My Very Own Songbird

Wow, how long has it been since I've posted anything on my blog? Guess I should blow off the dust.

But enough about my lack of content. I've been working on a project for a long time that I want to share. I made my very own Songbird Plush.

Most gamers probably know what I am talking about but, for those who don't, here is a brief introduction.

An amazing game was released recently under the name Bioshock : Infinite. Now the Bioshock series alone is quite impressive, but they really pulled out the stops on the storytelling in this latest release.

The visuals and world are jaw-dropping.

The Bioshock series features memorable antagonists and Infinite was no exception. It featured a leather clad protective entity known as the Songbird. It lives to protect a girl named Elizabeth, and really dislikes the player after you break her out of her tower and try to free her from the city of Columbia. As you are more or less stealing Elizabeth from him, the Songbird takes a strong disliking to you chasing you throughout the game.

Its kinda like this only more helpless screaming and wailing on my end.

Despite his effective red evil eye, and his tendency to toss you through windows the Songbird ends up being an adorable and lovable character for me. He truly cares for Elizabeth as the two have essentially spent most of their lives together. He brings food, books, and clothing up to her tower and was her only companion for years.

Isn't he adorable over in the corner babysitting XD

Even as she tries to escape her cage he can't be mad at her. He really seems to love her and want the best for her even if his ideas of what is best are influenced by the crazy leadership of Columbia.

Cutscene from the game where the Songbird finally catches me

I don't want to spoil anything about the storyline, but the Songbird is easily one of my most loved characters in the entire game yet he is supposed to be one of the bad guys. When I saw this in the game I knew what I had to do...

So jealous. The kids here can buy adorable songbird plushies!?!?

I was making my own songbird plush! Now what kind of style did I want to do? Irrational Games the creator of Bioshock Infinite apparently made a leather one.

Adorable but not very hugable looking.

An incredible crafter going by the name Anna the Red made one as well based on some concept art. I decided I would base it off her design but add more details making it my own.

A really excellent job!

So my creation... Well I need patterns. I've never made patterns before. I grabbed some graphing paper and started studying pictures and taping together small mockups. When I was slightly more confident I cut out pieces of old t-shirts and made some prototype versions. I had already learned how to use a sewing machine due to my wonderful mother, so I only needed a couple refreshers from my wife on her model and I started assembling them.

These were the third prototypes. The circles mark the joints and location for the eyes.

The third prototype showed me I was on the right track and I moved to cut out the pieces of fabric. There would be two layers of fabric. An inner to be stuffed, and an outer layer about 10% bigger in order to give it an "loose" appearance.

Inner Layer Fabric

Starting to sew the fabric layers together

In the picture above you will notice two round pieces of plastic in the top left. These are pieces of the doll joints I used. I wanted his limbs to be able to move around like some teddy bears. So I picked up some doll joints and integrated them into my design.

The inner layer mostly stuffed with doll joints visible

I wanted to get some braided leather for the Songbird's air tube, but I couldn't find any I liked that didn't cost a fortune. Instead I decided to learn how to braid leather. I bought a washer at Lowes and paid four dollars for some leather suede strips and braided my own airtube. It was actually quite fun and I think it turned out quite nice.

The camera decided I didn't get any clear images that day

Then I had to attach it to the inner layer. I bought a one inch 45 degree piece of copper pipe to serve as the beak and threaded the braid through it. Then I folded the inner layer fabric through the remaining space in the washer and hand sewed it on.

Threading the copper pipe

Look at my awesome seam. No mockery allowed :P

Now to move onto the outer layer. I chose a gray fleece for the front as I wanted to keep him snuggly and I though black would be to dark. I originally wanted leather for the strip down the back but all the leather colors I could find were too dark or too expensive. While looking at polysuede I found some fabric that had a light tan front but a perfect bright brown on the back. So I used the reverse side of the polysuede for his jacket and back. I also made a beanbag from the extra fabric to weigh him down. Otherwise he would tip over being a bit front heavy.

Its sweatshirt fleece. I got a good deal on a remnant :)

I absolutely adored the hand stitching on the video game version of the doll and wanted to copy that look. I found some deerskin lace at a hobby store and used a combination of a yarn darner to thread the lace and a seam ripper to make a big enough hole in the fabric for the lace to pass through. It was a huge pain but the end result was quite nice.

Note the back side of polysuede is easily ruined

Next I decided to work on the wings. This was a pain, mostly because of my ambition. I used a vinyl leather look alike. I made an internal wing skeleton out of pipe cleaners and armature wire. This made the wings fully posable but also meant I had to stitch on the outside visible surface. Vinyl and pleather can be easily damaged by feed dogs (the little triangle things that pull the cloth forward or backward) So I placed a piece of wax paper between the vinyl and the feed dogs to prevent damage. Unfortunately the sewing machine didn't like sewing something so thick (the armature wire and pipe-cleaners made the thick vinyl bulge) and the needle often messed up. It also made it difficult to tell whether the foot was down or not. If the foot wasn't down the stitch would mess up and have to redone. The result were some wings that look nice at a distance but betray my inexperience with a closer look.

Don't look too close

The jacket and pauldron were the next things to be put together. I didn't have a pattern so I took his measurements and planned it accordingly. Because I didn't use leather for the jacket material it was quite thin. I used quilt batting to thicken the jacket and pauldron to give the appearance of a thick jacket and padded pauldron.

Getting Measurements

Fitting the jacket

Stuffed pauldron

After the pieces were done it was time to put him together. The doll joints ended up giving me some trouble as I had to snap them together at the end and it was difficult to get enough force to snap them together. It was unavoidable the way I made him, but I would recommend snapping these together before stuffing if you use doll joints in the future.

The eyes were also interesting to make. Columbia, the city where Songbird live, is incredibly patriotic to the point of worshiping the founding fathers. American symbols appear everywhere and it seemed only natural to have his eyes be stars. Every other Songbird doll I had seen used stars as well. However it was really difficult to find something I liked for his eyes. I eventually found an online button store based in Texas that (big surprise) had star buttons, but they were still not quite what I was looking for. I ended up combining my star buttons with two other buttons I found at Walmart and that achieved the effect I wanted.

See those cute eyes

Top View

His hands can cover his eyes XD

He just wants a hug!

Another view of the wings and back

And that is my Songbird plush. I designed, I made it, I am pretty happy about it. Its fun to learn and experiment with new things, and this project allowed me to do just that. Did I make mistakes, oh yes. But I love the result and I'll do even better the next time I try some crazy crafting project.

Hope you enjoyed and I'll write more soon...ish.

He's too adorable... Yeah not that guy in back.