Re working the Otter Brothers

A year has past since I made the original wall hanging and I decided that I would change the cloth otters to needle felted wool.

The cloth left the boys looking rather flat and their coat colours were not as rich as their counter parts in nature.

I wasn't sure of the dimensions of the finished otters. I wanted to pre make the cartoons and then replace the cloth ones with the wool on the same day as I visited with my children. After pictures were taken and sent and then massaged through Photoshop, I had a real life sized pattern to work from.

Once I got started, (after washing and drying some black raw wool) it only took about 6 hours to assemble all 3.

They do seem to have much more personality

So hopefully this weekend I can re work this gift.

3 Otters - Final

How do you recognize a zombie?    He has no eye spots.
What a difference a little dab of paint makes.

Some whiskers, a little contour on the logs and some insect chewing on the surface.
Done

There was a little bit of wow I couldn't massage away so I ran lines of heavy thread up the interior of the binding. That did the trick.

Otters - I need one more day.

It's all assembled but there is some thread sketching that still needs to happen and 5000 threads to cut.
I still have 3 days. 😉

and binding and hanging sleeve. I know.
And a house to clean and a turkey to thaw...........EASY.
Shopping. Gotta fit that in.
LOL

Otter in a Log

I rather like the feel of having a small animal poking his head out from a hollow log. That's the treatment I decided to give the Pup.
While I used the 'steam a seam' product to make the otters themselves, I'm using raw applique with the background.

The other two are looking over from behind a snow bank..to come.
Hmmmm... I really don't like the background.
No matter, things are only glue tacked or pinned, so its easy to change.

I Think I Solved the Problem

They were just too small.

I increased the head size to an 8 inch circle.
They morph a bit with each rendition but that's all right. The eyes need to be a bit larger.
The drawing on the left is definitely "pup". I think it's the smaller muzzle.
And the the ears...they keep moving around, but as they are add-ons to the skull, I can play with their placement.

The exposed body will be a lot less. This will give the main focus to the heads and faces. 

Otters - What's the Delay?

Indecision.
Even before I had chosen a layout I was wrestling with the 'how'.
Part of me leans toward working with textured fabrics. They can be very effective and I liked the results with deer and bears.

Part of me wants to use the commercial ones I have on hand.

But..... and this is a big BUT....

There was a spark left behind after completing the Fish collage. I knew I wanted to do something like that again, and it keeps raising it's head in my thoughts.
I'm doubting my fabrics.
I'm doubting my ability.
I COULD do a simple paper patterned cut out similar to a derived commercial pattern.
I could do random chunk pieces and work the placements based on colour and tone.
But if I want to do something similar to the Laura Heine's style, I have no suitable fabric.
I'd have to buy from scratch in shades of browns?
Or if I followed some of the other styles and abandoned the true colours of the otters.......
I still have no suitable fabric.
The background is decided but until I solve this conflict.......I can do nothing.

Otters ...for Christmas

After some discussions, back a forth, multiple times, about size and season etc, we concluded that the picture requested (suggested) wasn't going to work. While the otters are adorable (ALL baby animals are adorable) the layout really wouldn't adapt well to the requested horizontal landscape of about 3'x4'.

I spent a number of hours looking on line at otter pictures and vignettes, assuming/hoping  I could simply enlarge a photograph and work from there.
But no.
A lot of detail and proportions, particularly the faces disappear or gets muddied with a simple enlargement because there remain very few clear edges to reference. So I was resigned to drawing these guys from scratch. (I took a few minutes and reviewed some of the 'how to draw' sites available. Just what I needed to refresh my skills.)

So I now have these 3 adorable faces.
(I'm tempted to call them Larry, Moe and Curly.....yuk yuk yuk)

Finished? rough layout. (They're looking rather ferocious after being retraced from my originals!)