The creature in how he swims. He sort of doggy paddles, kicking with the short, back legs.
Sewing together the bridge of the navel, between the eyes. This is so that the eye/kind of like the toad eye flaps, don’t go over the nose, in a sort of elongated unibrow shape. Essentially gives the eye flaps distinction to each eye. This is a young, male Frogicorn, which is why he has eye flaps. The female Frogicorns don’t.
As I’m right-handed, stitching the Frogicorn’s left eye was slightly more difficult than initially anticipated. It was a bit difficult grabbing the small space to hold, whilst stitching with my right hand.
The stitching above the Frogicorn’s left eye (viewer’s right) to create a sort of eyebrow effect.
As can be seen from the above image, the stitching shows on the Frogicorn’s back of head. I probably should have just stitched on the front material, then closed off the head with back-stitching with the head inside-out. However, my sewing skills are beginner level, so I don’t know if I could have pulled this off.
The key is that the head is taking shape.
Starting to put filling in. Exciting!
The Frogicorn sitting. He’s looking happy, to have innards.
I decided to not put filling in the two front arms, as they turned out a little thinner than initially hoped. By this stage in the creative process, I’d decided the two front arms were going to be floppy anyway.
The creature has a lot more life with eyes. As the adage goes, “eyes are the window to the soul”.
The Frogicorn rests on his front legs, with short back legs back-stretched.
I created bunches of the dyed turkey/poultry feathers, purchased from Spotlight, to create a sort of tiered, feather fan effect.
I reassessed that the fan shape was giving off a Peacock tail vibe, rather than wings. I thought, considering this Frogicorn is a boy, maybe he could have a Peacock like tail, colourful and used for attracting a female mate. This tail wouldn’t always be visible, and only appeared during mating season.
I was trialling locations of the feather fans, and quite liked the location behind his head. The fan idea was inspired by the costumes worn in the opening show sequence of Taylor Swift’s 2023-24 ERAs Tour.
Figure sourced from Jacquin (2023) at https://pwestpathfinder.com/2023/05/18/shaking-it-off-through-the-years-taylor-swifts-eras-tour-turns-back-time-with-a-dash-of-sass/.
As opposed to two wings, as initially designed in the Frogicorn’s original concept, I opted for a detachable fantail, that appears behind the head. It’s giving Mardigrass mascot vibes, which I thought was pretty cool and full circle, considering my printmaking book had a LGBTQIASB+ advocacy theme.
The Frogicorn can stand on their back two legs, when he has his decorative fantail showing. I don’t think it would be practical to think he could swim when he has the tail on.
In this sense, the tail kind of functions as a set of antlers, for show, attracting a mate with the diverse array of coloured feathers.
Now all that was left to do for the feathertail head fan was to tie/attach all three smaller fans together. This included the two outer, wing shaped ones, and smallish, yellow-based middle one.
Two feathers fell off at this point, but I thought this could just function like a chicken’s natural feathers, sometimes one or two naturally falling out, like a piece of hair.
The head fan is shed off in one whole go, at the end of mating season, like a snake’s skin.
The outer stitching was a bit too defined on the Frogicorn’s left cheek. So I thought I’d partly defluff him, invert his skin, and back-stitch the left cheek. This way, both cheeks would have a round shape, and be more asymmetrically. Not as symmetrical or matching as a butterfly’s wing, but a bit more matching like often is, in nature.
I still wanted him to have his quirks though, given he’s a magical creature.
The left cheek didn’t come out as rounded as hoped, but I’m much happier with the stitching not showing – so both cheeks are a bit more symmetrical now. I think it’s just a bit of perfectionism trying to shape it more when I think it’s mainly because the two traces of the cutouts didn’t quite line-up.
I’m really happy with the Frogicorn’s personality coming through.
Before sewing up the last remaining exposed, unstitched seaming (hip area, under his right arm) I thought I would trial some in habitat/location shots, outside by the dam. That way, I could trial how he was sitting in different positions. This was so I could see if he needs any stuffing added in any areas, before sewing him completely.
The male Frogicorn lies down next to large bodies of water – usually dams or rivers. As the female Frogicorn can fly, she looks out for his colourful plumage near large bodies of water, from the sky.
The Frogicorn crawling out of the water, after a swim/hunt. He uses his long front legs to achieve this.
Once he has a mate, the male Frogicorn uses his coloured feathers, which begin naturally falling out to build a nest for the female Frogicorn within 30 days. The male and female Frogicorn stay together for 3 months, including the incubation period of 6 weeks for the eggs to hatch (same gestation period as a regular chicken).
Unlike frogs, Frogicorns have eggs that hatch into love, fully-formed young (not tadpoles).
In this sense, Frogicorns’ mating and gestation is much like an Australian snake’s, that has eggs.
The nest the male Frogicorn has started to build, within the first week of courtship of finding a female mate. The female usually starts laying eggs, after two weeks of courtship. She lays half a dozen eggs, usually between 4-6, within a fortnight. The male Frogicorn finishes the nest within 30 days from commencement.
The nest is not visible to the naked eye, or to predators. However, human activity and damage to wild habitat, unknowingly damages their nests unfortunately sometimes.
As Frogicorn’s only mate once a year, this can mean a couple does not have young that year.
On the surgery table/lap for the finishing touches. The last seam is needing to be closed.
