#anyways happy birthday sfm!! enjoy the physical realm u life-changing game

[mudzdale]

finally, my magnus opus, complete... this was an impulse, do-it-stupid project for me to tackle. i suppose it doesn't count as a ragdoll if it's made out of specifically-purchased new fabric rather than rags, though...

some process photos under the cut

feeling out the design goals + patterning. this initial pass was very inspired by @bittertoxicity 's plush designs of the cast! i wound up moving away from that as i worked, but honestly, his work is so much cuter still, and i really admire it 😄

after 3 or so failed attempts at getting well-proportioned patterning stitched & stuffed, i lopped off one piece's head and then grafted it back on to create a longer neck. unfortunately, this successfully acheived the desired effect. the epitome of my do-it-stupid technique.

the face pieces were stitched on. he is constructed entirely out of no-pill fleece (the closest accessible kind next to the puppet variety), and honesly i don't know how those raw edges are going to hold up over time. if he ever gets a second pass, this would be wiser to just do with felt.

i had wanted to simply embroider his eyebrow, but after multiple failed attempts at getting the shape right, it started to damage the fabric ): i gave up and cut an eyebrow out of fabric, and stitched it on like his other face pieces.

his clothes are removable! i fit and stitched these prior to adding his hair, correctly guessing that the hair would make it very hard to work with his developing outfit. someday, i may be inclined to make different little outfits for him, however...

the hair itself was another huge challenge (the clothes alone took weeks, fwiw). if there are patterns out there for long, non-yarn hair, i sure couldnt find them. i wound up freestyling each piece by draping them over his head like a ridiculous veil, and stitching down my "darts" from there (in quotes bc i didnt even bother to cut them away like real darts should be cut...)

overall, my vision for the hair turned out to be verrrry different than the final product, but it's probably for the best. maybe i'll experiment more if he's ever to be remade

oh, and, he is hatless because, like, i dont like the hat anyways, but in the interest of making his outfits changeable, a hat would be a lot of hassle. that's either something that has to be stitched on and cut off for outfit changes (wtf), velcro'd on (um, no way), or magnetized on (what a pain...). so i guess maybe someday, but definitely not today...