This piñata turned out just as I intended...almost.

The wings are made from shirt hangers, and the membranes are sheets of crepe paper. The flame is colored tissue paper (red, orange, yellow, and white) layered together and then simply stuffed into the mouth. The eyes are painted ping pong balls.  The hands are four-fingered claws shaped from shirt hangers which were wrapped in crepe paper and tipped with lethal card stock talons.

This piñata was made of many different parts assembled together -- the head, belly, tail, haunches, arms, and feet were all separate balloon pieces that were covered in papier mâché and then taped and papier mâchéd together.  This was my most ambitious piñata up to that point, and I was happy with the way it turned out.  The piñata stick was decorated to look like a sword.

But the slaying of the dragon did not go as planned...

An intrepid band of 7-year-old girls set off to slay the dragon in celebration of the princess's birthday. Armed with but a single sword between them, they would have to attack the beast in turns.  The birthday girl went first, and the others bravely followed in order of smallest to largest.

After the birthday girl landed a solid but ineffectual blow against the dragon's scaly hide, she passed the sword to Lady Margot, a 40 lb wisp of a child, who took the handle of the sword in her small, delicate hands and cautiously approached the fearsome dragon.  Her vorpal blade went snicker-snack, and the dragon's candy-filled body dropped to the ground while its head hung from the rope, still breathing tissue-paper fire as if unaware that the battle was already lost.

Decapitated in a single blow! That wasn't supposed to happen!

What I did wrong was attach the hanging hook to the head of the dragon, and put all the candy in the belly.  The head and belly were connected by a thin neck, and that's right where she hit it.  Fortunately I was able to use some stiff wire to reconnect the head and body.  The dragon returned to life, and battle raged on until all the warrior princesses had proven their mettle and the dragon was more properly slain.

Now I always make sure the hanging point is attached to the same compartment that holds the candy.  For piñatas with multiple candy compartments, I use more than one hanging point unless the piñata is specifically designed to require only one. The Dolphin and Rainbow Zebra piñatas (and also the Rainbow Zebra 2) have multiple hanging points.  The Spider and Pirates of the Caribbean piñatas have more than one candy compartment but only one hanging point.