An artistic liberty commission. The customer wanted something that was a mix between the dragon dancers (or rather lion dancers but us Westerners have commonly misinterpreted them as dragons) seen in Asian parades and the dragons seen in traditional Chinese artwork, he wanted something that was friendly but not overly cute, so I went for a fairly plush cartoon look but kept things not overly cute with the teeth and overall expression.
This suit has vision out the mouth so we could make the dragon very tall, the jaw is set on a hinge with a spring so it bobbles open and shut as he moves. He has wiggle ears, whiskers on heavy gauge wire, an attached tail with internal belt loops, extra large "stompy feet", and features a wide variety of fur including a type called "bubble fur" for the scales (I have been itching to use this fur as scales for years now, I finally got the chance!).
Features small and medium raptor claws from DVC
lion dancers have also got massive heads, and the customer likes the big heads, and so I did "think big" while building it intending for it to be a bit over-sized http://www.emplion.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/images/hawaiilion.224230806_large.jpg but trust me, in these pics it is a tad too over-sized for my taste but the size of it will be a bit more in proportion once it is on the customer :)