Laura Reynolds displays her entry into the DragonCon 2003. Her hatching dragon placed second. (Art (c) Laura Reynolds) (Photo by Jean Marie Ward)

Laura Reynolds: I sold two pieces at Philcon. Philcon is a con I've only gone to once, but it's a fabulous con too. Usually the cons up north are really good, because the galleries come out looking for pieces. I sold about $8,000.

…I think it was either Philcon or Balticon. I've sold a lot at both of them, because the gallery owners come. They won't even look at the sales tag. They'll just talk to their assistant and go, "I want this one, this one, this one and this one." Then their people will just take the bid sheet and go with them. Shocks the living daylights out of me.

Crescent Blues: Your work is displayed in the Atlanta Art Mart.

Laura Reynolds: Those are mostly Christmas ornaments. By Christmas ornaments, I don't mean Santa and his elves. I sell undersea-themed ornaments, because that's a big market right now: [Finding] Nemo and all that, pudgy mermaids, fishes with big lips and high heels. All sorts of crazy stuff like that. There are hundreds and hundreds of stores that sell these things.

Crescent Blues: I know you have some of your larger dragons made overseas. Do you do a lot of overseas sales?

Laura Reynolds: Not of fantasy [pieces]. The Under the Sea ornaments are all made overseas. We actually have to go to the factory and sit down with them and say, "No, not that pink. I want this pink." You have to show them what you want, but they do a fabulous job with the sculpting. A lot of time I just do a nice detail drawing, and they can actually do the sculpting from that. You just have to make sure they know what the back looks like.

Crescent Blues: You have given them multiple views.

Laura Reynolds: Sometimes you do. Some of the factories are really good. There's one factory in China where I can give them a front-view line drawing, and they'll get the back. They really understand it. But it's a different culture. Every now and then they'll look at something and go: "What is that?"

Unicorn close-up. (Art (c) Laura Reynolds) (Photo by Pam Flora)

I remember one time we did a chihuahua in a sombrero, and I just did a front view. Well, they had never seen a Mexican hat, and I hadn't thought of that. When the person came back with the model, the hat was all wrong. The [modeler] had never seen a picture of a sombrero. Oh well, you live and learn.

Crescent Blues: Do you enjoy traveling to China?

Laura Reynolds: It's a long ride. It's a neat place, but it's a long ride.

Crescent Blues: What advice do you give the kids in the classes you teach?

Laura Reynolds: I've never taught art. I only work with the birds.

Crescent Blues: What do you teach them about the birds?

Laura Reynolds: We tell them what the bird is, where you find it. They have questions. What does it eat? How big is it? They come out with these cute little questions, like if you put this bird and that bird together, which one is going to come out fighting? Which one is going to be well-fed? Which one is a power flyer? So we tell them. Usually, they are very nice questions.

We tell them about protected species, why you should never take them out of the nest, why you shouldn't be shooting at them. If your mom or dad hit them with a car, try to call somebody. Don't take the bird home and make a pet out of it.

Crescent Blues: Most of the birds you work with wouldn't respond well to being pets.

Laura Reynolds: No.

Crescent Blues: What kind of advice would you give to an aspiring artist who wanted to do something like this?

Laura Reynolds [in a high, thin voice]: Dooooooon't.

I've never submitted a portfolio, but maybe I should sit down sometime and try to make one. People want portfolios today.

At this point I don't do digital. I have a computer, but it's sitting on a shelf somewhere collecting dust for about three years. It was a freebie, and I still haven't gotten around to hooking the thing up.

But a lot of people are on the Internet. I don't do illustrations that much. But people who deal in book illustrations and things like that want you to have stuff on disk. They won't even look at submissions that come in a box anymore. You have to show them you're on a Web site. Then they can download the art for themselves. So find somebody to put your art on the Internet for you if you want to send it to publishers.

The seahorse in on the back shelf of this display was nominated for a Chesley, the top award of the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists, in 2003. The small winged wolf in the foreground later came home with one of the authors of this article. (Art (c) Laura Reynolds) (Photo by Jean Marie Ward)

Crescent Blues: How do you submit to a juried convention art show if you don't submit it digitally?

Laura Reynolds: DragonCon 2003 [was] the only [DragonCon] I've been to that's been juried. Luckily, I'd been coming here since before they stood up the jury process, and they knew me. They had already seen the work. But usually, if my work has to be juried, I'll send a few photos in an envelope. I go to a copy shop and make a dollar copy with four or five photos on one sheet of paper.

Crescent Blues: This question has an ulterior motive. In case none of my photos turnout, I want to make sure I can call you and say, "Help!"

Laura Reynolds: If I have any lying around. Half the stuff I've made I have no documentation for at all. I sell it before I get a photo done.

Crescent Blues: There are several folks taking pictures for the magazine this time, so between us, we should be able to get something.

Laura Reynolds: You're welcome to take a picture if you want. I've got a camera too, and I'm going to try to get a picture of my display…

Crescent Blues: …Before it's all gone. Strange people keep coming up and saying, "He's coming home with me."

Laura Reynolds: That happens quite a bit. I'll be setting up and people say, "Oooh, what's that one?" And I say, "Here, I'll sell it to you before I put up the bid sheet."

The first year I ever came to DragonCon it was over in the InForum. That was a pretty interesting place -- when they had the dealers room and art show in one big room. I had used one of the InForum's gigantic dolly carts to move all my stuff. (I didn't have as much stuff then.)

We had all the dragon pins in a big box with the top off. I couldn't get them to the room. I got on the freight elevator; I sold three. I was going from the freight elevator to the room in the InForum; I sold three or four more. I was selling them off the cart. I think by the time the con started Friday morning I had two left. I brought about fifty.

Crescent Blues: What's the biggest sculpture you ever made?

Laura Reynolds: These are quite small ones. I've been doing a lot more small ones, because there tends to be more demand for pieces between $75 and $200 -- in that size range. I have a few bigger ones, mainly for display. People will buy them -- especially at DragonCon, we sell quite a few.

The biggest piece I ever did was for a hotel in Florida. The piece is seven feet tall. It's the mascot of a hotel called the Doubletree Castle. It's a dragon. He's got a cape that takes 14 yards of fabric.

In fact, the hotel wanted two capes. I had to do a winter cape and a summer cape. The summer cape is teal blue with an iridescent lining. The winter cape is green velvet with a gold lining and a fur collar.

Carol Reynolds (the artist's mother): And Axel Rose bought one.

Laura Reynolds: Yeah, he has a good-sized piece. I'm just glad he liked it and didn't buy it to squish it on a video. It was on a video. I don't remember which one, but I do remember seeing it.

The piece was in a store in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. The lady in the store buys a lot of my things and sells them there. One night someone called and said Axel Rose wanted to come to the store. She went, "Yeah, right."

I think it was three in the morning when they called her house and said Rose wanted to shop in the store. She thought, "This is a crank call." But she followed up on it anyway. Sure enough, it was him. He wanted to come in when the store was closed. He ended up buying a dragon.

[Editor's note: Two of Laura Reynolds' dragons can be seen in the Expedia.com virtual tour of the lobby of the Doubletree Castle in Orlando, Florida.]

Teri Smith & Jean Marie Ward