Fuzzy yard pets!

I've always really admired the hairing work of hobbyists like Juliane Garstka and so on, so when Maren of Ivorytower Stables posted her long anticipated hairing tutorial it absolutely made my day!

http://ivorystablenews.blogspot.com/2011/03/fullbody-hairing-english-version-part.html

No sooner had it gone up than I'd read it, gathered all my materials, read it again and then ended up in bed (I wasn't feeling well) half watching a history documentary on BBC iPlayer while I set about giving it a go. I got an iPhone earlier this week (called Ivor ;)) so whenever I needed to check up on anything I didn't even need to leave my bed and could just check out the blog through that - bliss!

My first victim had been languishing in the props drawer for months as he just didn't look right at all. I made him from scratch out of pipecleaners with scraps of leather for ears and pinheads for eyes. Whereas my other bendy dogs turned out ok as the pile of the fluff looked good enough for fur, these ones were too compact and he just looked like...well...a dog made of pipecleaners! XD





Because the mohair is chopped up anyway I realised it was the perfect way to use up all the mangled straggly bits that are the end (and usually waste) result of any horse hairing job. I decided to make him black and tan as he looked like some kind of Rottweiler cross, plus I had tons of leftovers in those colours. I accidently made him incredibly thickset at the front with short legs so who knows what the other half is!









I painted on pawpads too.



Because he's made of pipecleaners he's still poseable - exactly the sort of thing I like on my yard!





'Stay!'



'Sit!'



Unfortunately all this poseability has its downsides...




I named him Max after my friend Deb's Rottie/Collie cross. He isn't supposed to be a portrait or anything, just a tribute of sorts. XD Here he is! (and as far as I know he hasn't peed on anything important - he just licks the inside of car windows. :P)



..and here's model-max with some of the other yard dogs including the two other bendies who I might hair now that I know it looks so good!




Max finished I found I still had loads of chopped up hair so I had a rummage around in the prop drawer in search of another model. I found this Schleich cat that I'd always intended to paint but decided that she'd probably look much nicer as a fluffy mogg instead.





Ivor came in very handy as I could google tortiseshell/calico coat patterns whilst I haired. I repainted the eyes and nose and painted her mouth and pawpads over the hair. Unfortunatly Nigel's macro lens picks up every little detail so she looks a lot rougher than she really is.









She's quite big for Julip scale but meh, I know some absolutely MASSIVE cats so she'll do. :P







I really love her and after pondering a name for ages, I eventually settled on the rather innocuous 'Mogg'. I want to make her some friends out of pipecleaners so I can have some in more interesting positions.
Somewhat shockingly, for someone who isn't a dog person I've managed to aquire loads of them and next to no cats at all!

All that remains is to thank Maren for the brilliant tutorial and see if I can dig out the rest of my pipecleaners...

TTFN!