Needlefelt and animations

A lot of July has been spent poking wool with a needle as I had a go at making Mr Bear and some of his friends with needlefelt. If you remember, back in may, I had found a lady on Etsy who made Mr Bear and Mouse for me. She did such a great job and I loved them, but they weren't quite strong enough to animate with. So I set about having a go at making them myself and using a stronger wire frame to build them with. I would describe needlefelting as sketching with wool. It is possible to keep shaping the characters by keep poking the wool, as you might with a pencil. It is incredibly fiddly to start with while I try to shape a wire base for them, but it gets easier as you get into it and then it starts to be quite fun watching them take shape.

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It has been a great medium to work with and I've been able to make quite a few things with the wool, and the soft aesthetic really suits the feel of my illustrations too. I needlefelted Mr Bear and Mouse a tea cup each, and and Mr Bear's chair too and had some fun creating some short stop motion animations with my iPhone.

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Behind the scenes... A very simple set up!