Thursday, May 7, 2020

Woohoo, WuDip (蝴蝶--Butterflies)!! or Woohoo, a Redo!!

After a long hiatus, I finally got back into working on a small lion that was meant for my daughter. I started it when she was born and it was supposed to be for her to play and learn with as she grew. Yeah, that didn't happen and she's now a teenager. Oh well, she can hang it on her dorm wall when she gets to college.

Anyways, back to the topic at hand. Although Southern lions are technically all male I wanted some lighter, feminine aspects to reflect her personality as well. She's always loved bugs and insects of all kinds, especially butterflies, so those are one of the many special designs I'm planning to incorporate.

Last weekend I had some time so I worked on the eye sockets, nose and Soi. If you're not familiar with lion terminology, the Soi are the protrusions behind and below the eye sockets where a fish's gills are. In fact, most English translations use the word "gills" for this area but since we know that lions don't have gills (they have a nose to breathe with) I choose to leave the Chinese untranslated when referring to this area.

Since they stick out already, I figured they'd make a great area to put butterflies. So I grabbed some wire, measured, marked, and bent it into the shape of wings and attached them. Voila--butterflies! Yay, so proud of myself!


Except I wasn't. The more I looked at them, the more dissatisfied I became. I felt like I had thrown something together at the end of the day, rushing to get it done rather than taking the time to make something truly special. And I knew I'd have to redo them.

To everyone out there let me offer this advice--never be afraid to redo something even if it's already "finished" or "good enough" if you have the opportunity to make it better. In the long run, taking the time to get rid of these overly simple, cartoonish wings gave me the chance to replace them with something better. Something I could look at and be happy with instead of continually wishing I had done a better job. This applies to all areas of life as well--not just lion building.
Much better, don't you think? I can't wait to put them on!

Aside from being pretty, fluttery things, butterflies symbolize new life and transformation. They are also associated with longevity, immortality, and, when seen in pairs, with marital bliss.