Bioshock 2 - Big Daddy doll found in Pauper`s Drop and Persephone
If you’ve heard of Bioshock 2, chances are you are familiar with the iconic Big Daddy doll made with a baseball for a head and thumbtacks for eyes. This doll was feature in the teaser trailer as well as in the game and ending, and eventually marketed as a collectible. If you played through the game and were observant however, you likely recall the other Big Daddy dolly, a fabric one found in random apartments as well as Grace’s place in the Sinclair Deluxe hotel, and in the infirmary and pediatric wards of Persephone. That doll didn’t receive much attention, which is odd because it was always my favourite. I decided to make an amigurumi reproduction of it as a Christmas gift for my mom, since she loves the game and the Big Daddies.
The doll is proportionately sized, and though I skipped the orange screwdriver in the eye (I didn’t want to hurt Mr. Bubbles, and wanted him to be cuddly!), the recreation is quite similar to the original, though obviously in crochet and not fabric. Because of it’s size and the number of pieces to put together it is a time consuming project but the techniques are basic so with a little patience, anyone can do it. I took photos of him with my daughter’s Adam Needle from her Little Sister costume for effect. Sadly she has outgrown the dress so a Little Sister photo shoot was not happening.
Bouncer dolly, found in Pauper`s Drop and Persephone
Mr. Bubbles is soft and cuddly!
The back of the doll.
a closer look
The original, though I opted to nix the screwdriver
This amigurumi Domo-Kun is around half the height (5 inches) of my previous one and is also made differently, using joined rounds so that the stitches are not offset by a spiral and the red of the mouth can be crocheted rather than applied as a felt panel. I wasn’t thrilled with the felt panel for the mouth and wanted to try a crochet mouth. If you would prefer not to join and work in a spiral, ignore the “Join and CH1” at the end of each round and work the entire piece in brown and apply a panel of red felt or a separate rectangle of red crochet fabric for the mouth at the end.
Because this ami is small, it can be completed in 2 or fewer hours which makes for good projects for people like me who have attention deficit issues with craft projects. As with all of my patterns, little Domo-Kun is free. If you have any questions or find any bits in the instructions confusing, please leave your query in the comments so all can see any clarifying responses provided.
This tutorial video demonstrates my technique for wiring amigurumi doll limbs so that they are posable. I’ve been meaning to get this up for a while since it is usually asked about when patterns are posted that I had wired. The technique uses residential copper electrical wiring which is quite inexpensive and easy to find at most hardware stores and is much bettern than floral wire or pipe cleaners because it’s stout enough to hold a pose and be bent and manipulated without weakening and eventually breaking the wire. I’ll add a more extensive explanation with photos to the help files shortly!
In others news, the smaller Domo-Kun pattern used to demo the wiring will be posted as soon as I get his teeth on and take some pictures!
I’ve been on a cross stitch and perler bead kick… and now that I’ll be doing a workshop for each at Tsukino-Con 2011, in addition to my crochet panel, it’s unavoidable that these crafts eat up more of my crafting time and attention.
The thing is… this is “Neridugurumi”, not “Nerdiguperlerbeads” or “Nerdigucrossstitch”… so what I’d like to know from my fabulous readers is, information regarding those crafts, patterns, tips on where to find supplies, tutorials, should I include it (read include, NOT replace… amigurumi is still where my heart lies) here or not? I know I am definitely not up to creating another site just for this purpose, because I barely have enough time to maintain this one, so it’s sort of a go or no go sort of thing… so riddle me this, would you, my awesome readers, be pleased if I expanded this website to include this new realm of nerdy crafting, or should I be a purist and feature amigurumi and amigurumi only? Please leave a comment with your yay or nay or filibuster, as appropriate 🙂
My Kirby pattern has been a long time coming, mainly because I got too ambitious with Super Smash Brothers versions to finish and post it. Initially, in honour of the recent release of Kirby’s epic yarn, the project was going to include patterns for 10 or so Kirby hats, so that he could be more epic and morph into his various SSB versions and be Link Kirby, Mario Kirby, Wario Kirby, you get the idea.
As with most things I do though, I got distracted and started working on other stuff and finished up the Mario and Peach hats only, so these will have to do for now. I might make more later, but if my fabulous readers make a Kirby and decide to make him a SSMB hat, email me photos and the pattern if you are kind enough to share and I will post it with credit. As with all my patterns, Kirby is free.
Last weekend was the big Vancouver anime convention, Anime Evolution. It was awesome, great cosplays, lots of neat events and the dealer’s hall was cool. I think as with Tsukino, I most enjoyed the artists and crafter’s alley. The panel went really badly but really wonderfully at the same time. No projector, speakers or screen meant the helpful videos demonstrating techniques could not be seen, and more people than we had bargained for meant we had to either turn people away or run out of supplies (we chose the latter and improvised as we could), but it all came together beautiful. People were really happy, appreciative and enthusiastic and there were some amazing guardian angel types helping everyone else out with the techniques, since the demos weren’t visible by most people in the room.
I had a great time though and hope to do this again next year, armed of course with more supplies and more vigilance about chasing down projectors and things way ahead of time!
