A Special Commission - Part 1.

A few weeks ago I was tasked (by a friend) to make some characters from the video game Rayman as a birthday gift for a fan of the game.  After some discussion we decided that the character Rayman himself wouldn't work well as he doesn't have arms, legs or a neck (though he does have hands, feet and a head).

Without using 'invisible' thread to hold the bits together (which would have looked a bit odd) or using a prop like a chair to affix them to, he was just never going to look right.

We settled instead on two other playable characters - a Teensy Wizard, and a warrior princess called Barbara.  In this post I will showcase the Teensy Wizard, in the next I will showcase Barbara.

The Teensy Wizard. 

This character is a blue, long faced creature with a cute wizard hat & coat.

I made the head first - a sausage shape in mid blue which tapers to one end and is rounded at the other.  After that I was able to make the plump body in a pale blue to the right scale.  I made the rounded cone shape first, then made the base separately as a flat circle.  This meant that he would sit properly upright. I then sewed the conical shape onto the base to make the finished body.

 His arms were made from the same mid blue as his face, using a simple chain and slip stitch technique to make the three fingers and thumb.

The swirl on his face was embroidered on using a darker royal blue yarn, and his wry smile using black yarn.

The hat and robe are made of royal blue felt, sewn together, and the stars are made from a mid blue felt.  The same colour stars are on his body and his coat, the felt needed to be darker than his body but lighter than his coat.  Thankfully I have a lot of felt lying around! I made the stars using a sharp paper punch with the felt sandwiched between two sheets of paper for a cleaner cut.  I had planned to sew the stars onto his body and coat but it is almost impossible to hide the stitches on felt, so I opted for a thin layer of hot glue instead to ensure they would not come off.

His eyes protrude from his head so rather that using my normal safety eyes I opted for two black beads sewn on with strong thread.  As this amigurumi was not for a child this was OK, and looks really effective.

I added two little feet in the same colour as his face an arms - simple dome shapes folded in half , lightly stuffed at the front and then sewn on to the base of his body.

I'm delighted with how well he turned out.  He took about 6 hours in all, over a few days.

Please note - this character created, owned and copyright Ubisoft.