Stuffed Antelopes

It was with huge regret today that I had to take the weight of the antelope leadership into my own hands. I was really enjoying Shona working with us on this huge project but her other project has taken both her and Tasmin's time completely, so I have had to plan around this and work out an alternative to complete and duplicate the antelopes easily.
I did a lot of brainstorming - the options I came up with follow;

• finish the styrofoam body, make a head, attach the legs and then cover the whole shape in foil and rhenoflex it for each antelope (there are six)
• same as above, but with gum tape instead of rhenoflex
• create a cardboard slot-together antelope in the same way that Rhian has been doing the giraffe's heads
• create a pattern from scratch for a stuffed, soft toy type structure out of calico to be sewn together and painted

After some deliberation and input from the group, we decided the last option would be the best to play with. I drew up a simple antelope pattern, using basic skills I had from past projects in creating simple stuffed toys. I first made a 2D drawing of an antelope, then cut off the legs and horns, so they could be duplicated with a fold down the middle to create four legs and two horns instead of a totally flat 2D antelope.

My initial pattern design sketch for the antelope plush. The ears were to be made separately then sewn on after the main
body has been assembled.

The miniature test antelope. It was around 30cm long in total. Because of this small sized it proved impossible to turn
out the front legs, making it look a little bit like a T-Rex antelope. This shouldn't be an issue when the pattern is sized up!

The horns. For such a simple pattern I think they work well.

The hind legs, which have come out great. I think they may be the
best part of the entire pattern.

I have now handed this over to Naomi to size up in the traditional manner, by using pattern paper and a ruler.

Emily had some free time and decided she wanted to help our group, so I set her off on cutting out and stringing together circles of the found EVA foam matting to create a trunk for the elephant. She did this surprisingly quickly and it looked great. However, I found that when I attached the trunk to the elephant's head frame, it needed more upwards shape instead of lying totally flat on the frame - so I added another line of paper rope down the centre of the trunk. This worked really well, giving it form as well as retaining great flexibility and movement. Once I was finished with the construction of the trunk, Jake painted the paper rope grey to match the EVA foam.