Felimath the dragon

Apparently one dragon wasn't enough, so I decided to make another.  I needed to do something with all the things I learned and ideas I came up with while working on Oscar.  This dragon is named Felimath.  The only reason he's named that is because it just came into my head while I was working on him, and it seemed like a good name.  Felimath is actually the name of one of the Lone Islands in the Chronicles of Narnia, but it just sounded good for this dragon.

I made Felimath in the same way I made Oscar, but I used ultrasuede this time, and it was MUCH easier to work with.  I also made his armature slightly differently, and used 26 gauge paddle wire, so he's much more posable than Oscar is.  Here he is fully felted:

 

He actually looks something like a wingless dragon in this picture.  In the really early stages, he looked more like some sort of carpet monster that had been run over by a vacuum cleaner.  He's blue and purple because I was planning on making his body that shade of blue, but I found out I didn't have enough fabric.  The purple is because I ran out of blue wool.  I actually wound up making him grey, which was a bit of a problem because the wool fibers liked to get caught in the seams.

 Here's a side view:

 

Here he is with the start of a skin:

  

Woohoo!  Body and tail all done!  That would be my physics homework that he's on top of.  The sun had set, and the only place with enough light to sew by was occupied by physics, and I didn't see any need to move it. 

 

Okay, now comes the insanity part.  After I finished his legs and body, I need to do his feet.  This is one of his feet before doing anything with it:

Now each of those toes needs to be covered, so I need to cut out a piece of fabric to sew around them:

 

Done!  Well, almost, he needs a little piece of blue sewn on there as a paw pad.

Just showing off how dexterous his little toes are.   That's a pin he's holding.

Next day, better lighting, holding another pin.  I have no idea what he's doing with it, maybe he's conducting an orchestra.

...and now he's holding my scissors.

 

He still doesn't have wings.  These I sewed the normal way, right sides together, then turned them right side out and put the armature in.

All done!  Well, mostly done, he needs some eyes and a face.  I think I made his wings a little small, oh well.

And now he is finally done!  I'm not sure what he's doing here, maybe he's singing.

 

Feed me! (Oh yeah, he has a tongue. :))

 

Nap time.

 

Oscar decided to jump off his perch on my cardboard wall and explore the floor while I was working on Felimath.  

Felimath decided to check out big brother's perch while Oscar explored the floor.

Then he decided to check out a lamp.

Then I realized that he matches my bike almost perfectly!  He looks like he's singing again in this picture.  Like he's just gently rocking the wheel back and forth and singing.

 

He can hold on pretty well with those little toes of his.

Oscar the dragon

After reading the article about Gordon and Peggy Hayes' dragons in the Winter 2009 Teddy Bear & Friends, I was inspired to make a dragon.  This is the first large soft sculpture I've ever made (that I can remember anyway).  I decided I didn't want to go through all the hassle of making a pattern and turning the pieces and stuffing the dragon and trying to get an armature in it, so I decided to make a dragon from the inside out.  I made an armature out of copper wire (maybe not the best choice, but it was all I had on hand that was big enough), and then felted the dragon's body around that.

After that was all finished, I gave him some skin.  I used a batik fabric for this, mainly because I liked the print, but also because batiks don't really fray.  It was still a bit of a pain to work with though.  I had originally planned to use ultrasuede, but I was doing this over Christmas break, and I had left all of my ultrasuede at school.

Here he is after I finished his tail and had the fabric in place for his body.  I used a combination of ladder stitch and applique to attach the fabric.  Invisible thread is my best friend.  

 

In the next picture, he's all done, except for his head, since I hadn't ordered his eyes yet.  There are no pictures between these two because I didn't want to stop and take pictures.  I just wanted to get the torture of finishing him over with.  His toes were the worst part.  He has 16 of them.  They're made out of pipe cleaners, and each one needed to be individually covered with fabric, and they each needed to have two pieces of fabric sewn on.  One red piece was sewn around each toe, then a green piece was appliqued to the bottom to cover the seam and give him cool-looking paw pads.  I have never stabbed myself with my needle so many times while working on a project.

Now we get to the really fun pictures!  I finished him last night!  In case you're wondering why on earth I decided to name him Oscar, it's just because that's the name that kept coming to mind while I was working on him, and it stuck.

 

In case you're also wondering why he's sitting on top of cardboard, it's because I have a cardboard wall in the middle of my apartment.  See, I have a one-room studio apartment, and I didn't like sleeping in the living room, so I built a wall and made myself a bedroom and a living room.  I made the wall out of cardboard because you can stick lots of stuff to cardboard.

 

   

  

His mouth didn't turn out quite the way I planned, but, oh well, I'll get better.

 

  

  

  

I just love his eyes. :)

Drawings

A friend of mine inspired me to start drawing again, so I just thought I'd share some of my favorites from the last few months.  I'm not very good at drawing something off the top of my head yet, so these are all copies I've draw of pictures I've taken or found.

I really like this one.  I actually drew it with my left hand, since my right arm was in a cast at the time.  I drew this one after practicing with several other pictures that definitely look like they were drawn left-handed!

I drew this one left-handed too.  This is Claire, my brother's cat.

Okay, now these ones I did all right-handed.  This is my brother's other cat, Lilly.

This is our old dog, Buster.  He was a good dog.

My friends' cat, Westley:

I've always liked tree frogs.

Some picture of a bird from a wildlife photography book we have:

I didn't copy this one from anything.  I just came across the saying in a bike shop.