reviving the extinct

Awhile ago a good friend asked me to make a softie for his little nephew. He was really REALLY specific about his request, he wanted a dodo (he's completely dodo mad) with a little added extra...

coff, coff...

He wanted a dodo with a bum hole that you could reach inside and take out an egg... with the baby's name on it... I was stunned, not so much with the idea, I've come to expect nothing less from Mr. Micklee but, with the challenge ahead. My work tends to be more bi-dimensional so, creating something like this really had me thinking, and after many a trial and error this (not so) little creature suddenly appeared at my desk, looking at me with its slight vacant eyes, all cute, cuddly and with a feat of modern engineering (ie. a paper scaled model): a actual "functional" bum hole :D

 The dodo is made of acrylic and wool felt, cotton fabric and fleece

 

Here's some egg laying action!

 the famous egg!

 The B felt very malicious as he was holding the dodo, he looks almost like he's hatching a cunning plan. Beware Mr. Bond!!

fly my little critters, fly!

As I have mentioned before, three of my little toys are going to be part of this year's Plush You. As they have safely arrived in Seattle I thought that it was about time to share them with you lovely people :)

As I enjoyed making the "My Hugsy Eats..." bunny, cow and penguin so much, I though that it would be nice to continue the collection with a cat, a monkey and a dog.

This is My Hugsy Eats... Fish. You know when sometimes you eye up a fabric without much idea of what to do with it but, something inside you screams out "Get it! Get it, you'll find a purpose for it!". Well, this Japanese "scale" fabric was one of those. In my mind's eye I could feel it being part of something really nice! You can't see it from the photo but, the scales have a little bit of gold in them that makes it that little bit cooler.

This softie was also a bit of a pain, it took me 3 attempts to get it right. The first one really freaked me out as it was starting to look like Pikachu (the cat was originally meant to be yellow), the second was condemned from the start... Poor fabric choices make sad kitties, and as it tore away the cheek due to a mistake, the fabric underneath fell apart o_O

My Hugsy Eats... Bananas took a little longer than the others to leave the design stage. For some reason I just couldn't get the monkey face right! None of my drawings had enough monkey-ness. So, I had a bit of a pow wow with the bear and came up with this, which made me much happier.

My Hugsy Eats... Hot Dogs. Ok, I know that it is a bit of a stretch (although some dogs would rather have sausages instead of pedigree pal), but the stereotypical dog food is bones and as I was making the other ones it just felt too simple too me, hence the hot dogs!

Also, the "C" on it's little medal is an homage to my dog Chouriço (Smoked Sausage in Portuguese).

my totoro obsession part 3

My love for Totoro has already been mentioned in this blog before, surprisingly not as many time as I would have thought but, then if I think about it I'm really a crazy obsessive with all the t shirts and merchandising, I'm more of a pleasant kind of fan that basks in the beauty that is Totoro :P

So, when the opportunity came along to do a Phat Quarter Swap about movie, well, there wasn't really an alternative, was there?