My last blogspot entry, about a week ago, featured the assembly of a muslin prototype plush person. I've been working on the velour version of that prototype, and this entry features the up-to-date progress of chibi-Strife.
Since I'd already photographed the body assembly with the first version, I didn't bother to do so with this one too. Instead, we jump right to the finished body, 31 January:
The head gave me more grief than with the first version, but I think it turned out better. I also stuffed it from a top-side seam this time around, so the lower region of the face is much smoother than with the muslin rendition.
Two additions to the velour version's body base: his ears, hand-sewn to the head during my lunch break on 1 February.
The first article of clothing I created for chibi-Strife was a simple half-circle cloak, cut and sewn on 2 February:
The pattern for the cloak is extremely basic and may be found here. I merely adjusted the measurements for chibi-Strife's proportions.
On Saturday, after a trip to Michael's for Art Wear iron transfer sheets, I worked on designs for his eyes, chose one that I liked, and fused them to chibi-Strife's head. Very carefully.
Sunday night, I sewed a pair of long underwear from remnants of old black jersey material. Really, very much belonging to the "remnants" category--it involved a lot of seam-ripping and removal of very old elastic (which tends to disintegrate and fall apart in its old age).
The waist-band of the pants is kind of ... iffy. They fall down. He has plumber's crack (except that it's cute on chibi-Strife, rather than horrifying and gross).
But it's okay, because yesterday I made him a tunic that sort of compensates for the tendency of the pants to fall down by being over-long.
And today? Yeah, I don't know yet. We'll see. Maybe he'll get a mouth.
Maybe.
Showing posts with label backtrack. Show all posts
Showing posts with label backtrack. Show all posts
06 February 2007
another photo representation of progress
30 January 2007
a gradual process
I've already posted images of this in my LiveJournal, but then today I realized I'd never updated blogger with any of it. So this morning's entry is a backtrack of last week's plush endeavors.
The body fabric is a natural-tone muslin, the eyes and mouth are black thread. This week I'm in the process of making a nicer version of the body out of velour fabric. I cut all the pieces on Sunday night with a few minor differences from the original (thumbs on the hands, a slightly different dart for the front of the head), sewed and stuffed the body yesterday, and today I'll hopefully finish the head.
Well, maybe finish the head. I'm thinking of purchasing some flat-black buttons for the eyes rather than messing around with the satin-stitch again; because it was hard enough to make an even satin-stitch on muslin, never mind piled fabric.
I also still need to make ears (the first prototype didn't have any). And, for this particular plushie, ears will be necessary, since a major part of his defining accessories is wearing funky earrings.
After I'm done with the body, the real tricky part will begin--hair, clothing, accessories. My experience with making doll clothes is so limited, it could be written on the back of a postage stamp in its entirety.
And Strife's clothes are kind of detail-oriented: the boots and gauntlets, fingerless gloves (good thing the new plushie has thumbs), and a nonsensically pieced-together [leather or pleather?] jump-suit with tiny metal rings and belts and such. For a better explanation of what I mean, I include photos:
Yeah, he's a skinny god. I don't care. He's going to make an adorable plushie.
But I get the sinking feeling I'll be hand-sewing Strife into his complicated getup.
20 December 2006
not a moment too soon
Yesterday morning I was writing about my issues with Beta Blogger; and, ironically enough, yesterday night Blogger suddenly announced the end of calling this new version "Beta." It doesn't really change any of the complaints I have with the system, just the name--but they're making it out to be a very big deal, kind of forcing people into making the transition.
I'm just as happy I decided to go ahead with it beforehand; I'd feel very irritated if I hadn't done so of my own volition, and were now being coerced into the change.
Among other changes (because, while I'm at it, why not?), I added new things to the sidebar--a task which swallowed up the better part of last night. There's a short list of some of my favourite fanfiction (the ones I could track down, anyway), and a rather long list of most recent music artists heard on my iPod and iTunes (an idea I borrowed from Geoff's sidebar, a list which he calls "Playing On Myne Ipod"). More will be added to each list as whatever it is occurs to me; and, potentially, more kinds of lists will be added to the sidebar as they occur to me.
In terms of music, I found that Wikipedia was the most useful source for locating official musician and band websites. Google helped, too.
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"Movies you enjoy watching most this month" is today's Holidaily prompt, but I feel like I've already gone into this before.
Though I make fun of them to no end, I enjoy the classic Rankin & Bass Christmas productions (and I've definitely addressed them before).
A Garfield Christmas Special
A Charlie Brown Christmas
The Santa Clause ... Yes, it's Tim Allen. Yes, he's kind of awful. No, I just don't care (though, I refuse to watch any of the sequels).
I also used to love Benji's Very Own Christmas Story, but I haven't been able to find it in my parents' video collection after the several moves they've made in the past six years.
There are probably others that I'm not thinking of right now, but I might edit this post later to include them. Oh, yeah. And I'll probably sit down to The Nightmare Before Christmas at some point this holiday season, as well.
The one movie that is always brought up as a Christmas classic, and that I've never watched from beginning to end, is It's a Wonderful Life--a fact that makes me feel like one of the dopey officers from The Ref who accidentally records the film over the police evidence. But it's so damn long, and I've seen the "never-been-born" premise done in so many other shows and films, that I don't think I'm missing too much.
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I think tonight will be a digicam night--of Christmas-y picture-taking. Our tree, the freaky penguin ornaments that don't make sense, and my holiday acquisitions (of which I have a fair few already).
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