The Dragon (Earl Retrofit)
The Dragon, is a Earl retrofit made by Jim Cox[1] for the "Lumalusion" ride at the Texas State Fair, the mechanism was taken off of a Rolfe Dewolfe & Earl Schmerle (Presumably the same which was turned into Merlin the Wizard as well), the head tilt and arm twist movement cylinders were removed leaving only the mouth and eyebrow movements accessible.
The cosmetics have a wire-frame base underneath to support the shape of the cosmetics, covering this is a blue painted rubber layer, it appears to have shading applied to a blue base, this rubber mask is then connected to a full body with wings and a tail.
The mask was sculpted in clay and was made using the wireframe and sculpting over the mechanism[2], however what the mask mold was made from is currently unknown, possibly urethane rubber as another retrofit by Jim Cox had a mold made using that material. [3]
To support the mechanism having missing cylinders, a wooden block was put around the arm twist, a wooden rod put at the head tilt down where the cylinder would once be and a metal bracket put from the bottom of the head to the top of where the arm would start (now the base of the mechanism) this was to ensure nothing would slip and move when unintended. (It is also possible that the eye positioning was spread more apart, however it is hard to tell with limited resources).
Gallery
Jim Cox the designer behind this retrofit uploaded many progress pictures to their Flickr page "jlcoxrox" below are those images
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The Dragon with the Wireframe and Mechanical edits on display
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The Dragon's mask being molded with clay, the viability of the eye shows that the Earl mechanism was still in the wire-frame when this was being done.
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The Dragon with a unpainted rubber mask, the original upload of this image on the "jlcoxrox" Flickr page does not specify which type of rubber.
