Gerp and Henry inspired projects
Now that these have been sent off and received by their intended target, I can make a post about the projects that have been keeping me busy for a while now.
I need to preface this story with a little background information. For those of you who don’t know, Scott Johnson is a very talented comic artist and podcaster. His shows are always of the highest quality and unbelievably entertaining. I’ve been listening to all of his stuff for a while now. He plays World of Warcraft, and his main is an Orc hunter named Gerp whose favorite pet is a tiger named Henry. This has spawned all sorts of things, like the Obey Henry movement. I’m a huge fan of Scott’s, which is where this crazy story begins.
Just before Christmas, I was working on some gifts with fleece. I got this crazy idea in my head that I could make a pretty good Orc hat. Oddly enough, that’s a perfectly reasonable thought for me to have on any given day. Then I thought of doing a tiger scarf rather in the style of the old fox stoles. You know the kind. The ones with the feet that dangle off the end and such. Now, I have ideas like this all the time. Projects that I could do tend to flit in and out of my mind while I’m working on other things. This one was different. This one stuck. I found myself thinking through the construction problems and details that would need to be worked out. I imagined what it would look like finished.
I got a basic hat pattern so that I wouldn’t be working completely blind. I chose one with a band at the bottom that would serve as the separation where his mouth would be. I got myself some screenshots of Gerp off of the Armory (which was much easier now that it’s new-and-improved with 3D goodness) and got to work. The braid was pretty easy, the ears were a challenge. I got plastic doll eyes and gave him eyelids (which I thought was rather brilliant, if I do say so myself). All in all, other than a few snags, it came together pretty smoothly.
The finished product.
He’s even got the sweet braid down the back.
Sweet braid!
Alright, hat done. The scarf proved to be much simpler. They tell me that tiger striped fleece exists. It does not exist at any of the area Joann’s Fabrics, so I was unable to acquire it. Besides, it was not quite the right colors for Henry. I cut a big long piece of fleece and sewed all the triangle strips along it. I made the little feet to hang off the ends. To keep the scarf from getting too bulky, I opted to do a flat head and tail with only the ears sticking up. Sadly, my pictures of the scarf aren’t quite as good as I would have hoped, but you’ll get the idea.
The scarf in all it's glory.
His face turned out a little sweeter than I expected, but I think it’s a little bit precious.
So sweet!
On one of the episodes of The Instance (Scott’s World of Warcraft podcast), he mentioned that he wished there was a Henry plushie. This was right after the Blizzard release of their new plush line. Since Brian gave me a book on making fleece animals, I thought I’d try my hand at a tiger. Now, again, I didn’t have any tiger print fleece, which is what they used in the book, so I had to improvise and add the stripes to the fabric pieces as I went along. There are a few spots where they’re a little strange, but I think it turned out pretty well in the end. I even printed out a custom “Obey Henry” tag.
And he's extra cuddly!
I had an absolutely fabulous time working on all these projects. It was great to have a focused outlet for my creativity and something to fill the time. And it was all worth it knowing that I was sending it to someone I knew would appreciate them. Along the way, I figured out that the only possible fate for these items was for me to send them to Scott himself. He got them today, and I’m really excited that he liked them so much.
He wears it well.
I’ve put up a flickr album with all the pictures of this stuff. I’m excited to move on to the next big thing.