These past few days, I’ve been doing some small/miscellaneous repairs and modifications scattered throughout the frame.
First, I modified the eyelids by adding a piece of wire to hold the eyelid up while the eye is open. For some lions, this piece of wire is unnecessary – it all depends on the shape of the eyes. In the past, I’ve noticed that some Bak Wan replica lions have the droopy eye syndrome, where the eyelid covers a small portion of the eyeball.
Droopy eye syndrome on a Bak Wan replica.
Some people like this feature but I prefer the eyelids to be fully retracted when the eyes are open. I’m not sure if the shape of the eyes for this frame would produce the droopy eyelids, but I put the wire in there as a precaution. It’d be too much trouble to put the wire in after the eyelids have already been put on.
Eyelid wire suspended with string.
Next was the repair of the left cheek. The old cheek had some pieces of bamboo missing, so I just took it all off and rebuilt it from scratch. Splitting bamboo evenly was a challenge for me, so the middle piece is actually a lot thinner than the top and bottom pieces. Hopefully, it won’t bring any problems.
Front view of left rebuilt left cheek.
Side view of rebuilt left cheek.
Lastly, I repaired the two original fins and added a third fin. Oddly enough, the original lion only had two fins on top of the eye. Maybe I’m just used to seeing three fins, but I decided to add a third fin to this frame.
The two original fins were either crushed or misshaped.
Original fins repaired with the addition of a third fin.
Leave a Reply