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:

Plush You!

Have you heard of Plush You? It's an annual art show based in Seattle (it has traveled in the past to LA and San Francisco) full of the a lot of the best plush and fiber toys known to man, or at least to the internet. This year I am in it! Ahh oh my god I'm so excited!

The opening is this Friday, Oct 14, 5-9 PM, at Schmancy.

I fully expect everyone in or around Seattle to be there on time and snappily dressed. But if you, like me, are far away and can't or won't see the show, you can at least have a look at the pieces I sent:

I know it looks like a real animal but it's a hare head on a dog body

I did not mean to deceive you, this is just not a thing that exists

Finally another alebrije! Yaaaaaay!

Bye, curious hyena!

And thus, the very last of the first generation of creturs is shipped off to live with her clanmate, the littlest hyena. Goodbye, last of the yeens! Someday Cretur Fetur may get repopulated by another clan of hyenas, perhaps as soon as the metric ton of bats and axolotls are dealt with.

The last hyena watercolor I'll be doing for quite a while

There are other things in the works, too! As I work on commissions, my unruly brain keeps getting distracted with ideas. All of these ideas lately have involved things you can wear. I need to focus on commissions for now, as that is the responsible thing to do, so I can't give you many details yet... but I will soon!

A pig and a yeener

Today is an important day, because today I say goodbye to the very first thing I ever needlefelted. It's the littlest hyena, and he's going to someone who will probably appreciate him even more than I, so hooray little yeen!

Here is the companion watercolor:

And last night I finished a custom spherepig live on the internet! Thanks to everyone who accompanied me on my first livestream and watched me finish this guy:

HELLPIG

I will definitely do more livestreaming in the future, possibly in a couple of weeks. I'll be sure to let you know in advance.

And the serious hyena goes bye!

Saying farewell to Srs Yeener with this little watercolor:

First craft fair + three bats! (Photo heavy post)

Last Saturday, Cretur Fetur made its first real world appearance.

I was rolling wool in my hands, not applauding myself

It was a highly instructive experience, and more fun than I expected. Most of the time I was frantically trying to finish another skull, another zombie head, and another bat – two out of three while selling other stuff ain't bad! I also gave four pumpkin needle felting classes, which are definitely something I'd like to keep doing in the future (but made me aware of my faults as a teacher, such as focusing on my own example-thing too much and not enough on the students).

Tons more photos, including some neato bats, under the fold:

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.

 

Remember this guy?

 Yep, still working on 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.

I have a tablet!!

I used to have an Intuos tablet with a serial port, which I bought way back when I thought serial ports were The In Thing. This was a horribly long time ago. The last two (or three? two and a half?) computers I've owned had no serial ports at all, and apparently tablets don't like serial-to-usb converters. So imagine my joy when a friend of my husband's just gave me his old USB port tablet!

First thing I did was draw the next cretur I'll be working on: a greater chevrotain. It was just a quick "whee I have a tablet" exercise so you may notice I just kind of copied the photo in the Wikipedia article.

So consider this a cretur preview! Chevrotain! Look forward to it, and so on!

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

A little mouse

Here is a little mouse that I made as part of a collaboration. A friend of mine will receive it soon, and make a chainmail armor for it. And then we will have a mouse with chainmail armor!

More pictures after the cut.

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