Amigurumi Things

[cephalopod9]

I like to crochet a whole lot, and would like some suggestions of things to make into amigurumi.

Would you like to challenge me to make a crochet sculpture of something?
Right now, I have a lot of yarn, but not a lot of colors, part of the fun will be working with those restrictions.

They aren't for sale now, but might be eventually, if I get over my weird anxieties about exchanging money over the internet.

You can also bother me on my blog,but I only just started it, and it's kind of stupid because I can't stay on task.

[Isaac Hill]

I was going to suggest characters from Adventure Time, but then noticed your Science the Rat (good job) and realized you've already thought of that. Could you make working puppets, like Kermit? It would be a sort of amigurimi/mitten hybrid.

Maybe try making characters from fairy tales, or mythological creatures like a centaur. Those are well defined enough to give you an idea what to do, and be recognized by others, but still open ended enough to allow you to do something unique based on your own interpretation of the thing.

[cephalopod9]

Ok, I thought up two different way to try making puppets.
Haven't decided on characters yet, what would look good in yellow?
Maybe just a generic princess.

[Isaac Hill]

A generic princess sounds kind of dull. You could make her the princess of something yellow, like the Princess of the Sun, or the Princess of Bananas. Hazmat suits are yellow and can represent a variety of people, like nuclear technicians or Walter White. The Simpsons are yellow.

Hansel and Gretel might make good puppets. You could use them to hand out candy at Hallowe'en. I think they're usually depicted as blond, which would make good use of the yellow.

[cephalopod9]

This design did not work. I'm going to unravel it and start over, even though that was kind of a lot of tiny stitches.

PICT0319.JPG (47.66 KiB) Viewed 3586 times

There wasn't actually a reason for the stitches to be tiny. I don't know why I did that.

UPDATE:
I... don't think I want to try doing puppets again for a while.

[Isaac Hill]

The Bart one came out OK; good job on his overbite. I first thought his eyes were a bit small, but looking at the larger eyes on Homer, you made the right call. Given the size of the pixels (I don't know the proper crochet term for those little bumps everything is made of) and the size of finger puppets, getting details right is going to be rough. How big is the design that didn't work out?

[cephalopod9]

Stitches, more specifically, single crochet. They are pretty analogous to pixels, except less square and not as clearly defined.

The design that didn't work, shown above resting on a standard 8 1/2 x 11 note book, somewhere around 5 or 6 inches across. I tried to make it big enough to go over my hand, and it was, but the wrong shape.

I'm probably going to be doing some knitting, just finding my rhythm on this sweater sleeve, unless I get some really exciting suggestions. Might try making some Adventure Time style princesses later.

[Isaac Hill]

5 or 6 inches, is that about the size of the minion in your original post, maybe a little smaller? That looks like enough resolution for facial details to look good.

If you want to do another Adventure Time project, and have a lot of yellow, how about Jake? You could try to figure out a way to make his limbs stretch. Maybe instead of sewing them on (like they appear to be on the minion) you could leave arm holes in the body. You make the limbs as long as you want them to stretch to, and slide them in and out of the holes to vary the length of the visible part of the limb. The hands and feet would stop the limbs from dissapearing inside the body. A cluster of stitches on the other end would stop the limbs from falling out.

[cephalopod9]

The minion is a little smaller. I'm not sure where it ended up, or I'd measure it.

What I have a bunch of is bright yellow, Jake the dog is a darker, kinda brownish yellow. It's kind of perfectionist of me, but at that level of inaccuracy I'd feel obligated to add a human nose (video). Stretchy arms are an interesting challenge though, maybe I'll try a little tiny one, once I get a little further on this sweater sleeve.

[Isaac Hill]

You'd also need packaging full of misspellings, poor grammer and oddly worded enthusiasm, like "Jaik the Dawg limb stretch for great justice!" Did you see Monday's episode with the Banana Man? He might be the right shade of yellow for a plausible figure.

If you do the stretchy limbs, it might be a good idea to put a pipe cleaner inside for rigidity, so you don't have to push and pull yarn when sliding the limb in and out. If the yarn is light enough, the pipe cleaner might also let you pose the limbs.

Devo wore yellow radiation type suits sometimes (they even sell them). If you can make the Energy Dome, you could have an Amigurumi Mark Mothersbaugh. You could even do a single row of stitches for a whip.

Is the sweater going to have a pattern or drawing woven into it, or be a solid color?

[cephalopod9]

Oh dang!

I can't believe how long it took me to get a picture of the dang sweater I made for christmas.
Here it is on the aunt I gave it to:

I don't know why, but I didn't want to do more amigurimi things until I got that out there.

But then I tried making another Adventure Time thing, which is a Fruit Witch parasite creature from the episode Dad's Dungeon.
This one I knitted
I might try making another one, and they sorta, might, maybe be part of a cosplay for Phoenix Comicon, if I can get any part of the outfit to work.

[Isaac Hill]

When was/is Pheonix ComicCon? Will/did you have enough time for the cosplay outfit?

One of your links mentioned having trouble with taking pictures of your stuff:, the flash made the pics too bright, without made them too dark. I think the problem is taking pictures at such close range doesn't give the flash enough area to diffuse over. If your resolution is high enough, you can try taking the photos with a flash from farther away. Or, you can try holding a tissue over the flash so less light gets through. I'm pretty sure that's what I did for my first set of pics in the "Awesome Things You Have Made" thread when I had a similar problem.

[cephalopod9]

It was May... twenty something. I did go, and wore my Fruit Witch costume, but I wasn't there for very long, and the skirt was shorter than I anticipated.

The resolution on my camera is pretty good, although I tend to take close up pictures to pre-emptively crop out all the clutter in my room. I will try standing further back next time I have something to photograph.
Inspiration hasn't struck in a while.

I've got a bunch of red yarn though, and was giving some thought to trying to make a red, brown and white Pabu.

[Isaac Hill]

Which Fruit Witch look did you go for, siren or zombie? Did anyone recognize you?

Pabu sounds like a good idea. He'd basically be a large sleeve with some smaller sleeves and a head, right? If you ever felt like trying puppets again, you could leave an opening in the rear, stick your arm in and work the head with your hand. Sew some razor blades in the mouth and you can have a Pabu that chews through rope.