Friday, 20 November 2015

Design Challenge 4 & 5

I may have mentioned this before (more than once), but when I first started making bears, I used to copy all the patterns into big ring-bound notebooks.  These notebooks got pulled about quite a bit - since I reuse and modify pattern pieces all the time - so they were frequently left lying about in entirely the wrong place!  

Anyway, one day they just disappeared.  I assume they got thrown away by accident - whatever, it was my fault entirely.  I [eventually] took the positive viewpoint that it gave me the chance to start entirely afresh, but there were quite a few patterns which I desperately regretted having lost.

One of them was the face and body of this bear (below), Marmite.


I used them quite a lot, in various different incarnations.  The head design is just very sweet.  The body, although you can't see it very well here, had a lovely, bulgy sort of stomach.

So last week I had a go at recreating the body, and this week I tried for the face.  Both of them still need tweaking I think, but they came out quite well, and since I have a show coming up, and I really ought to be making bears for that, I put the face and body together with the arms and legs of previous design challenges.

Mouse is the result.  I am quite pleased with him.  He is quite petite and the body has a lovely pear shape to it - something I hadn't remembered from the old design.  I once had an idea for an art deco-style bear, made entirely of triangular shapes.  Mouse fits the bill rather well - I might have a go at adapting his design again.

I have put Mouse on Etsy - find his listing here!

Oooh - and one more thing!  I have put together another Etsy treasury of beautiful handmade hedgehogs from lots of different artists/makers.  There are some crackers - have a look here.






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