This is a set of stuffed animals that I made. I started out wanting to make a giant Nudibranch, but then found my style was getting lost in my attempts.
Some artists I had been looking into was Dmitry Lagun, (https://www.bearpile.com/dmitrylagun) and artists that work a lot with glass eyes. However for this, I was more inspired by the materials I was offered than by anyone else I had spent time looking into. The muslin and paints were my starting point.
Here is a clay mockup I made.
So I returned to using my own characters.
I sketched out a few, but the bird just came together on its own.
I originally had sketched and made the muslin form for a frog but later I changed my mind.
Here are some WIP shots:
The way I developed my work was by sewing and un-sewing the pieces I worked on, painting on them and then changing the color by adding another layer. My work is much more a physical process that comes from an idea, and is rarely sketched in several renditions.
And the result:
The concept is that they are 3 lonely forest creatures that all see each other from a distance at one point or another and dream of what it would be like to be them. Each of the creatures dresses up as one of the other ones that they have seen, envying their life from afar. I wanted to comment on how everyone envys someone else, and that it is all kind of futile. I wanted to take a cute, humorous approach to the topic by making a set of Dress Up Buddies. I thought it would be even stranger since they are whimsical creatures and their identity is kind of confusing because you cant really draw the line between character and costume.
