Hey there Adventurers!
A little while ago I showed you the felted Jake the Dog plushie I made for my sister's birthday.
So today I'll show you the other half of the duo, Finn the Human!
And, as always, here is how I made him!
As with Jake, I drew a template to get the scale and everything right, then twisted armature wire into a rough skeleton frame. Next I grabbed a ball of light blue felting wool and felted it around the centre of the wire armature for his main body.
Next, with pink wool you flesh out Finn's arms and legs. As I explained with Jake, I've found the best way to do this is by wrapping a thin length of felting wool around the wire armature and then poke around the outsides with the needle so as to avoid stabbing the wire and breaking the needle!
He's looking a bit naked, so next thing to do is felt in his shorts! Cut off a short length of dark blue wool and simply felt it over his body and legs. Make sure to define his waistband and the cut offs of his shorts first, it can be quite tricky to keep the edges of the colours clean and un-fuzzed! Here you can also shape his hips and crotch a bit better...
To do his shoes felt black wool and shape his feet first, then roll out short lengths of white for his socks. Again you need to be careful to keep the colours separated and defined, I found felting the white to the black rather tricky, the black liked to show through and mess the colours up.
Oh! Here you can also shape his hands and thumbs!
Something's missing, he's a bit headless... roll out a ball of white wool and felt it into a kinda arch shaped disc, usually when felting a separate shape to attach to another I wold keep on edge unworked, but this time felt all edges as the colour you'll be attaching it to is different and we want to keep the distinction. Next roll out two little sausages for the ears of his hat and stab away, these you can leave fluffy to attach to his head.
Almost there! Roll out a very small amount of pink wool, just enough to cover the white, and felt it onto the front of his hat to make his face. Remember, stab along the outline of the shape first, then felt the middle. Lastly glue or sew on two small black beads for his eyes and felt on a very thin length of black wool for his mouth! (be careful that parts really tricky!)
Oh! Almost forgot his bag! Apparently I didn't take photos of this part...
You'll need to cut off two equal sized lengths of pale green and a bright green wool and felt them into semi-circles of roughly the same size, I drew a rear view template to gauge the size here, then attach them together by poking the needle through both halves to felt the join and make a two toned circular disc.
Next for the straps, as before cut two smaller equal lengths of the pale and light green wool and from them separate out four fairly thin pieces. Felt each piece separately into little sausages of equal size, then pair them up light green to bright green to create two straps.
What you want to do next is position the backpack on his back, then with Finn lying on top, wrap one strap around the top of his arm and stab away to secure it to the backpack. Do this again on the other side, then poke a few times on the straps and in the middle of the backpack to felt it a little to Finn's body and secure it in place.
And there he is! A fully posable Finn plushie!
And there you have it! Finn and Jake ready for an adventure!!
I'll get my sister, budding photographer that she is, to take some nice professional photos of these guys together!
*Note: Plushie Finn does not stand without support, in the final photos there are needles in his feet enabling him to stand on the foam base.
