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The Dragon. Three years of pain and mental anguish went into making this. Walls were smashed through with spoons. Tea went undrunk. But it is done! There is AT LEAST a seven month waiting list for Dragons! It has proved far more popular than Andy ever thought it would! (Seriously he only ever expected to sell a couple of dozen)
There are over 200 dragons in the waiting list (which has grown over the last three years), so far only 30 have been sent out, it takes a long time and a lot of labour to cast them and it costs a lot of money so we have to buy them in small batches. Andy is investigating a way of speeding things up.
If you don't want to wait, PLEASE DON'T ORDER IT NOW as your card will be charged NOW and then you WILL have to wait months...
The only reason that there is stock listed is to keep the item on the cart for those who DO wish to order it and don't mind waiting twelve months (or more), there aren't any spare ones in stock! I've altered the stock to reflect the fact that the queue is so long - so as the negative amount of dragons decreases, the waiting time gets shorter!
Sculpted by Andy Foster
51 out of 220 sent out so far, as of 21st November 2012. We are hopeful that a small but steady supply of Dragons might now be achieved, as Ian at Fenris Games has invested in two pressure pots which should increase the amount of successful Dragons he can cast. Meanwhile, Andy here at Heresy is still saving up for a deeper mould tin...
We are investigating ways of speeding things up by having some components cast in different materials or overseas to ease the massive workload on Ian at Fenris Games, who is casting the Dragon for us.
Update, Feb 2012: Casting the head, spines and arms in metal - but having to use a high lead content metal as the parts are so bulky that the regular lead-free stuff doesn't work well - gives a very rough-textured finish to the components, due to various reactions between metal and silicon rubber of the mould used. Still experimenting with different alloys and waiting on news from an ally about potential plastic-resin casting process.
Update, May 3rd 2012: No news from chap regarding plastic-resin. However, a 100% successful spincast of Dragon head has been made, so will be cracking on with making moulds for as much of Dragon ASAP, once annual accounts are done... In February, a batch of Dragons was due to arrive but was lost by courier, much to consternation of myself and Ian at Fenris Games.
Update, June 9th 2012: Have made big decision to remove wings from torso, which will allow Ian to fit them into his pressure chamber and mean an end to all the miscasts that are being caused at the moment due to the size of the wings and the nature of the resin needed to get all the way to the end of those torso parts. Lot of work but we've agreed that it's the best way to go for the long term. It should also mean that I can fit the two new resulting parts into the deeper mould tin that I'll be buying as soon as I can afford to.
The idea of casting the parts in metal has proved a no-starter - the size of the parts seems to be causing weird surface textures, pitting and the like. Plus, the cost of metal means that the Dragon would be too expensive to manufacture unless the price went up to silly money levels. However, spincasting in resin seems very do-able, which is a relief.
November 2012
Spincasting in resin sadly NOT currently practical as the detail is not strong enough. Awaiting news of new resins but really the only option I have now is to rely on Mr Ed Fortae in the USA to at some point use his rather remarkable spincast-plastic technique. To this end I have cut the dragon up as much as possible to get as many parts that wil fit inside a production mould for spincasting, rather than part-by-part pressure-casting which is just not forthcoming quickly enough. I have added the two latest pics below of the parts sitting on a mould.
Meanwhile Ian has been suffering horrendously from pleurisy and has been unable to cast Dragons for the last couple of months. Or breathe much. He is no recovering, but with the cold weather on the way that will further hamper his efforts. (Climate affects resin production enormously)
UPDATE: January 2013
Last June, I ordered a deeper mould tin, so that the larger parts of the dragon could be cut up into suitable chunks, cast up as metal masters and sent overseas. Sadly, for some reason the company providing the tin not only took several months to provide it, they sent the wrong size, repeatedly broke promised deadlines for replacements and here we are in January being promised yet again that a new tin would arrive imminently. The Dragon itself is in a great many finely cut pieces, enough material has been carefully dremmeled from the torso and neck that you could have made a whole new dragon out of the dust, everything is ready to go, we're just waiting on this bloody huge tin to arrive and hoping that this time it meets the required dimensions. Once it's here, and the parts are mastered, they'll be sent to Ed Fortae in the USA where he will try to fit it into his production queue. Once he gets going on it, in a month or two's time, I assume, 200 dragons should be no problem for him to produce inside a couple of weeks. It's just a question of when that couple of weeks will be. Then all we need are 200 huge rocks, which are too big to produce by spincasting and will have to be cast in the normal resin manner.
PLEASE LOG IN AND THEN CLICK THE BOX TO THE RIGHT -> ('NOTIFY ME OF UPDATES TO THE DRAGON') FOR SPECIFIC UPDATES FOR THE DRAGON, I.E. WHENEVER MORE ARE SENT OUT, WE WILL LET YOU ALL KNOW WHAT NUMBER WE'VE GOTTEN AS FAR AS!
You can now also use Twitter to get your Dragon-specific updates. Follow @TheHeresyDragon for Dragon-only updates and info.
Alternatively, keep track of this massive thread on the Forum of Doom where the latest news is posted and discussed
This product was added to our catalog on Wednesday 20 July, 2011.
