helicoptersandcrocodilesegwells - Tumblr blog

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What an odd toy

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Outside photo shoot

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102

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101

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Worksheet progress

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The cage

I have decided that I am going to display the Kelpie in a cage, as if it has been captured, I need to add some more saw dust to the cage and as a bonus it being in the cage will protect it from people, specifically kids trying to touch it.

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Toy worksheet

After the Kelpie was 100% complete I decided that I would draw her outcome as she actually looked and not just the initial design , this actually lead to me designing a label for her, inspired form the beanie babies heart ty tags.

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Teeth

I cut off the bottom of all of the teeth I made previously angling the knife I was using at a downwards angle so it would leave a ‘pit’ and a rough surface for the hot glue to cling to. 

I had to push the fur inside the mouth outwards so when I glued the teeth in they wouldn’t mess with the natural flow of the fur, or as natural as I can get it. I also added even more hair to the mane using more black and green wool by separating the wool strands by untwisting them and pulling on one side to thin it out and make different length strands so it looks more hair like.

Before I glued the teeth in place I experimented with different positions, like having the larger teeth wider apart / closer together, or seeing which teeth fit with each other and which ones didn’t , just making sure I liked how they were positioned before I stuck them down.

I started by gluing the two biggest fangs to the top of the mouth near the edge at the front and then gluing the slightly smaller fangs to the bottom jaw going inwards as I did this, similar to canine mouths. After that I added the smaller teeth, I wasn’t too worried about them being too precise as I wanted it to look scary and slightly mangey. So I just started adding them on by one making the teeth reduce in size as they got closer to the back of the mouth.

Some of the teeth that I added the first time stick properly due to the glue only attaching to the ends of the fur and not the fabric base, But that was easily fixed with some more hot glue.

I also scuffed up the hooves a bit more to reveal the white underneaths to hint at the fact that this creature was once white and pure. I did add some smudged ink on some of the white which left some cool white cracks.

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The bus ride home

As it would turn out she sits rather nicely on a bus seat , at this point I’ve gotten use to the weird looks.

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More green

I added some final green strands into the main and tail as it still looked a bit empty and boring .

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The eyes

A couple of my class mates had pointed out that they eyes kind of got lost amongst the rest of the black fur, so I decided to try and and black gradient but that ended up too dark still so I just went with a bright red instead. Which I do think was the right decision even if it was a pain to do as I had to keep moving the fur out of the way so they wouldn’t be covered in red paint.

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Green highlights

I wanted to add some green into the mane and tail for some contrast against the black and to link back to the swampy environment Kelpies tend to live in. The process was the same as with the black wool just on a much smaller scale as I didn’t need as much of the green as I did with the black.

I then spent some time arranging where I wanted them and then glueing the strands of green in place.

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Velcro

I found some velcro and a spare piece of fabric so I sewed down the edges and then measured the velcro to the size of the battery cover and cut it before attaching it to the fabric so it would cover the gap in the fabric while still giving me easy access to the batteries.

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Hair and teeth

Similarly to the tail I measured and cut another bunch of the chunky black wool, taking the time to separate each different strand so I could then take bunches of it to brush through and pull apart to make the hair, 

I also used some more foam clay to create an array of different sizes of teeth, most of them being sharp canines and then some molar teeth incase I wanted o use them. I made the teeth by rolling a small ball of foam clay and rolled it in my fingers to make a cone which I then bent and curved into shape.

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More wings

After putting some last touches on the larger wings I moved onto the smaller set of wings that sat behind the larger ones and repeated the entire process that I did on the larger again, just smaller .

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Feathery Wings

Here I am simply simply finishing the inner side of the wings by adding feathers row after row comparing them to the feathers on the back so they follow the same pattern.