The Bats

I am very fond of working on rabbits. I don't know why exactly but they always creep back into my work, as sketches, dolls or drawings. My childhood was filled with stories and fairytales with and about them. Since I worked on the black rabbit and Snowdrop for quite some time I had to force myself to do something else, something new to me.
So I came up with the rough sketch of a bat. The progress on this critter was very smooth, there were no problems with the materials and while I was working on him a whole story evolved in my head. These are my favourite critters, the ones that come to life while I work on them. The first bats name was Hugo and he was the Bringer of Spring. I had the idea for his profession while watching a documentary about pollinators.
The second bat found her way in my mind through the idea of a bat sowing seeds, having a little bag and all. So why not sow stars? She has sparkly stars on her black velvet wings and in her felted bag. I am still not sure about a name for her. Was toying around with Hedwig, since I like the sound and it would sound nice together with Hugo.

Here are some progress and detail pics of Hugo and Hedwig, all together in one post.

This was already pretty far in but one can still see the stages it went through, felting the paws, sewing the wings and so on...

Hugo and his flower crown... I really like that crown...

This picture is nice to see the general size of Hugo... I am not so good with taking selfies...

A nicer pic, not taken with my mobile phone. It is just too easy to take pics with your phone sometimes and not care about the quality...

I only recently had everything I needed to fill Hugos pouch.. Now he carries around a bag of seeds and a vial full of pollen...

The beginnings of the second bat. The choice of fur really came back to bite me in the ass later on. All the fluffy-ness made sewing the body very tedious...

I did not intend to make the second bat bigger than Hugo, but it still kind of happened. A size comparison between Hugo and the unfinished Hedwig.

The sculpted face before and after painting it. I was not sure where I was going with her colors. With Hugo I was pretty sure what to do and how I wanted him to look but Hedwig was a surprise when I had finished her. But I came to like the dark browns and blues I worked into her skin and fur...

Hedwigs felted pouch. It is embellished and filled with beads. I wanted the star theme to be very obvious. 

To go with the over all theme Hedwig has stars on the back of her wings as well. Thinking about her story gave me the idea that she could melt into the night sky to sow her stars, and not be seen by predators. And when she and her mates hang out in a cave at daytime you can see the night sky in the darkest corner of the cave...

She looks like such a classy lady.

Seems like I already got used to the name Hedwig. I like how she looks a bit like a grumpy victorian-era lady. Hedwig and Hugo will get their own post with story and nice pics and all, for now I just wanted to have a place to post all the progress and thoughts, so I don't forget anything...

Black Unicorn

As promised, here is the process post of the black unicorn. The process for this one was basically the same as for the white unicorn, except that I added the hair at the beginning. That way I did not have to worry about a seam at the top of the head, but it made the whole process much more complicated because the curly hair was sticking to everything and started to look gray when I sanded the head down, because the dust clung to the fake hair.

I started with an aluminium foil, wire and sticky tape armature and glued the hair to the back of the head into a deep cut I made with a scalpel. I used a lot of glue and it was a messy affair.

This is with the first layer of clay added. I wrapped the hair in foil so it did not get stuck to the clay. The nostrils look really stubby and kind of awkward here, so I changed them the next day.

I looked up some pictures of draft horses and changed the nostrils that way. And I added a little beard which you can barely see in any picture because the head is always resting on the chin.

The base coat of the unicorn is black gesso. I like the idea of the big black unicorn head but it was hard to add any details like I did with the white unicorn, and taking pictures is kind of hard.

 

Here it is, all finished. It has a gilded horn as well, and yellow-ish eyes. And you can see the beard in this picture. There is nothing else to say, except that I really like handling the two heads, but I put them away for now because i want to use a mat varnish and I have not found one yet that won't turn yellow after some time.

Black and White

This blog is kind of quiet, and I am really sorry for that. I am currently learning for my last exam, but in my spare time I was working on some experiments. I wanted to try how magic sculpt would work for my dolls faces. It is really different to what I am used to work with, but I like it. At the beginning I only planned to do one head, and it was only an experiment, but over the course of working on it I added some gray extensions and even gilded the horn. I really liked how it turned out and started a second one, this time in black (because somebody told me to make a black one). The second one was inspired by draft horses, so it is bulkier than the first one. Here they are...

If you read this and are interested in purchasing one of them (or both) they are still up for grabs. There will be more detailed posts about them and their process soon.