Tuesday 24 September 2013

Needle Felted Chocobo!

Hey there you lot!

Fancy a look at my latest needle felting venture?
After working on the Totoro trio, and Byron the Bear I wanted to explore a more complex shape created out of felt!



 So meet my little Chocobo!

As always, I took progress photos, so here's a quick run down on how I created this cutie!

Like every other needle felted creation, this Chocobo started out with a drawn template to act as a guide. I wanted this chappie to be poseable, so like with the Finn and Jake plushies I made, I gave him a wire armature skeleton.



After a tip from an animator friend, I used polymorph for the first time to give structure to the wire skeleton. These sections act like bones and offer the soft sculpture some rigidity.




Now begins the felting, I started with the feet and the body.





Then comes the head and neck, followed by a bit of shaping and then the main section of the tail.



Next were the two secondary sections of the tail, then I simply added three more spikes to match my drawn guide.





Similarly to the tail, I then shaped spikes for the Chocobo's crest, starting with the longest spike in the middle then the lower two, and one on top. 
The next part was rather fun, the Chocobo's beak! I'm really quite pleased with the shape I managed to active here.
Finally to complete the Chocobo's body I made his wings. These I felted separately, using the drawing as a guide to the correct shape, then attached them.

With some final touches to his legs to bulk them out a bit, give them claws and shape the area where they attach the the body, all that remains is to glue on a couple small beads for his eye, and voila!







So there you have it! Isn't he cute!
I let this critter out into the park earlier to explore, I'll post photos of that adventure at a later date!


6 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Hi there, thanks for the interest! I've only attempted making this one Chocobo, and it was trial and error! He was really an experiment to see how I could achieve more angular shapes and test the versatility of needle felting.
      I'm thinking in the future I might branch out into making needle felted plushies to order, but currently I haven't the time nor the resources. The materials are quite expensive and the process (especially for this guy) is rather lengthy, all of which will need to be accounted for in the commission price! But if there is enough interest despite all this then I'll be persuaded to go take some orders on :)

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  2. How did you felt onto the wire frame ?

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  3. How did you felt around the skeleton? I kinda wana do this too, but fear ill break my needles.

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    Replies
    1. Hi there, sorry for the slow reply! I don't get notifications for comments on here!
      I rolled out little sausages of the felting wool and wrapped them around the wire then carefully used a needle to felt around the wire just to hold the wool in place on the frame. You then add more wool and begin to felt more normally as the wire is covered in layer upon layer.
      Because I'd rolled the wool between my fingers before wrapping around the skeleton there's little felting with the needles required in the beginning stages, just enough to hold it in place where you want it. But you still gotta be careful with those areas that have a thing covering (like the legs on my Chocobo here!)
      Hope this helps!

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    2. hi! thank you so much for making this chocobo, my gf LOVES chocobos and ask me if I can make a needle felted one and I found this, i really love the final product

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