Tuesday 23 October 2012

Strange-looking meerkat

This meerkat is taking too long!  I'm thinking I will make him as he is though, and there will be a mark II when I get some of the problems sorted out. 

Here are his mug shots...






Note that the arms are only pinned on, so they look much looser than they actually will be.

He has thick ankles, which is very uncharacteristic of meerkats - and no tail (even more uncharacteristic), but hopefully the tail should be a relatively simple job.

His arms are problematic - it is the shoulders.  To me when I look at a real meerkat, the shoulder bones are high and close together at the front, but it is a very subtle effect - a meer (sic) suggestion of shoulders.  The actual arms only seem to start at elbow level.  Unfortunately, when jointing two pieces together, it's almost impossible to make the joint look like a mere suggestion (unless you're using very long mohair).

I could simply joint the arms at elbow level - the range of movement you get is about right - but it looks very strange that way.

Anyway, I lost the pattern pieces (again), so I now need to take this one apart and trace the pieces.  Hopefully I will return with my firs mohair meerkat.!

2 comments:

Naomi said...

His face is great! Maybe the tops of the arms could be less stuffed as the top of the legs are? I'm sure the mohair will be forgiving too.

Ruth said...

Thank you. Unfortunately I have started making him, and his fat ankles are even fatter in mohair! It's irritating because I think tiny, skinny paws are characteristic of meerkats. Ah well, mark II will have skinny paws, maybe.