... this blogger gave to thee...
... four FX plushies...
... three midnight magnets...
... two tricks and treats...
....a tale of lovely lore.Okay, so, the post I'd originally started for Day 3 became a bit of a monster. Not in a bad way, it just got a bit bigger than I intended and so I decided to move Day 3's post to Day 4. No problem, an easy swap, and then it snowballed, and I've now had to move it all the way up to Day 8... needless to say I got carried away, but didn't see it until I was even further behind than intended and without any clue about what I was going to write about for Day 4.
Luckily I remembered there was something my big sister showed me a couple of weeks ago, that I'd instantly fallen in love with and had originally (in my head at least) planned on putting in this post. And it all comes down to a plushie of one of my favourite birds, the Kākāpō...
Australian creature FX Artist Sarah Blakey a.k.a. NazFX Studios, creates these beautiful plushie Borb - orb like birds - out of faux fur and minky fabric, and lovingly hand paints and colours the rotund birds using an airbrush to create the kākāpō pudgy green and golden brown feathers.
There's just something about these critically endangered flightless land parrots, which are endemic to one predator free island in New Zealand, that I can't resist.
As of 2021 there are only 201 of these birds in the world, all confined to that one island, including Sirocco, the kākāpō in the gif, the government appointed spokesbird for their conservation, and likely the model for this delightful plushie.
(Moth || 52" wingtip to wingtip moth || quilting batting, fleece, faux fur, ostrich feathers, wire, golden brand acrylic paint (airbrushed) & Lumiere gold metallic acrylic)
(Luna Moth || 60" wingtip to wingtip || quilting batting, fleece, faux fur, ostrich feathers, wire, golden brand acrylic paints - airbrushed)
These textile sculptures aren't small, the moths each have a wing span of over half a metre and from start to finish Blakey's designs can take from five to seven days to complete for a simple project, but for bigger, more complex designs this can increase to two to three weeks.
"It's a sad truth but not many people are willing to pay the $5000+ it would take
for me to earn a living wage making something insanely complex over several months.
[...] The every day person thinks handmade plush should be priced on par with mass
produced, store bought plush, whereas I price more as individual art pieces."
(Artist Q&A with Naz-FX Studios, The Plushie Post, 23 Oct 2021)
Meaning that while Blakey may not produce a high quantity of work, the quality is incredibly high and as part of her business, she documents hers process to produce video tutorials and patterns, which she sells through Patreon and Gumroad, which is her main income. She's even produced a Beginners Guide to Plushie Making, for any budding plushie makers to download, this is something she doesn't charge for, which is incredibly generous, as it is a great source information and hint on how to start making your own designs.
(And let's not forget... "it cost that much cause it takes me fucking hours (fucking hours). It costs that much cause I don't have superpowers (superpowers) You need to pay for my skills 'cause exposure doesn't pay the bills. It costs that much 'cause it takes me fucking hours...")
And while many of the creatures created by NazFX Studios skew towards the cutesy toy style plushie side of the industry, including characters from films, games (including a five foot tall Crash Bandicoot) and glittery axolotl salamanders, Blakey also produces hyper-realistic animals such as leopard geckos and the incredibly accurate fauxidermy lion head above. This more realistic style is also applied to full head masks, these include a bald eagle and Philippine eagle, with moving beaks and fully feathered, and a cat, which she did her first experimenting with mechanisms allowing her creatures to blink.
Both cartoonish and realistic, these plushies show the diversity in the art form, which I had never really thought about. To me if you said the work plushie I would have instantly thought about the anthropomorphised, stylised and overly kawaii soft toys, whereas the more realistic I'd have classed as textile or fibre art, which was probably unfair labelling on my part.
Whether a design is simplified or realistic, if you've taken time to design and make it by hand, it's art, it's your art, and your time is worth celebrating.
So if plushy making is something you're interesting in trying, on any realism level, go check out more of NazFX Studios designs and look into her tutorials, all links, as always, are below.
Happy New Year! Part five is in still in the oven, it won't be long...
Link || NazFX_Studios (Sarah Blakely) || Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || DeviantArt || YouTube || Patreon || Gumroad || ArtStation ||
Link || Artist Q and A with NazFX Studios via The Plushie Post
Link || Kākāpō || New Zealand Department of Conservation || Wikipedia (Kākāpō) || Wikipedia (Sirocco)
Listening: I Love Myself Today- Bif Naked
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