I decided on my size for the lion, which will be close to the size of the originals, I decided to go with 16-1/2 x 22 on the clay model, after shrinkage it will be around 15-1/2 by 21-1/2 or thereabouts.

I scaled from photos and it appears the original lions were about 17 x 24, hard to get it much closer since the only photos I’ve found were taken at an angle, but one that helped a lot was the photo of the 24 stolen lions in the police storeroom, I could see a concrete block wall the lions were leaned up against, and since the blocks are a known size- nominally 8″ high, I was able to scale using that measurement and come close.

I am about ready to attach the box form to the backer board to begin work today, here’s the form I am starting with.

Here’s what the shattered panel I posted about that had damage in the kiln looks like, there’s so many tiny fragments that I determined in about 10 minutes of trying to see if it can be repaired to some extent that it’s beyond that LOL. If it was just a few large fragments it wouldn’t be hard to piece back together, but there’s a gallon pail full of dime sized chips and fragments too that are not shown.

That’s ok though since I have a mold of it, still, it would have been nice to put back together, but with the amount of fragmentation, and then that wide crack- the fragments would never seat and lock back in the way they were- the “background” for them has obviously expanded and changed, which is what opened that crack.