I had to look out for some eyes, and sniff out a nose too. As for his tongue, I had that licked.
Ahem.
Using a few online pic references, I drew up a throat & tongue (even tho I'd used black for inside the mouth, I'd get use out of the throat on other projects).
Here ya go:
I just used the tongue pattern and some pink felt (actually did it twice - the first pink was too pale, and looked washed out what with all the red). Just glued it in there ("You've got a tongue. I should know, I
stuck it there myself!" ).
So now a nose needed to be picked. >cough<
I wanted that egg / pear shaped nose seen throughout Muppetdom. But Nino's only a little guy, and finding something so small the right shape was tricky.
I'd found a light blue fur pencil case at a
Pound Shop (think Dollar Store but with more junk). The fur is more of a fuzzy 'pile', which would hide any stitching better than the polar fleece I was gonna use.
So now I had to figure out a pattern for the nose. Simple, right? I was stumped. If Nino ever needed glasses, they'd just slide off his face!
I found a pattern online for a fabric easter egg, and that gave me an idea (yeah, it hurt).
I hadn't thought to make the nose like a foam head pattern.
After a little tinkering,
this was my pattern:
BTW: Check my Album in the Gallery for the patterns - they seem smaller here for some reason.
On the back of the nose 'outer' fabric (in my case, fuzzy fur), sew A to A, and B to B. With the nose still inside out, sew on the back 'inner' part.
Now slit the center line on the Inner, and turn the nose right-side out.
Pick the nose (hah!) seams free of caught fur. Stuff with polyfil (I slaughtered an old pillow), and stitch up the slit. Squish the nose around to even out the shape.
I stitched the nose to the barely visible centre seam of the face, putting stitches through the already sewn center slit for strength, and to help alignment.
Now Nino smells. Heh.
While I was in the Pound Shop, I nudged aside the zombies long enough to spy a ball-firing gun capable of distances of up to
six inches. It had two yellow ping-pong sized balls made of that soft plastic only manufactured in China. Bingo!
I epoxied a short piece of thick wire into the premade molding holes one one side of each ball, then added more glue and joined them both
in holy matrimony together.
Once the glue set, I wrapped thread around where the join was, and tacked it tightly to Ninos' head, wrapping extra thread around the stitching before knotting it off.
This stops the eyes wobbling about so much.
As a bonus I can position the eyes to look up or down (the addition of a finger-operated lever and eyelids would make the eyes seem to blink or close).
Pupils were trimmed from good quality black
electrical tape.
TIP: If you have any stickers or something with removable backing - save a piece! Stick the tape to
that and it's a heck of a lot easier to draw out circles onto and cut out pupils with scissors.
The t-shirt is actually one made for very small dogs! I found it in the Pound Shop. Wretched hive of scum and villainy, but they have some useful stuff.
Oh, the arm rod (not pictured) I made from
3/32 inch Piano Wire epoxied into the dowel handle from a foam paint / glue brush. I added black heat-shrink tubing to the wire because it doesn't scratch off like paint. Also, its cool.
I added a screw-in eyehook to the end so it can be hung up, or to add a wrist loop.
Thanks for reading this essay! It was completely unintentional, but I seem to have verbal diarrhea of the fingertips.
If you got this far, go have a drink. You've earned it!
Cheers,
Coz.
