I made this little guy for my friend's birthday that was a couple weeks ago. He uses this picture A LOT as his avatar:
so I thought I'd go about recreating it in reality. (I'm sorry that I have no credit for this icon, if you've made it or know who has, please let me know!) The first thing I got excited about knitting the little scarf (which is ironic because it ended up being the thing I hated making the most), and I contemplated various ways of making the body and violin. I was all prepared to make it all out of clay, but then it hit me. Paper mache!
I used newspaper and painter's tape for the basic silhouette, which took about three hours overall while I rewatched the Sound of Music with a friend, then I put on about four layers of PVA glue mixed with water, and paper towels, which took about three days to allow for drying time. I used pipe cleaners for the fingers and the violin's bow.
Why hello there. The little coat is hand-sewn using felt. The violin's strings are fishing line. I used gouache to paint and shade him, and then glazed him. I was a little nervous, because I had never shaded a 3D object before, but it turned out alright.
The little scarf was so tedious, and I ended up being frustrated and having loose ends poking all over the place because there were so many of them and I just had no patience. So the scarf is a little bit crap, but shhh, don't look too closely at it.
Overall, I think this entire thing took about... thirty hours of work, maybe, not counting waiting time. But it was worth it, and it was one of the most fun projects I've worked on in a while!
There are more pictures and more rambling about this project
on my blog, check it out if you can handle a LOT of rambling indeed
