working on a polymer clay sculpture of my fursona, monster
its actually take 2 of a sculpture i got pretty close to completion last year but ultimately gave up on. it had been going pretty well, but i hadnt baked the sculpture at any points during the process, so when i started trying to add the finer details, i ran into issues with stability, squishing details id just added when i started trying to work on a different section, etc…
it just became a sisyphean task, and its been sitting unbaked on my desk ever since. i kept it intact though, with the intention of referencing it when i inevitably tried again. so far, im already liking my new attempt SO much more!
i went to a local pokemon tcg tourney last week and my 1st opponent, upon hearing i had JUST started collecting again and didnt have many cards, gave me a bunch of his bulk??? so i figured id surprise him with a lil thank you gift this week :)
i wanted to make her a veggie bowl w a handle that i could hook something onto to lower it into her tank/take it out, bc its a bit crowded in there and my hand kept bonking her lil "coop."
i thought id share my current process for working out this pattern?
heres what my WIP of draft 4 (well... 4.4. a few false starts ahaha) looks like right now:
long explaination below:
so i plan what im doing row by row. im sure theres ways to do this with a bit more foresight, but im yet to find one, ahaha (at least for a shape this complex).
i draw on the piece as i go to give what im doing a bit of context. this context has very much been informed by previous drafts, for example, the nose being placed on the initial magic ring. i realized that the nose kinda kept naturally ending up there on my drafts, which makes sense! its the thinnest "point" on the front of the face! this has made figuring out where to inc/dec at the start of my draft a lot easier.
speaking of the inc/dec, all those wacky stitch markers are how i plan where to inc/dec in the upcoming round: the blue and yellow signal where to increase (besides the one by the loop. that one marks the start of the round. i just ran out of blue lol), and the purple ones signal where to decrease (they run through the two stitches to be combined).
as for how i decide where to place those signals... welllll thats the tricky part, really. an increase makes the shape wider, while a decrease makes it narrower, and doing neither keeps that area the same width. so if i know an area needs to widen, such as to make the cheeks, i add one or more increases. if an area needs to shrink down a bit, such as to define the jawline, i add at least 1 decrease.
its hard because i really have to think in 3D while i plan? its like making a sculpture out of clay, but only being able to sculpt it using flat cross-sections, front to back.
i did, between drafts, crochet a simple sphere thats approximately the size of the head, just to give me some sort of frame of reference as i go.
i can put my current draft on/beside it and see "oh this bit sticks out too much" or "okay this is as tall as this gets, so dont add any more increases here," etc. its been helpful! i just keep restarting draft 4 bc i keep getting to a certain point in the draft and realizing "ohhhhhh shit i shoulda started increasing earlier in this area, because the slope is too gradual" or "whoops that bit looks a bit boxy," and just deciding to start over while using the previous attempt as a visual reference for where/how to make that change.
heres all my previous draft 4s lol (idk if theyre in order at this point hhfggxf i lost track)
...but yeah. I'll place my markers, write down the directions for the round i just planned as the next step of the pattern in my notebook, then crochet it. if i dont like it, i undo the round, erase it, and try again, using what i just learned from the rejected round. if i like it, i continue onto the next one. sometimes I'll do a few rounds and realize i messed up (or missed a stitch lol) and have to undo/redesign a few at once. though if i notice it way late I'll just start again (see my 4 previous draft 4s lol).
uhhhh yeah! i think thats about it? idk! i hope at least somebody finds this interesting and/or helpful!
id say "back to work" but its after 3:30am and i HAVE to cut myself off soon before i end up getting like 4 hours of sleep lmao.
did u know: you can needle felt on top of amigurumi? did you ALSO know you can needle felt with the fuzzy mess you get when you brush yarn with a bristle brush?
this is just a messy proof-of-concept of sorts, done on a test run of draft 3 of the head.
i still need to do another draft of the head because its STILL a tad too big, but im getting closer!
i forget if i mentioned what the full project this is for is, but im making my parents a life sized plush of maggie, the family cat!
im gonna call draft 1 of the cat head/neck finished. im pretty happy with it for a first try, but theres definitely plenty i want to fix in the next draft that ive taken notes on.
ive started getting really into crochet (and knitting to a lesser extent) and ive got a few projects under my belt, but theyve all been from patterns other people have made, and im kinda Eh about sharing those. like yeah i made them, but its someone else's Vision, in a way? id rather only share stuff i design myself, yknow?
but yeah. i started making my very first crochet pattern, and its gonna take FOREVER lol. im havin fun though!
