Muppets

I signed up recently for another swap. This time it's Fantasy Creatures. Lots of fun options there. And I've already made fair progress. It's the last one for a good long while no more till next year at least. I'm missing out on one I really wanted to do. A Jim Henson/Muppet themed swap. But it's kind of a good thing, I think I would have had a harder time than usual letting go of a creation with that one. As a consolation I'm making up a doozer. It's simple enough that I can work on it in between the fantasy swap stuff without feeling like I'm shirking my responsibilities.

And I'm hoping that I can get a pattern made up since I think it won't have some of the impossible to explain elements a lot of my work seems to include.

Patience

Patience
Originally uploaded by the loireag

This guy evolved out of a conversation about patience. A trait I do not happen to possess. So obviously I needed to make some. And Patience must be a rare and elusive creature and not an attitude. So I went in search of Patience. I found this fellow sitting on a monument, quite quietly it's no surprise most people overlook him. You'll notice that he has no arms. The reason is very simple. He doesn't need them, for all things come to those who wait.

Embroidery experiments

Embroidery
Originally uploaded by the loireag

Along with knitting and crochet I've been playing around with embroidery for a while. I've thought embroidery was pretty but uninteresting for years. For some reason it never occurred to me that it didn't require a pattern. Yes I am that dim. But in my defense most of the things I had seen were made from the old iron-on patterns. And following a design by someone else just wasn't very interesting so I never gave it any further thought. I finally caught up to reality about a year ago when I wandered into the Embroidery section on Craftster and saw all sorts of amazing original work posted there. I immediately had to give it a try. And I'm so glad I did. For something that might seem tedious from the outside it is a lot of fun.

Embroidery
Originally uploaded by the loireag

I've not produced very many things that could be considered "finished" at this point (I have a tendency to get distracted) but I am rather pleased with these two. Both based on sketches I'd done a while ago. Happy monster and his balloon have shown up in a few other things I've made but he is at his cutest here. As for vine mouth, honestly I'm not sure what he was meant to be, I think when I first drew him I had been watching Mirrormask. So probably nothing more than a random oddness. I do like how the vine came out though.

Cyclops Kitten

Kitten
Originally uploaded by the loireag

Her name is Una.
One of the more recent projects. I've been wanting to make this for ages but have been waiting on ordering the eyes I needed. I finally got my act together and made an order from Eyes and More for a bunch of sizes in bulk. Aside from some small black eyes they are all clear so I can paint them to match the project they will be used for. So much more versatile and fun. It adds a tremendous amount of character to design the eyes to fit the creature. It's hard to tell from the pictures but the eye for the cat is two shades of red (one translucent and one more opaque) for a bit of texture with a layer of gold painted over the back you can just see the shine of the gold through some of the red. Definitely more fun than a plain red eye.

And just in case it matters to any one who reads this I was very happy with my order from Eyes and More. Quick, great prices and very good service. I'll definitely order from them again.

Squid

I really love cephalopods. They are such beautiful creatures. And Hansi Singh has some of the best patterns for them I've seen. Quite a while back I made a little squid out of sock yarn using one of her patterns and I've been wanting to make a larger version that incorporated several changes and enhancements since. I finally got one made. And it came out pretty nifty. If I do say so myself.

Aside from altering a few things about the shaping on the squid itself there are two big changes. The first is the eyes. Instead of knitting them I used 24mm hand painted safety eyes. They're just about an inch across (huge!) and I added some crocheted eyelids because I think it gives them a bit more character. The second addition was embroidering suckers on all of the tentacles. An enormously time consuming endeavor but well worth it.

Studio Ghibli

Finally finished my part of the Miyazaki swap. I had a lot of trouble with this one but I think it came out really well.

It's Howl from the movie Howl's Moving Castle. This is how he looks in the beginning of the movie. He is holding the fire demon Calcifer





I also made a little white Totoro carrying a leaf, a painted box and a few other little things

Labyrinth

Ladies and gentlemen allow me to introduce the Goblin King.

Labyrinth was such a huge part of my childhood and it was tremendous fun to make Jareth. I've had the idea floating around the back of my mind for a while to make some Labyrinth stuff and having an excuse was all the encouragement I needed.


Usually it takes a lot of failed attempts to get things right but this one was smooth sailing through calm seas. Well maybe not all the time but still smoother than usual. I did keep notes as I worked (I'm trying really hard to do better at keeping track as I go along) but it was mostly for the parts where I had to make matching pairs. The documentation got a lot sparser on the rest of him. I'm thinking I'll make another eventually. I really liked how he came out and having him around was fun but it will probably be a while. I do want to make a pattern for him available eventually. But I'll have to go through and make another to flesh out the notes and figure out how to explain some of the more idiosyncratic methods I used to make him. Which I'm not looking forward to.

The rest of the photos are here

















This little guy (these little guys?) was the other item made for the swap