Two pink things

I made a tiny axolotl.

It looked to me like a strong and steady worker, so I gave it lots of jobs.

fascinator

pin

and magnet.


I also made a strange creature of the deep, a fleshy-bodied angler fish, the Coffinfish.
This one I just kinda let sit around. It has a distaste for work. And sunlight.

New year, new photography paradigm

Happy 2012! Let's hope the world doesn't actually end. In the meantime, I'll be making creturs and taking pictures of them.

I recently went to my favorite local art store and bought a bunch of colored Canson paper, to replace the battered old warm grey piece I've been using for over a year and has withstood many a sudden gust of photobombing wind. Now that piece can retire in piece and pursue its dreams of seeing Aruba or whatever. Godspeed, warm grey Canson. We had good times together.

Anyway, here's what things are going to look like now, as illustrated by three custom cretur orders:

Tamandua (Tamandua tetradactyla)

Meerkat (Suricata suricata)

Honduran white bat (Ectophylla alba), but pink

Tamandua, or lesser anteater

There are two species in the anteater genus Tamandua: the Northern Tamandua, which lives in the jungles of Mexico and usually has a well-defined "vest", and the Southern Tamandua, whose vest is a bit blurrier around the edges. There are also some differences in skull shape and gestation periods, but since both species have a lot of individual color variation, it's really difficult to tell the difference between them just by looking, even if you have a specimen of each side by side.

Having said all of that, when I made this one I had the Southern Tamandua (Tamandua tetradactyla) in mind. But if it makes any difference to you, you can imagine that it's a Northern (Tamandua mexicana).

Tamandua tetradactyla

More photos:

Malayan Tapir

A long time ago, a good friend commissioned me to needle felt a Malayan tapir (Tapirus indicus), the largest of the four species of tapir (and, like all of them, endangered).

The kicker: I had to do its baby, too. Which in this case ended up being the smallest cretur I've ever made, at only an inch tall and balancing on two legs. It was quite a challenge, and I learned many things from it, one of them being that claws made of Sculpey not only look better, but they also make it easier for the cretur to stand. With such a precariously balanced pose, it was an important discovery to make!

More pictures after the cut:

Ernst Haeckel's anemones

Back in June, the Mad Scientists of Etsy issued a challenge – create something inspired by Ernst Haeckel.

Being a big fan of the man's illustrations, I looked among his many plates for something that looked a. more like an interpretation of a creature than an easily recognizable animal, and b. was doable in wool (as opposed to, say, something like this). And so I came upon his Actiniae plate:

and decided to start this adventure with the little orange fella at the bottom right corner. Who, in real life, actually looks like this:

After a lot of work and some thrilling experimentation with steam dyeing using a spray bottle and a vegetable steamer, the result was this:

 It looks like the illustration and not much like the real anemone, which is a departure from my usual modus operandi, but an enjoyable one.
It makes a really nice desk companion. Sort of a cheerful marine sunflower that always faces you.

Bats- group photo

Oh my god, look at all these bats!

Today's stars are the Mexican Freetail and the Little Brown Bat, both of whom I've made before, but you'd hardly be able to tell considering how different all my creturs are from each other. What can I say, consistency is dull.

Mr. Freetail

Mr. Brown

A raccoon and some tapir sketches

Even though I finished this guy a couple of weeks ago, I hadn't posted it because it was commissioned as a SECRET CHRISTMAS PRESENT and the recipient probably reads my blog on occasion. I'm pretty sure it has been delivered by now, so no surprises will be spoiled!

Procyon lotor

There are and will be more secret Christmas presents, but one has not arrived to its destination yet and two more are actually for Orthodox Christmas (Jan 7), so they will not be posted until after that date in order to not spoil anything for anyone. I really hate spoilers.

More raccoon photos and some HOT EXCLUSIVE TAPIR PLANNING:

Cretur Fetur's first invertebrate

Well, it was about time! After a million mammals and a couple of birds and amphibians, I've finally stepped into the world of arthropods. My inaugural invertebrate is a male Forficula auricularia, an earwig.

Fig. 1: F. auricularia

More pictures under "Read more":

A lot o' lotls

Yeah I'm gonna run that joke into the ground.

So, remember the axolotls-in-progress that I posted a while ago? I have finally finished them all! There are still many more to come but there's a big chance that it will get kind of repetitive after a while, so I'm just going to make this last exciting axolotl post full of color and variety, and keep subsequent axolotls to myself and my Flickr page.

Here are three varieties of axolotl:

Golden albino, melanoid, and leucistic.

These all exist, and in fact there's several more different colors of axolotl. Here is an excellent resource if you want to learn more about it.

wheeee

More pictures under the "read more":

Goodbye, chevrotain!

Here is the watercolor drawing on the companion Cretur Card:

And here is a very terrible picture of the mouse-deer preparing for the most epic voyage it's had in its entire existence:

Bye bye, Tragulus napu!

Greater Chevrotain - Tragulus napu

Finally finished! I'm tired and hungry so I'm just gonna dump these photos here and go have myself some shepherd's pie with grass-fed buffalo meat and watch Godfather II. OH YEAH.

 

Bye, second axolotl!

So, based on my previous axolotl, I thought this would take me 3-5 days, and it did, but they were awfully hectic. No one should allow me to make time estimates ever again.

I did some improvements on the design, as usual, and I am so freaking happy with this little salamander that for the first time ever I'm actually a little sad to let him go.

Ambystoma mexicanum

Here's the watercolor card that goes with it:

Preview of the chevrotain

This is what I've been working on, among other things:

Just needs some legs, ears, eyes, and a tail... maybe it'll be done by next week.

As for one of those other things I'm working on, I'll post something resembling a preview sometime later this week!

Mexican free-tailed bat. Yes, again! And goodbye to it!

Like the second hoatzin, this Bat II was commissioned and thus was fated to fly away as soon as the final needle stab fell upon its fuzzy abdomen.  Like the first hoatzin, I still had the first bat, because its owner has not yet picked it up.

Also like the second hoatzin, I improved upon the second bat a little:

More pictures under the fold.

Finished - needle felted Mexican free-tailed bat (Tadarida brasiliensis)

As usual, tried some new techniques... this time, aside from some experiments in the needling process, it was sewing, for the wings. I am terrible at it, generally, but I think it worked out pretty well in this case. What do you think?

More pictures:

Inching closer

We can rebuild him. We have the technology. Better, stronger, faster.

Next work in progress: Tadarida brasiliensis

Bye, springhaas!

Phew! I'm a little late on this one. I've had a pretty crazy week, and it's only gonna get crazier from here. Moving, soon, into our very own house. zomg. HERE IS A SPRINGHARE:

And now it is gone! Goodbye you little cretur!

Goodbye, quoll!

The lovely couple who won the painted dog at the Painted Dog Conservation fundraiser decided to expand their needlefelted cretur collection with a creature as Australian as they, the tiger quoll. And so, cardmaking is in order!

Dasyurus maculatus

Bye, second hoatzin!

Three days ago, a hoatzin was commissioned by someone who expressed a lot of enthusiasm for good ol' Opisthocomus hoazin. So I, equally enthusiastic, made Hoatzin 2.0 for her:

More photos: