The past three months

For all those new to my blog or just new to me in general, I'd like to just do a quick recap of the past three months or so, so we can catch up and get to know each other. It's the lightning rounds!

Commission Roundup!

AWA 2014 Roundup!

Chromatic Garden Roundup!

To see which dolls are still looking for a home click here!

Now hit reply and let me know what you've been up to!

A Realistic Styled Canadian Goose: My Process

Oh I had to rest a day or two before I could even summon the strength to write this. I first started this project a month ago and came up with a plan:

• ultrasuede beak & feet
• pose-able anatomically correct folding wings
• armatured neck and wired feet

I gathered a variety of photos of Canadian geese in different poses, looked at plush birds, and finally looked up wing anatomy. 

Goose body with one wing structure

I started with the head first before making the  body and estimating the distance needed for the neck. I had sewed the minky part of the head together with the intention of being able to machine sew on the finished beak. Alas that wasn't possible given the tough to pin nature of the ultrasuede, so I had to settle for hand sewing it. I bent 2 straight needles and just had to give both my hands a rest from the stress of sewing through layers of ultrasuede. 

Upon finishing the head, I noticed that a goose's body has a gradation of colors, so I chose three tans/browns to use for the wings. The commissioner had requested for something more huggable than a doll for display so I decided to do the main structure of the wings with wire. I had played with ideas of steel spokes already made to bend, plexiglass, and foam core, but none of these suited my use. 

To make the wing structure, I bought 12 gauge aluminum wire and with a sketch I drew of the bone structure, I wrapped one wire around the other to form a stronger wire that will stand up to much posing. The downside to that is when I went to sew the wire into the plush lining, every time I hit a wire, I broke a sewing machine needle. It ended up being the limit to my machine's foot with two pieces of minky, quilt batting, and a thick wrapped wire, but using a total of four pieces (two for the outer most structure and one more for the inner bottom) and several hours later, I had two complete wing structures. 

Start of feathering with two of the colors

Now time for the feathers: It was my first time attempting this sort of wing, so I did not really have a plan for where to start feathering. I decided to do it in four sections according to where the wing would need to bend when the wing would close. I used the middle to provide a sense of scale and also because the wing centered around everything else folding over the middle. 

Next up: outer section

Finishing up with the inner section & another bent needle

It is important to note that I drew feathers of varying shapes depending on where in the wings they were. I had looked at drawings of feathers and was warned by anatomy books against using just one single pointed shape. The shapes of the feathers ultimately helped shaped the overall structure of the wings for a finale that I'm quite pleased with. The inner most part blended perfectly with the tan back I had originally incorporated in the design

Finally the last part was to do the "drumsticks" and legs.

Attacking the legs

This was fairly simple: using the same 12 gauge wire, I wired the legs and stitched the wire into place using my machine, then had the lovely task of hand sewing the wired legs to the body. First I attached one side to the body, following that with the unstuffed drumstick. By sewing the drumstick over the legs, I had the legs attached to the body on one side and the drumstick on the other and once stuffed, the drumstick provided structural support for the legs. 

The finish project measured 20 inches from beak to tail and 1 yard/meter in wing span. I had crammed the remainder of the project right in after I got the boxes from my old apartment into my new and sewed for a minimum of 10 hours for 5 days straight in my desire to finish this (I actually would forgo eating just due to concentration) I learned a lot about wire, quilting, and ultrasuede in this project. I'd have to say I am well exhausted and have no desire to attempt such a project until I recover, but it was definitely an experience. 

I'd like to thank the person who commissioned this! Each piece is always to learn more.

Now for some brunch and possibly some livestreaming later.

Have a wonderful day and thanks for reading,

Laine

I AM FINISHED! Fossa Commission Reveal

I am so happy I finished this that I want to fist pump into the air and do a victory dance (which looks like I'm just having the fits). To see the process of the head please visit http://paeoniadrop.blogspot.com/2014/05/moving-one-step-at-time-commission-wip.html

Once the head was done, I tackled 32 more pieces to make the body. The body had markings down the chest that also had to be visible from the side. The legs needed hocks that were more curved on the hindlegs and not so much on the front. Before starting the project, I was a little daunted by the idea of having to needle sculpt toes, but I quite enjoyed it. I think it was especially helpful since I waited until after I finished shaping the feet to stuff the leg. Working with a partially stuffed leg gave me the flexibility to rework the stuffing into the toes as I was shifting it around to get the five digits.

Before and After Needle Sculpting

Something I do have to figure out is the neck. In order to have the head firmly stuffed so it won't deform, it ends up being quite heavy. I used a larger neck joint this time to give more support, but the head is still not as well supported as I would like. Because the commissioner did specify that she wanted it to be as huggable as possible, I really did not want to put in heavy weight interfacing to give it more structure. It would just feel stiff (like hugging cardboard.) I will one day have to figure out a solution to balance hug-ableness with structure. Until the next time I tackle a large quadruped plush.

(Next commission up is a Canadian Goose)

Moving one step at a time: Commission WIP

Good morning everyone,

I wanted to share with you a commission that I've been working on: a fossa. The commissioner wanted to get a special gift for someone and I was challenged with creating that someone's fursona. I've never done anything like this before, and as I'm working on it, I remember why markings make sewing much more involved.

I started about a month ago with two prototypes for the head. This was the first time I was trying for cheeks without an needle felting involved. After a little frustration (ok quite a bit) I ended up with something that has face markings. Overall the head consists of 31 pieces of fabric and amber glass eyes. A quick note: face markings tend to make things difficult to sew if they are not embroidered.  

 After assembling the base for the head, I needed to do some needle sculpting and cleaning up to define the shape of the face and also put the head joint in.

Needle sculpted and with eyes in

Hair, ears, and ear fluffs added

I don't think these photos do the head justice. The shape and eyes have so much more depth in person.  The next step I'll be taking is to make the pattern for the limbs and adjust the body pattern a little before cutting it out and assembling it. It's definitely one of my more ambitious projects and I hope to be done by the end of May.

My First Large Doll: The Story of a White Unicorn

Edit: Now with references since the commissionw as delivered.

For the past 2 1/2 years that I've been plushing, I have never made anything over 6.5 inches. I received a challenge this year from a commissioner to make something relatively to scale based on an image they gave me. I made two dolls and had wanted one to be 3x bigger than the other.

(I apologize for the poor background. This plush is larger than any setup I have for photographing it.)

For me, there are 3 main differences I faced when scaling up. They came up in :

• jointing
• eyes
• construction of the mane. 

Jointing:
One of the things I definitely struggled with was figuring out how to joint the doll. I worked with bolt joints for the first time and having never even used a wrench before it took some figure out. I picked a tapbolt with a nyloc nut, and I was frustrated for a couple of days trying to figure out why the limbs kept falling off, only to realize I have to break the nylon on the nut.

Eyes:
It was also the second time I worked with colored eyes, which always throws me off when looking at the face. Constructing the eyelid and white of the eye out of wool at such a size also threw me off.

Construction of the Mane:

The mane itself was an even bigger job than the ones on my small ponies (even though the small manes are all sewn by hand). For the mane, I machine sewed each strand, stuffed it, then hand sewed them onto the head as well as sewing the strands together for one continuous piece. I am very pleased to get results that match the reference I was given

To sew the strands together and attach them to the head took 7+ hours of hand sewing alone, not to mention the time it took to construct the strands.

Last but not least, I have attempted satin stitching on my machine to put together a tail, but I have yet to get the result I like despite using heavyweight interfacing. I know the results can be achieved without a walking foot, but I have yet to figure out how to get smooth stitches.

Overall, I am happy with my first attempt at a large doll and his mane sorta makes him look like a princely character to me. (I've been watching too much MLP) He'll look more complete with a tail and all the proportions will make sense then. Hopefully I will figure out a way to photograph him so that the photos will do him justice.

Until then,
Laine

Adventures with a Sewing Machine

Another cloudy weekend morning where I have to go into work. I have actually been more interested in working on this commission than crunching some data and struggling with the new assay we are using in our lab. My boyfriend got me this little machine. Having never machine sewed, I did things via trial and error. After 1/2 a spool of hand sewing thread, I figured out a couple things:
-I can't use hand sewing thread on a machine
-When bringing up the thread from the lower bobbin, I need to actually pull out the loop, not maintain it
-I can't get good tension with super thin fabric
-Although there are techniques for sewing round pieces without pinning, for a first time user, it's better to use pins

After a couple of hours figuring it out and finally getting the tension right, I started working on this unicorn. I have the head, legs, and body sewn. Now it's just waiting for ears, mane, horn, and eyes. I put my finished kitten next to it to show the scale. Both are private commissions.

Hopefully after my project due on the 6th, I'll have more time to work on dolls.

Starting a New Kitten

(Yes this is my small and slightly messy workspace for my soft sculptures. I have a laptop for entertainment, beading wire & duct tape of some sort for armature, jewelry plyers, darning needles, embroidery & fabric scissors, hemostat, tweezers, isopropyl alcohol for clay work, tea and magnesium for headaches)

It's cloudy outside this morning which makes it a perfect time to blog. I actually meant to write this yesterday, but didn't get around to it. The commissioner requested that this kitten be able to reach up for something, so I put my hand to understanding and working armature. This is my first time trying to wiring the limbs and tail, and while I had a general idea of how it was done I could not figure out the specifics on how to get the wiring to stay in one place while stuffing. I went searching in other places and became especially curious on how artist dolls (dolls with resin heads and limbs, but soft pose-able bodies) were assembled. Luckily, Magweno (magweno.com) had an old tutorial that provided some insight. The solution to my problem was to wrap the armature in quilt batting so that I would not have to stuff it afterwards. I would sew one side of the arm, flip it, put the batting wrapped armature in it, and ladder stitch it closed. I am not sure yet if this is more time consuming than how I usually work, but it works very well. The armature doesn't shift and I'm able to pose the arm as I like.

Since then, I have started prepping the face for needle felting, and will work on the later in the week when I have more time. Mondays and Tuesdays are always the busiest days for me.