Build Your Own Momo part 2

I somehow managed to injure myself in the middle of the night a couple nights back, so I'm moving a bit slowly.

It's like I strained my knee, pulled it, or twisted it.  I can walk fine, but it hurts to bend, get up, or sit down.

ANYWHO....

Alright.  Next part! 

So I'm making this pattern on the fly, so I had to do things weirdly.  To make a pattern to cut the fur from, I taped paper where I wanted there to be fur, making sure to fold it down as need be to get it as snugly to the head as possible.

Make sure to leave room for your hand.

After that, I cut it down the middle where I'd like the seam for the head.  There's just no way to get it off in one piece and be able to cut it so that it will go around the head right. I have experience in plush animal sewing, so this is where my experience comes from. I also added darts to the paper as you can see so that I can glue the folds down to get the properly rounded effect.  Either way, after cutting it off your foam head, flatten it down as much as possible.  The darts kind of naturally form when you do that, you just have to refine them.

So what you want to do next is lay the pieces down on the non furry side of the fabric.  You don't want anyone to see your lines. Trace the pieces and cut them out.  Try to, when you're first laying them down on the fur, to make it so that the fur will look like it's going down on the face.  Real fur tends to grow in one direction, kind of like a man's goatee, so you should try to make it look like the fur is growing down.

Pin the fur on the head with some sewing pins just to make sure it fits correctly.  It's ok if it overlaps a little bit.

If it does overlap (mine did) take the half that overlaps off, but leave the other one pinned to the head.

Unpin the part you want to glue first (man do I love hot glue guns!) and lay the glue on the non furry side of the fabric and then press it back into place.  I glued the part that touched the mouth first because I wanted to make sure it lined up properly. Pick a side on the darts to glue on top of the other and make sure to do the same on the other piece when you work on it.  Whatever I was not actively gluing I left pinned in so that it would not shift.

When you are done gluing one half, pin the other one back on and glue it on in the same manner. 

Next pin the brown felt along the top lip line in the approximate diameter that it shows on Momo's face.  Cut off any excess width. 

Then pin it as flat to the face as you can. Sorry, the middle of the face partial seam in inevitable due to the round nature of the face. 

Then draw the approximate shape that appears on his face. (Yes, the shape is kind of like a butt.) Then take the felt off the face and cut along your line.  Then fold the shape in half to even out the final shape. Then flip it over and pin it back on.  Glue it in the same manner you glued the fur on the face.

 Roll a ball of sculpey polymer clay (can get this at Walmart, Michaels, or any other craft store) for the eyes and divide it into half.  Roll those two halves into balls...

 Then squish it with a flat bottomed cup like the one at the top of this image.

 Do the same with one small ball for the nose.

Bake in an oven (I use a toaster oven) at 275 degrees for 15 minutes.  They should like the image above when they come out.

Then paint the nose black with acrylic paint and the eyes yellow. Add a daub of black in the middle of each eye for pupils.

To tell you the truth, I was at first tempted to use some eyes I already had on hand, but the pupils were too big.

So this is how the eyes and nose look when you hot glue them onto the face.

 Until the ears are glued on, these eyes will stare into my husband's soul and haunt his dreams...

Next I worked on the tail.

I folded over the fur about an inch, pinned it, cut it.  Try to get it as straight as possible
It is about a yard long.

 Then pull about a yard long of metal wire.  You can get it easily from Michael's for about $2.99 .

Straighten it out and pin it to the fabric.  I accidentally pinned it into the carpet, but you know, it kept it flatter for me.  Happy accident!

 Then hot glue the wire to the fabric like you would a weld line.  Make sure not to hot glue your pins in.

 Now here's the tricky part. It took me an hour, be forewarned. Typically I would turn both furry sides together and sew a seam and turn it right side out.  Not only is that a pain in the behind, but neigh impossible with a wire in there.

What I did here is turned the furry edges towards each other, poured a line of hot glue and pressed it together. after each section cooled, I lightly stuffed it with plush stuffing. Don't stuff it too much because it's going to counterbalance the puppet.  You don't want it constantly falling backwards on the person.

Sorry about the Myspace photo (and the toilet with garbage in the background >_<) but that is how it's supposed to look when you're done.  It's a good way to show just how long it is.

The wire was to make it pose-able, so it can coil like this and keep it's shape.  I will write about how to keep it like that, but better, after I've done the body.  This is all I have for now.


I also saw Gnomeo and Juliet today. I liked it a lot.  Tons of Elton John references and Ozzy Osbourn as a lawn deer. XD

~Lumie

Build Your Own Momo part 1

Since I'm actually remembering to take photos for once, I thought it would be nice to show you how I am making the Momo puppet for a friend.

So first of all you'll need a big styrofoam ball.  Here is my husband modeling it. 

I used dress tape to create a line around it where aproximately I wanted to cut it in half.  It didn't give me a straight line, but that was no matter, because after that I cut it in half with a big ole hobby saw.

Notice the crumbly bits stuck to the knife?  That is how everything looks that comes in contact with this stuff. Do not do this anywhere you are afraid of getting dirty.

I purposely did not cut it in equal halves because the Momo puppet head is not divided equally in half. The top half for the head is bigger.

Next, I lined it up onto an old cardboard box. Thank you used priority mail box, you've gone through the mail and now you will be a puppet mouth.  I traced around each half and cut out the cardboard disks.

Then I hot glued the disks to the foam halves.

Now I know it's hard to see in this picture, so you may have to click to enlarge, but I traced the aproximate width and height of my fingers onto the foam halves.  This is so I could figure out what I would need for a perfect puppet hand grab.  The person who's getting this has much more slender hands than I, so what is snug on me will be great for her.

Next, carve the holes for the hands. Don't worry if you dig shallow enough to find the cardboard.  It will be fine as long as it's not showing cardboard right at the edge entirely.  Make sure to get it deep enough that your hands are comfortable in there and that you don't have just barely your fingertips in there.  I used an exacto knife and a pair of needle nose pliers to dig this out.

See how comfortably my hand fits in there.

Next trace around your halves again on the side of the fabric not seeing the public and make sure to leave a little bridge between the two halves.  This will be your hinge for the mouth.

Then cut it out.  Leave a quarter of an inch around the lines when you cut it so it overhangs when you glue it.

 Next, glue it on.  I suggest gluing a ring on the cloth on the lines you drew and then aligning the cloth to the cardboard. 

Then you want to glue the excess cloth down to hide the cardboard.  This way when you apply the white fur, you hide your mouth edge a bit.

It should look like this once glued.

Next get some thin scrap cloth. You want to have it just so that you're not dealing with crumbly bits all the time.  Take some hot glue and pour it lightly on the inside of your holes and then quickly cram the cloth in there so it goes over your hand like a glove.  Make sure to have your hot glue gun on the lower heat setting to not burn yourself.  You should apply it so that your hand fits comfortably inside even with the cloth.  Then glue the excess edges down.  I should make a note for people to use light colored scrap fabric since this will be under white fake fur.

Next cut out two identical tomb stone shaped pieces to make the tong.  I know I have a glue line down the center in this image, but that was me trying to do a technique that didn't work.  Just take the side you want to be seen (the good side) and make a glue line out towards the edge on all of the curvy part. Ten lay the good side of the other piece onto that and press down. It should remind you of a garnment that is inside out. Once you're sure the glue is set, turn it right side out and glue the straight edge shut. Then put a glue line on the edge you just sealed and fold it over a little bit so that the old straight edge can't be seen. That will be the underside of the tongue.

Then put a glue line on the folded over part on the bottom and put it into the back of the mouth.  Make sure you get that on the bottom half and not the top.  I almost did.  Then use some sort of permanent medium to draw a line down the center of the tongue but not all the way down to the curved edge.

This is as far as I have gotten because I ran out of hot glue.  Expect more soon since I picked more up tonight after dinner.  

Also, thank you for not minding the Pepsi Max Product placement.  It is not intentional. It just didn't occur to me to move it so it wasn't in the shot.

~Lumie

What's up

  First of all, yay Packers! 

    I'm originally from Wisconsin, and although I'm not a huge football fan, it's nice to see that they won. I hung out at a friend's place for a Super Bowl party.  It was nice being in MN and wearing my Reggie White jersey without getting any flac.  I also did up my nails. :D

Yeah, Don't mind the bandaid and whatnot.  I'm a bit accident prone, hence the damaged hands.

   Anywho, I figure until I have a corgi to call my own, I figure I'll use this blog as a way to show what I'm up to, projects mostly, and the occasional recipe if I find something awesome.

   First of all, I took better pictures of the last batch of coasters that I made now that I have felt backing on them.

And then I made some more.

I also have some progress on the Aigis project I mentioned earlier.

She should look somewhat like this when done.

   Also, I have a new commission in the mix.  A friend of mine is going as "Ember Island Players" Ang and is having me make her a Momo puppet.

So I hope to turn this:

Into this:

It's the little brown and white guy on the shoulder of the little orange person.

    Aside from those projects, all that's going on is waiting and crossing fingers on potential jobs.

~Lumie

As Promised

As promised, here are the things that I have been working on.

First is a statuette I made for my hubby for Christmas.  I just hadn't gotten around to photographing it until recently.

It's Koromaru, a Shiba Inu from Persona 3, a game he has been playing a great deal as of late.

Next up are a set of four coasters that I had just baked today.  They're bathroom tiles painted with acrylic enamel and then sealed.   I'm debating if I want to put felt circles on the bottom or use little rubbery dots.

The first image is for a direct on shot, the second is for color.  These are just really hard to photograph.  I'll have to try again tomorrow.

And third are a pair of glasses that I will be listing on my etsy site shortly.  These will be the only ones of this kind simply because I have only seen two glasses like them.

I photographed them on one of the dog costumes I bought for the dog I don't have yet. (I can't resist super clearance!)  At least I'm using it for something. :)  Either way, there's one Cardigan Corgi and one (fluffy) Pembroke Corgi.  I figured one of each would be rather nice.  For whatever reason I find that I'm loving how the fluffy ones look a great deal.  Maybe I'll get lucky and get one!


I'm also working on a statuette of Aigis from Persona 3 (she's a robot) and the staff of the character "Codex" from the online series "The Guild".  I'll have pictures up when I have some progress on either.  I'm still acquiring parts for the staff.  It's going to be a doozy!

***EDIT*** The Codex Staff has been cancelled due to client thinking the cost of materials was too much.  Aigis will still be built. ***EDIT***


~Lumie

OCD: Obsessive Corgi Disorder

OCD: Obsessive Corgi Disorder

In case you don't already follow Obsessive Corgi disorder, the link above is to a video entitled Champ, the Sleigh Riding Dog. It is awesome and cute.

On another note, I just pulled some stuff from the oven (not food this time though) that I will be posting later today. Thank you for not minding my sporadic posting. :)