The first step was to sculpt the head. I took a class through the Gnomon Workshop, online, and it was great! It allowed me to produce this: the head.
(Ugh! So dirty!) A worskshop accident covered it in sawdust - but not before I made a mold!
And thanks to the patient people at Smooth On and Silpak, I made my first cast! With that done, I decided I would make all of the birds. No sense in going to all this trouble for just one bird!
All the birds share the same basic head- (even the “girls.”) Only slight modifications with Aves Epoxy Sculpt were necessary to create Jose and Pierre.
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Since the bodies would be covered on feathers and fur (and I hate sanding) I left the body and wing forms very crude.
Above is the “V1” body, with the legs pointing straight down. After looking at the reference I realized that they should be sticking out at an angle. Easy fix.
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The eyes were tracked down from the original manufacturer.
The fur was harder to source. Did you know the birds are mostly covered in faux fur? They are!
There are a lot of different faux furs out there, in a lot of different lengths and thicknesses.
The best come from National Fiber Technology. Owned by a former Imagineer, they specialize in furs for park walk arounds, animatronics, and creatures for film and television. But they’re EXPENSIVE – like $50 a square foot. So I had to find something that looked close.
So I ordered tons of samples from Fabric.com and placed them on the bird to see what looked best. Here you can see it’s a little too long. In the end I used pet clippers to trim the length down to what I thought looked right 5/8ths to 1/2 inch .
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After that it was time to feather! Sadly the original feather suppliers, Hollywood Fancy Feathers, was going out of business when I called upon them. They didn’t have enough stock left to fill my order for every bird, but they did have enough to get me started. The rest came from the good people at Moonlightfeather.com, who will dye custom colors!
Did you know that birds have left and right feathers? They do! So after sorting through the feathers and trimming off the stems (quills?) I went about the business of hot gluing them on. The reference showed that they I start at the bottom of the wing and worked their way up.
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Now it was time to apply the fur. I wish I could say I made patterns, but in my ignorance I just smeared the form with hot glue, stuck on the fur and trimmed the excess. Easy!
Now it was time for the false eyelashes. So pretty!
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And here she is! My first bird!
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More birds will follow!
Feet will be attached when she’s placed on her final perch… But that’s a whole other project!
Thanks for looking!
