Something old, something new.

[bladespark]

Okay, so these require a little bit of... explanation.

They were sculpted in 2004. Yeah, nine years ago. I wasn't kidding when I mentioned that I used to be REALLY bad at sculpting.

I was taking a ceramics class where the teacher encouraged us to do extra credit projects. This was mine. I have pretty much always wanted to do hard-faced art dolls. At the time I had just gotten into fursuit making, (it was still a hobby that sometimes paid a little, and not a job), I had never made a plush in my life, and I couldn't sculpt worth beans, but I wanted to try making a plush-bodied, ceramic faced art doll. So I sculpted these things.

Even at the time I knew they weren't perfect, but I did think they were okay. Not too bad. The paws were cute. So I took them home to sew the bodies. But I was so busy with classes and my job and trying to get this fursuit business running that I just never did. When I moved to Oregon I packed them in a box to take along, and there they have stayed, through four or five moves and nine years.

Since picking sculpting back up again and getting quite a lot better, I'd decided I was finally going to do a sculpted art doll. But as I laid out plans to start sculpting a face for my first, I remembered the box. The nine year old box. The box that I had faithfully transported with me all that time. Hey, I thought to myself, I can just skip straight ahead to making the sewn part, I have faces and feet all ready for me.

So I opened the box.

I looked at what was in the box.

I considered throwing it away.

Then I reconsidered. My first prototype of a new pattern is usually kind of meh, especially when it's completely and totally new in every way, which this would be. And here were these faces, ugly yes but also completely ready to paint, no sculpting, refining, sanding, casting, casting again, giving up and sending them to somebody to be cast, etc. needed. So what the heck. Why not?

Why not indeed! So here they are, Teal Deer Cat (that is possibly a monkey) and Orange Llama Lava Cat. They are ugly as heck, but you know, I kind of like them? :D

I'm currently considering whether I should sell them cheap to somebody who will love them anyway, or just keep them forever. I've certainly had the space to keep them around this long, right?

Here's a few more/bigger pics while you're here: