The Griffin Begins

 Or is is Gryphon?  Somehow, that sounds pretentious, like people who spell vampire "vampyre."

Some people have to have something completely designed and built in their heads before they start.  That's not me - I have to start, and then see what happens next.  I used to think that doing it like that was somehow inferior.  But I remember that one day Tolkien pick up his pen and wrote "in a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit" when he had no idea what a hobbit was.  He had to write the story to find out.  The same with Ursula K. LeGuin - one of her books started just with a vision of two characters struggling in the snow, and she had to start writing to see who they were and why they were there.

So - to start.  I need a head.  Bird head.  My most comfortable medium is foam, so I'll be fabricating out of that.  I think about sculpting a head out of foil, and taking a pattern from that (that's how I did my pig skull mask).  But then I wondered.  I started the dragon with a marvelously detailed dragon skull pattern from Kamui Cosplay.  I wondered if she by any chance had a bird skull pattern.  She did!  It looked somehow familiar.  I already owned it - it was in the same pattern collection as the dragon skull.  Duh.

Her patterns are very detailed.  This one had 34 pieces to first cut out of paper, and then the craft foam (I sprayed the pieces with adhesive and stuck them down.  It's much easier than transferring all the markings).  Many of the pieces have miniscule darts to shape them.  

Pattern cut out and arranged ("knolled")

The pattern pieces on foam

I cut all the pieces out, made those tiny darts, and glued it all together.

The eyes will be made from one of those plastic Christmas tree ornaments that you can pop open and put stuff in.  I had to cut them down to size (I used a soldering iron to melt the cut line.  The plastic is brittle and I was afraid it would shatter if I used a dremel cutter on it).

I'm sampling the fabric for the body.  I'm using the long-haired Icelandic fleece for the mane, and I wanted the body fur to be similar.  I have about a pound and a half of the wool roving I got to weave the blankets for the waulking at the Scottish games - it's a natural gray.  I wanted some color variation so I carded it with some black alpaca and white mohair (23 grams wool, 4 grams each alpaca and mohair).  I felted it into a flat sheet this morning as a sample.

Then I had to stop for awhile because the cable people are coming to try to improve my internet so I have to be back waiting at the house.

But I only started this on Sunday, and I had to work and do errands yesterday, so it's coming along rather well.  I think I'll use the same body pattern that I did for the dragon.  I'll need to figure out how to make lion paws for the back feet and eagle legs for the front (maybe Worbla for the eagle legs?

It's a start.

Another Shirt; Starting the Puppet

 Only a month gap this time.

I did finish the pink pirate shirt.  For some reason this one seemed to take longer than the first to hand fell the seams - but I love holding that lightweight linen, so that's OK.  I also spent a few hours doing a bit of fancy latticework smocking on the sleeves.
Someday maybe I'll get a full-length mirror and put it somewhere other than the bathroom.

And the fancy work on the sleeves

And now on to the puppet.  I'm really going to try to write this up the way I planned on doing this blog - a place for all the fussy details that don't really belong in my life blog.  We'll see.

As I mentioned in my last post, I've felt the urge for another puppet for a long time.  I've been able to visualize myself working on it - I just couldn't visualize the puppet itself.  All I knew is that I wanted to use the other Icelandic fleece that I have to make fur like the varafell I made.

The clock is ticking.  About the only place I have to take a puppet is the Infinity Con - and that's coming up July 8.  In 2019, I took Lurlene, my little post apoc girl walking puppet - who disturbed the hell out of some people.

The con didn't happen in 2020, because Covid.  In 2020 I took the dragon puppet, which was a huge hit.

I took it again last year (that's what this picture is from) and while again it was a hit, I also got too much of what ever Maker doesn't want to hear:  "I remember that from last year!"

I dig out my Spiderwick Press books and start thumbing.  And there was the griffen - half bird, half lion.  I could give it a mane.  

And now he's going to get his own blog entry.