Holy crap! It's a second entry for the blog, and it's being posted exactly when I said I'd post it! It's a Christmas Miracle!!
......or maybe I queued it. Okay, I queued it. Don't you judge me.
Anyhoo, happy Christmas Eve! I'm still kind of brain dead from my Real Life Job (RLJ from here on out, because I'm lazy), and naturally I promptly got really, really sick as soon as the semester ended. I'm still sick (I sound like actual living death at the moment) but I've been working on some of my drafts of things - one story/sequel, one short screenplay which hopefully will be done for tomorrow so I can unceremoniously dump it on some friends whose opinions I need - so that's good. But like I said, I'm still sort of in that hazy, sick-groggy brain space where I spend more time blinking at things instead of actually doing any of them. Oh, and hacking. Can't forget the hacking. Of my lungs. Not, like, Sony or anything.
But I know you don't really care about that. What I bet you DO care about are my nails!
.......
...........................
.................................................No? Okay, I guess I'd better talk about Bird.
To be perfectly honest, I've had plans to make a Bird puppet probably for over a year now. But, after ordering the fabric I decided to use, I kind of got intimidated and proceeded to do absolutely nothing with it. I know, not the handiest reaction to have to a challenging project, but Bird's pretty special to me. I'm still not positive I won't horribly mess him up, but hey - it's better to try than to just leave the extremely yellow pile of fur just dumped in the closet, right?
Speaking of - materials!
Okay. So. When I first decided I wanted to make Bird, the biggest problem was, naturally, how to make him look the way that I want. Bird is supposed to be fat, but he's also supposed to look a little bit messy. He's fluffy, not smooth like normal budgies (which is what he is), and vaguely unkempt to reflect the fact that he kind of hates everything. The way I draw him has evolved along those same lines, too - more waviness rather than smooth curves around his head or wings. So, I decided to go for a long pile yellow faux fur.
It took me awhile to decide what kind of length I wanted, but I wound up with the extreme - three inches. I want to be able to cover over seams so that he looks as complete and non-constructed as possible.
Which of course means his beak will be a nightmare.
I made his beak awhile ago too, out of the same foam I used to construct the head of my Stitch costume. I'd like to say that I was super efficient about it, and that my creation was smooth and seamless, but just like how Stitch's head is actually a weird, giant mess beneath all that fleece fabric, clearly the beak is also not very smooth. I'll have to figure that out.
I debated with a lot of different material for his beak, but what I'm ultimately going to try is - believe it or not - the fabric from orange leather-look leggings. I found a cheap-ish pair on Ebay, and hopefully this will give me enough for not only his beak, but also his feet (since they're the same orange). I just have to figure out how to best cover his beak so it still looks good and isn't all wrinkly. This may be a tall order.
But yeah. Can you see why I keep putting off this whole puppet construction nonsense? THIS IS GOING TO BE HARD.
However, I'm gonna push ahead, if no other reason than I've had a bunch of yellow fur sitting around in a giant bag forever, and I think it's getting kind of dusty, which is just weird. So, hopefully for next week I'll have something to actually show you, even if it's just a covered beak!
Or a covered Brian.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
......or maybe I queued it. Okay, I queued it. Don't you judge me.
Anyhoo, happy Christmas Eve! I'm still kind of brain dead from my Real Life Job (RLJ from here on out, because I'm lazy), and naturally I promptly got really, really sick as soon as the semester ended. I'm still sick (I sound like actual living death at the moment) but I've been working on some of my drafts of things - one story/sequel, one short screenplay which hopefully will be done for tomorrow so I can unceremoniously dump it on some friends whose opinions I need - so that's good. But like I said, I'm still sort of in that hazy, sick-groggy brain space where I spend more time blinking at things instead of actually doing any of them. Oh, and hacking. Can't forget the hacking. Of my lungs. Not, like, Sony or anything.
But I know you don't really care about that. What I bet you DO care about are my nails!
.......
...........................
.................................................No? Okay, I guess I'd better talk about Bird.
To be perfectly honest, I've had plans to make a Bird puppet probably for over a year now. But, after ordering the fabric I decided to use, I kind of got intimidated and proceeded to do absolutely nothing with it. I know, not the handiest reaction to have to a challenging project, but Bird's pretty special to me. I'm still not positive I won't horribly mess him up, but hey - it's better to try than to just leave the extremely yellow pile of fur just dumped in the closet, right?
Speaking of - materials!
Okay. So. When I first decided I wanted to make Bird, the biggest problem was, naturally, how to make him look the way that I want. Bird is supposed to be fat, but he's also supposed to look a little bit messy. He's fluffy, not smooth like normal budgies (which is what he is), and vaguely unkempt to reflect the fact that he kind of hates everything. The way I draw him has evolved along those same lines, too - more waviness rather than smooth curves around his head or wings. So, I decided to go for a long pile yellow faux fur.
Hey, look! You get to see my nails anyway. And yes, they match on purpose.
It took me awhile to decide what kind of length I wanted, but I wound up with the extreme - three inches. I want to be able to cover over seams so that he looks as complete and non-constructed as possible.
Which of course means his beak will be a nightmare.
I made his beak awhile ago too, out of the same foam I used to construct the head of my Stitch costume. I'd like to say that I was super efficient about it, and that my creation was smooth and seamless, but just like how Stitch's head is actually a weird, giant mess beneath all that fleece fabric, clearly the beak is also not very smooth. I'll have to figure that out.
Stitch and Belle (which I also made - the dress, I mean; I did not make Petra). Photo blatantly stolen from Maryna.
I debated with a lot of different material for his beak, but what I'm ultimately going to try is - believe it or not - the fabric from orange leather-look leggings. I found a cheap-ish pair on Ebay, and hopefully this will give me enough for not only his beak, but also his feet (since they're the same orange). I just have to figure out how to best cover his beak so it still looks good and isn't all wrinkly. This may be a tall order.
But yeah. Can you see why I keep putting off this whole puppet construction nonsense? THIS IS GOING TO BE HARD.
However, I'm gonna push ahead, if no other reason than I've had a bunch of yellow fur sitting around in a giant bag forever, and I think it's getting kind of dusty, which is just weird. So, hopefully for next week I'll have something to actually show you, even if it's just a covered beak!
Or a covered Brian.
Look at that - it's like Bird is almost done!!
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