I found this design of the internal mechanism on the internet, on which I based my design on.
Except for the safety catch, which I didn't think would be needed because I was not going to carry this around with me like a normal crossbow.

First order of business was to make the actual steel bow.
I tried a couple of different metals, like an old knife blade and a broad hack saw blade and eventually I found that an old wood saw was the perfect thickness and hardness.

Two pieces of brass flat bar and a perspex center gave me the center part.
The perspex is nice material for carving and drilling so the internal components could be fitted with out too much of a mission.
There are 63 different components.
Here is the bow drawn and loaded with a custom made bolt.

Once the principle was established that the bow could shoot regularly, it was time to add the actual dragon.
I have the philosophy that if I am uncertain as to how to carry on with a design, just start from one end and see what comes out.
I cut some cardboard out and if it looks sort of OK, then make it in brass and see if it still works. Mostly, this causes me to do things two or three times but that's OK with me.

The legs are designed with basic universal joints. This allowed the legs to be articulated, so that the final model can be 'posed' in different leg configurations.
I made the rear legs like a mechanical tendon, if you will. I can imagine them pushing and pulling as the dragon walks over the battle field.
The Central Tower is the heart of the dragon bow, where the troops would be transported and the power unit was housed and where the crossbow would be loaded. The tower rotates on the leg base, so the head and wings and cross bow can be turned to face any oncoming enemy.

Next up are the wings. I made brass ribs and covered the wings with copper sheeting. At this stage the the look and feel of the Dragon is getting more direction.

Working on the head. I cast two bars of silver and then cut and filed the teeth. Midstream I changed the design and turned the spines around and added another set.
Much better. Much more aggressive. I made some opposing teeth facing upwards earlier on and this picture shows them looking quite 'dragonish'. The face of any sculpture is always critical.

The body panels bent in a curve towards the middle. I added some spines to the body. Dragons have a lot of spines. Later on I decided that the spines look more aggressive when they are forward facing, so I changed them around to face forwards.

Designing the tail. As always, I first draw on paper, then cut a few links out of cardboard and once I get the drift and it looks balanced, I progress to actual metal.

Each pair is progressively smaller. All of them were eventually filed half round on one side and then polished. Then I made the tail winglets. They are made out of filed brass rods and then a thin sheet of copper is distressed and colored and bent and riveted in place.

Dragon Bow Sculpture iconsists of 450 pieces

A close-up of the Dragon Bow body.

The breastplate is made out of distressed copper and a sterling silver dragon motive. The garnets are set in silver tubes.

For the dragon Bow, I settled on Citrine orange on a black background.
Basically, the stone is set into sterling silver that was soldered into the head and then the silver is blackened with Liver of Sulfur.

The bolt is fired from the crossbow in Dragon Bow. 

Ready for the battle.