Plushes, or Just More Fluff – Film and TV

TV besides Farscape, I mean.

When I was experimenting with making plush figures, I used an extremely old pattern from a book called “Make and Do,” which was part of some kind of encyclopedic series for arts and crafts (Thanks, Google! It’s called “Childcraft”). One of the pages included a pattern for a marionette. I never could get the proper floppiness of a marionette correct, but a lot of figures did come from that pattern. But first let’s go way back to my childhood, when The Empire Strikes Back was a new movie, I was in a sewing class, and I didn’t want “pants” to be my final project…

Yoda (with special guest Sith)

Aaaaand… one picture. Well, ok, then. I’m surprised it’s not more blurry than it is. Anyway, Yoda is here for nostalgic reasons, not as an example of my sewing skills. “Empire” came out in 1980, so that would make me about 13 at the time. Yes, there are many 13 year olds with mad sewing skills; I was never one of them. This was made without any pattern, which is good, because if it were, then the pattern-maker would need a beating.

I still have Yoda – somewhere- in my bedroom, including that original found-in-the-yard stick standing in for his cane. I would like to think that I could do a better job these days, but clay’s still my main form. I could sculpt a really good Yoda. But done to death, that has been.

A Plush Darth Maul, because why not? Now, The Phantom Menace came out in 1999, making me about 32 at the time, so really, the “no patterns” excuse can’t fly anymore. Like I said, making plushies was an experiment! I think I did an acceptable job on the face paint, though.

But I did make his little lightsaber out of felt and wood, and added Velcro to the hands so he could hold it. Does that count for anything?

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Spike the Vampire

Another one-pic-fits-all. I can’t take more because I made this for a charity auction, like some of the Farscape figures from another post, AND it was sold to someone in England, so… no more pics!

This is Spike from the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Because he wore lots of black, a lot of clothing details are lost, but he has boots, pants, a belt with – I’m guessing a clay buckle – a black undershirt and black duster. And then there’s that one red shirt he wore a lot. It looks like I decided to sew in fingers and ears for the first time for any of my figures. How adventurous I was then!

The face was painted/drawn, and if memory serves, this item fetched one of the highest bids, if not the highest. Cool for the charity!

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The Crow

I’d like to think that I did a better job with Eric Draven here, aka The Crow. This is the Brandon Lee version from the first movie. The figure is pretty much that ancient “marionette” pattern mentioned above. I made a slight variation: the back of the head is black material, and I meticulously sewed his “hair” into the main seam, and tied in rows of hair along the back to make it fuller. The face is painted.

I admit that it was fun to make his clothing pristine, then slash it up and make “bullet” holes. I also cut up black electrical tape to simulate the duct tape he used to keep his clothing together.

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Jay and Silent Bob

Hey, I’ll say it: these are Mah Boys. I like them and hope you do, too. Jay and Silent Bob themselves, in the plush, in their “Dogma” clothes. That ancient marionette pattern went to Jay, and then was shortened – and fattened – for Silent Bob. Maybe a little TOO shortened. My biggest regret is the lack of sharpness to the pics and their being kind of small. But these things happen. To take more pics would require that I travel 3,500 miles away to my friend’s home, who somehow got it in her head that I was giving them to her, not just showing them. Again: these things happen. According to her, she was “rescuing” them, because she knew that, if I ever met Kevin Smith or Jason Mewes, I would give their plushies to them. (She is correct)

I tried a couple of new things in order to pretend that I’d improved my sewing skills. One was to stitch out “fingers” for them. Most of the figures I made had mitten-like hands. In Bob’s case I took the extra step of separating his right index finger from the others so he could always be holding a cigarette. Oh, what verisimilitude! You can see it a little bit in the first pic. In the second pic, he’s taking a puff while Jay dances. In the third pic, they’re tuckered out.

Snootch to the bootch.