Edward Cullen is OVER!

Stage 1 I got a bit obsessed and had to sew it all the way round and turn it inside out at stupid o'clock.

 

  Then last night i finished the stuffing - yay! Now just got to get it to the requester!

Decisions, decisions

With any of my plushies I have to make decisions. In that respect, Edward Cullen is a tough set of choices. Not physically but to make him characteristic.

OK so Edward is a vampire. But with no special vampire teeth, no special costume a la halloween. The clothes he wears are not distinctive, they are, well, quite dull.

The outfit I've chosen seems as iconic as I could make it but ultimately wouldn't look like anything if I didn't find ways to 'mark' the doll as Edward.

I suppose this image here of Edward up a tree is effectively the outfit the plushie is wearing.

Trying to get fine details to work can make things go weird too. Today I got to the eyes. So I was looking to work out the colour. This image of just Edward's eyes is what I went for. The trouble is that the plushie has just round circular eyes usually.

I started out with just yellow. That looked odd, so I added a circle of black. This still looked weird, so then I added a dot of black in the centre. This then looked creepy rather than intense and I had to think how to tone that down and came up with adding a brow shape across the top. He now looks kind of angry but his eye is at least not a dart board. Most of my adaptations are like this. I make them up as I go. I'm not a great maker, I just play with a very very simple design.

It's a lot easier when it's more iconic colour wise though. You can really see why comic books have such extreme colour outfits for their characters.

Edward eh?

So I've been delaying and delaying starting Edward, mainly because I didn't have any sparkly white stuff. But then I was promised some and would give it to me on Monday. So I started on the jacket, cut out the clothes and hair and started work on the hair.

It was so perfect that despite not getting back till about 10pm I started work at once.
I'm currently sewing down the hair. Then I'll be sewing on the hands and doing the face and then it'll be done!!
 
Clark Kent here I come!

More details for Captain Jack

So the "customer" wanted a vortex manipulator and a holster.

The vortex manipulator is not very complex as it's so small scale but for other reasons the holster is actually completely out of scale for the size of the doll.

The contents are a surprise for the future owner but needless to say they are not handcuffs. LOL

So now we're up to speed...

My upcoming list, and this is as good a place as any to keep track is :

1. Edward Cullen from Twilight - for a friend's daughter in law as a peace offering.
   This one will be tough, not to do technically but because there isn't much that will make it distinctive once it becomes a simplified plushie design. All he'll have is a grey coat, some kind of pale shirt, grey boy trousers, black shoes, dark hair, all very anyone. I'm going to give him absolutely white preferably shiny skin and amber eyes. That is practically all I can do to give a distinct identity.
2. Clark Kent changing into Superman - for a work colleague friend
   This is totally the next one I'm looking forward to. It's going to be fun. The basic dress is not exciting white shirt, dark trousers, dark hair, but I get to have a big v with the blue and S showing through, probably using embroidery for the "S", and I might make the cloak if I fancy it.
3. Elvis - for a friend's husband for their anniversary
   He's gotta be in that white suit. Will also embroider on that swirl of hair at the front. He may also have flairs if I can work out how I want to do it.
4. Sherlock / Cumberbatch - for a friend
   Another tough one. Grey coat, dark trous, light shirt all nondescript. He'll have that curly hair somehow and the blue scarf. That's all I can add in.
5. Morpheus - for a friend
   This should be stark in colour but fun, mainly for the hair, which I might do in black wool sewn through black cloth
6. 10th Doctor again - for an acquaintance
7. Generic request, no details yet.
   
   I almost feel overwhelmed. And yet again I'm tempted to ask those I don't know too well for payment. But how do you do that? A friend suggested asking for costs of materials. I could do that I suppose. I'll think about it. I may start buying felt and using it more because it's just so much easier than hemming.

Meaningful acts

My 10 had meant a lot to the friend at the time, who was suffering a bit from badness in her life, so although she had suggested I make all 11 doctors (and then quickly insisted not for her personally), I offered to make her a second one, a companion of her choice. She chose Captain Jack Harkness.

It's a really tough job researching pictures of Jack Harkness you know. I had to study his er... costume for hours!! In all seriousness, this page about Harkness' costume details was really useful when I was struggling to work out what his braces looked like.

Actually I had real trouble getting decent pics of the braces. This was my final source for Jack Harkness costume details

The really fiddly part was deciding on the colour of his coat. We all thought it was blue but it turned out it was more blue grey. We bought some samples, and fortunately the sample that was rather big for a sample turned out to be pretty much the right colour.

The shirt used leftovers from making 11's shirt and the trousers were made from actual cut off bits of actual trouser thanks to a colleague at work who donated some stuff to me.

As I was getting a bit tired even though I was enjoying myself, I was also delighted to find I had just enough brown felt to do the hair in felt rather than the stretchy brown cloth I'd been using previously. I was in for an easy ride!

And I have to say I was not wrong. This was ridiculously easy. Except the stuffing took forever but then, it always does. You would not believe how much stuffing packs in these tiny things. Also innuendo LOTSSSSSSSSSSSS of innuendo.

And the coat was pretty much a dream.

So all I had to do now was wait for black leather scraps from a Loki costume to make the vortex manipulator and the gun holster. I confess I haven't done either yet even though they are going to take about 10 mins to do... I need a break. Plus I got costumes to make for Sci Fi weekender...

"You owe me"

With the first batch done and the new batch begun, I had said to those who requested that they would "owe me a favour". I was thinking a packet of hula hoops or something, I came in one day after one of my requesters had asked and was greated with a wink and "Ello!".
"Not that kind of favour!" I cried.

From being asked to make one for a kid, I got asked to make one of a kid's character - Harry Potter himself.

I was immediately stuck in a quandry. Did you notice they have slightly different uniforms from episode to episode of the films? Despite the wiki article on Hogwarts uniforms pretending it's some sort of history, the reality is it was obviously just a design thing and I was amazed how it really wasn't obvious. I mean, did you notice? Maybe you're more of a HP fan than me. I decided to go with the early episodes Harry Potter Uniform as it was brighter and more fun for me.

Unlike 10, I was going to embroider the tie as I didn't feel up to making a tiny stripy tie with no yellow and red ribbon to hand. It looked great but I'd forgotten something....
....Plushies don't really have a neck and about half to three quarters of my hard work got hidden by his head.

The scar was fun to do, and with a bit of help I also did the glasses. I tried to go all out with the robes, I even lined them, but the sizing went wrong and they came out a bit shorter than planned but I'm still proud of them.

The sort of curl is just the fabric, which, despite ironing insists on doing that. I still haven't had my hula hoops, and Harry is still waiting for collection on my desk at work.

I was beginning to think again of asking people for money but my heart wasn't in it.

Finally one for the kids

A friend's daughter all of 4 years old but already hot on Doctor Who thanks to Geeky parents looked in need of a plushie. When asked which Doctor she wanted (she did see some 10th Doctor stuff), she said "The one who eats fish fingers and custard" - awww.

So I jumped at the chance.

Yet again braces were a thing. I debated embroidering or making the bow tie and went with a made one. It was a little less neat but it was way cooler that way.

I didn't really do much to the pattern apart from the bow tie, the main body was two bits again, but then so was Mal. I did alter the fringe a bit, but the main alteration was shortening the coat to a jacket.

I wasn't sure about the jacket but I didn't have tweed the right colour but apparently Mum and daughter were very happy with the results.

Plushie the third

Of all the bars in all the worlds.... I got asked to do Mal Reynolds from Firefly..... (melt).

It was an amazing commission (still no idea how to spell that you know). This friend is a loyal fan of all things Nathan Fillion so I knew it was going to a good home.

Doing the "research", it was amazing how much you don't notice or remember about the fine details. It was a relatively simple alteration of the original pattern. Different colours, no jacket and shirt, just a top and of course the coat of doom. I debated giving him gloves but they'd have been pointless - either they would have fallen off if made separately or you wouldn't have been able to take them off.

I was getting into the swing of this,

The real thing was the holster which I decided to make out of fake leather. It was a killer to sew but there wasn't much sewing so it went fine.

By this point I could really see why the original Michelle Coffee pattern used felt - no hemming, and sewed on the outside. Turning it inside out and then right side out was rather fiddly.

However, I like the neater effect and the chance to use other materials so I stick with it. With three done, lots of people were coming out of the woodwork asking. I had 3 more commissions without even trying.

Thus far I had not considered asking for money. Mal Reynold's owner had helped pay for some fabrics as we'd gone to the Knitting and Stitching show together and I didn't have all the colours or fabrics.

With three more coming my way I did debate asking for a fee but I decided ultimately I didn't want any money, I didn't want a business. I wanted to make things, use up old bits and be creative. I'd see about charging later.

For interest's sake Mal was probably the least repurposed fabric offcuts. His shirt and trousers and skin fabrics were all bought. THe hair and coat and boots and holster were all left overs.