The Equipment

During the early days, lion costumes is not like what we see today, they look very fierce and rough and not as fine as what we see today it is just like the 2 pictures you see above and also the tail is about 10-15 feet in length. In the early days, the designs of the lion costumes only available on 4 category, The Liu, Kwan, Zhang and Zhao. These names are the names of the 3 kingdom warrior. Liu Bei, Kwan Gung, Zhang Fei, and also Zhao Zhi Long. Traditional lion heads only have this 4 variety in colour nothing more than that.

LIU BEI – The Colourful Lion with White Fur
KWAN GUNG - The Red Face Lion with Black Fur
ZHANG FEI – The Black Face Lion with Black Fur
ZHAO ZHI LONG – The Green Face Lion with White Fur

Liu Bei -----------------------------------Kwan Gung

Zhang Fei----------------------------------Zhao Zhi Long

The Lion Head revolution really hit a great revolution when Malaysians learn the art of building lion heads. Malaysians are the first to use sheep fur to replace brushy eyelash and also moustache. Besides the laser paper lion skin also starts in Malaysia. One of the most popular laser paper lion heads are the Gold and the Silver once. Besides it is also available in red, green, blue, and purple.




RELATED IMAGES

Laser Paper Skin

The another great changes of lion costume is the southern lion, northern lion costume style because its tail has changed from 15 feet to 7 feet in length plus it also comes with a pants and claws. In the early days of the art, this only available in the northern lion dance style.

RELATED VIDEOS



TRADITIONAL FUTSHAN LION HEADS








TRADITIONAL HOKSAN HEADS
Please Note : The dance that you are watching is not
HOKSAN STYLE dancing, only the head is Hoksan Lion Head.
Hoksan style is not like. More About Hoksan, I might
discuss further in the coming topics.

New Modernization in Culture

Modernization of the lion heads has a new culture in Malaysia dates back to the year 1994 When The managing director of The Mines Berhad Tan Sri Lee Kim Yew came out with a question “Why we don’t think of some thing that represents the combination of Malaysian and Chinese culture?” and World Lion Dance Champion Master & well known lion dance equipment store WSH Lion & Dragon Arts owner, Master H.P.Siow design a custom made look lion head to represent the Malaysian culture and Chinese culture, THE BATIK LION.
In 1996, the BATIK LION was greatly expose and surprise the lion dance world as Kun Seng Keng Dragon & Lion Dance Team won the Champion Title in Shanghai China with its Malaysian represent cultured lion head, THE BATIK LION. From that day onwards, The BATIK LION design was well accepted and highly in demand. What more in Malaysia, the original batik founded land. Most of the eye opening ceremony for the royals in Malaysia including the King, Sultan, Prime Ministers, Troups like Kun Seng Keng, will order the BATIK LION and allow The Highly Respected Royals to dot the lion’s eyes and then drop a signature on top of the lion head. BATIK LIONS are harder to paint because of its complex dotting and batik flower drawing adapting into the traditional lion heads pattern drawing.

RELATED IMAGE

Purple Batik Lion



Batik Painting On A Closer View

RELATED VIDEOS




This was the first time, THE BATIK LION been
expose to the world as World Champion Kun Seng Keng,
use this Malaysian symbolic lion head to represent Malaysia.

Todays costume colour revolution

In todays Lion costume design has even reach a more creative style. Mixing and matching colour to the lion is really in demand these days. Though the traditional lines and drawing or the pattern on the lion head must not change, but creative artist had improvise the pattern by matching colour. Early days lion costumes has a tradition that nose must be green colour and horn can only be in black colour because there is a saying that lion has green nose, iron horn. But today the colour of horn and nose has improvise by changing its colour to look beautiful. Besides the head, the body cloth also has verity in colour. It really makes modern lion costume finishes in a complete colour theme. Eg : “The Silver Purple Lion”, by looking at it, it really looks like it had design in that theme of colour. With is drawing is majorith is in purple colour, pompom balls are in purple colour and its body has silver colour scale under a piece of purple cloth. It has many many more like the Silver Blue colour, Gold Purple Colour and many more design by Malaysian’s lion costumes creative artist.
Today’s Malaysian manufactured lion heads is world well accepted in quality, design and style. Even Manufacturer from China Photocopy the exact design, look and style exactly like the Malaysians made costume but quality wise it is much poorer and not as durable ad Malaysian made lions. Just a little tips from me, the write, if you would like to buy a Malaysian made lion, beware of fake goods especially those advertise on internet saying that it is a Malaysian design head. Get the real one from Malaysia only. In the main page, there is a link to WSH Dragon and Lion Arts. You can check it out there.


RELATED IMAGES (Malaysian's Creative Colour Theme Design)

THE LIMITED EDITION "LEOPARD DESIGN"

Colour Theme (Green)------------------Colour Theme (Blue)