Applied Production Diary - (27/3/17 - 2/4/17)

This week I got my wool roving and needles in the post so it was time to start making my puppet! As Emma was the main puppet maker she had already tested the needlefelting into the foam and it worked fine, so I didn't actually have to test it before starting. She also tried needlefelting into polystyrene, which didn't work well. After watching tutorials on YouTube and watching Emma test the materials I began making my puppet.



This was my first time needlefelting a puppet and I just went with it, putting the wool where I needed it to go and poking it repeatedly with the needle. Above is the first try of felting the back of my puppet, I started on the back as this is somewhere where there is room for error.



Here is me needlefelting the front of the puppet, this took around 2 hours to needlefelt the back and front of his body, however it didn't feel like that long!



I got a little carried away after this point and forgot to take pictures so here is my progress where I added a dark layer of felt before adding a thing orange layer over the top to create depth in his fur. I love the way that these layers turned out and I am nervous to start on the head! I found it very hard to needlefelt the hands and feet, but I figured out that if you twist the felt tightly around the hands and feet while poking the needle upwards and downwards through it then it stayed. Before that I was randomly poking the felt and not holding it and this made it quite loose.



Finally below are where I am up to at the moment! I aim to have to puppet ready for the 1st of April so that we can start animating in the Easter holidays. I am really happy with how he has turned out and he is so cute!





All I need to add now is some doll eyes that I am going to order from Ebay, and I am going to get a pack of them so that I can use them in future projects too! I love how the needlefelting has turned out and I am definitely going to use this technique for other animations, especially because I have had so much fun making this little orangutan! I can't wait to do an animation test on this little guy.