge of the eye with black to make it pop.

And voila! I hoped you liked my tutorial of how to make a needle felted dragon! (This was my first Instructable, so I am open to constructive criticism and questions!)