The Lion

This is going to be a 12" x 14" mosaic of a lion. I went to Kinko's & had them blow up a pic I liked. For some reason the person made it more orange than the original pic but I took it anyway. I tape the pic behind the glass & am attempting to make it look like the lion. Now these are some really small pieces. I had to use tweezers to put the pieces on.



I just about finished with the face. I changed around the eyes a bit & tried to get the shadows of his face. This was a real challenge.



Now for the fun part. The mane! So far I've only used wheeled nippers. The ears I had to cut & use the grinder on. I have a tutorial on how I made the cuts for the mane in another tutorial on the blog under wheeled nippers. Very easy to do & fast! You just make your cuts & start tilting the pieces the direction you want the hair to to. You lay them down kind of alternating laying one piece down & the piece next to it you lay not directly beside it but halfway from where the first piece starts. Before you know it it looks like hair & it's finished.



Mane is finished & put in the background. I had in mind a more red sky but didn't have the glass. I wanted the gray part to look like a rock. But I'm not happy with it & will pull it off & just put the sky in.



I made some minor adjustments I wasn't happy with. Here is the king of the jungle in all his glory grouted & framed.



This is a special lion & is a gift for a very dear friend that is a missionary in South Africa. It was just hand delivered this week & they absolutely loved the lion.