Lego fans who are Touhou Fans. Are you seeing the potential in this set?
now, I'm certainly not saying the scales, specialized cloud pieces, and entire shape of Lego's New Year Auspicious Dragon Set would make a perfect exaggerated 4/3 size version of Sannyo's dragon pipe........
and I'm most certainly not saying those scales are a reasonably passable color for a stylized version of Sannyo's pipe.
I'm just heavily implying it.
There are some downsides:
If someone wants to use these perfectly shaped dedicated cloud pieces then you seem to be stuck with this color.
If you want to use these scale prints then you might need more these 90$ sets to do the belly and back. For that reason, it might just be better to avoid using the scale prints entirely.
However:
You can get them in large numbers in this near perfect lovely green from bricklink; but if you do, then you'll need to dedicate yourself to doing your full recolor of this set, and replacing every single piece. And ordering so many different things on Bricklink can potentially leave you wishing one specific piece was available. Not to mention all this complication is Defeating the whole exciting purpose of having this well shaped set with its molds and prints all nicely in one convenient package.
But, if you need some types of pieces and are willing to spend 170$ on the high quality Masters Of The Universe set by Mega Constructs. You can have a giant snakes worth of possible substitute parts in useful shapes and the right color
You'd even get to keep nearly the whole playset left over as is with it.
(Yes, Mega Constructs can generally fit with Legos perfectly well, and these days they can often even have higher quality at better prices)
But at this point we have moved insanely far away from the whole convenient idea of just using the perfectly shaped Lego New Year Dragon Set.
Anyway:
Regardless of the color you plan on doing this with you are going to need to remake the belly of the dragon and the back of the dragon to look more like a pipe and be the same color.
Then you simply need to extend the neck and tail, round it off with a gold end and maybe exaggerate the curves a bit.
Ultimately, if you were willing to accept the color as a stylistic choice, then you'd only need to redo the back and front of the dragon, remove the legs, position the clouds and extend it. You might need to order some pieces in a matching color for the belly and back but it could seemingly actually be pretty simple. Thus the whole point.
