One In Hand

Production on "Frankie" the girl Bird in Hat, is underway (top photos). She has her undercoat of down feathers and long wing and tail feathers added. I got wild and cut the nap off of a fancy faux fur scrap I had, using it in the same fashion as I had the more powder-like Fun Flock fibers. I thought the scale of the fur looked more feathery than feathers could.

Then while doctoring up the ruff around the boy Bird's collar, I went berserk and added snips of real wool roving on top of his darker faux fur neck/breast piece (bottom photos). I LOVE the way it looks like feathers in Halfland with it's much more authentic texture and matte appearance. Now when he turns his little head side to side the chest feathers move with the gesture as if they were layers of feathers. I can chalk the contours of his body to add even more detail.

I'm thrilled with the method/technique of bird making now and I'm so happy to have worked all this out before making the larger, main character puppet for Tarn the Crow woman. It's a combination of real feathers covered with trimmed faux fur, topped with finely chopped up wool, sifted onto the surface through a tea strainer (lower left).

And since I'm a fiber nut with every color of wool roving already on hand, I can make Birds in Hats in any shade I'd like. The boy will be in powder blues with green accents, Frankie in warm burgundy and rusts, close to their initial sketch.