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.

Protect the Internet, Stop SOPA and PIPA!

I side with Google, Wikipedia, and others in opposing these bills that will destroy small companies, harm free speech, unnecessarily restrict the web's legitimate purposes, while still allowing the act of piracy to continue. Don't let the entertainment industry define the rules of tomorrow's internet! Tell your congressmen to oppose these bills.

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

Far East Furnishings

Today I had a pleasant surprise. My friend and cofounder of Novabox Studios dropped by with his belated wedding/Christmas/birthday gift.

I must say I didn't see it coming. He made me a Japanese kotatsu. Its a beautiful handmade piece of furniture.

If you don't know what a kotatsu is you are not alone. My mother had no idea what it was and kept questioning why a blanket was involved.

A kotatsu is a traditional piece of Japanese furniture. It serves as a simple table during the summer months and "During the winter months in Japan, the kotatsu is often the center of domestic life. In the evening family members gather around the kotatsu to enjoy food, television, games and conversation while keeping their bottom half warm under the kotatsu. It has been said that, "once under the kotatsu, all of your worries slip away as a familiar warmth takes over and you become completely relaxed."" - Wikipedia

A blanket is used to cover the legs and a heating element (traditionally a pit filled with charcoal) is used to heat the space providing a comfortable warmth. Many Japanese homes do not have heating systems as many areas of Japan do not get very cold during the winter and central heating is still not very popular. The kotatsu provides a warm place to gather when the rest of the home gets chilly.

 Here are a couple of pictures of the table without the blanket.

 Sitting on the right is the creator Austin Palmer.

Apparently he got the idea from a combination of my interest in Japanese culture and animation as well as a recent show hes been hooked on Lucky Star. Cue pic of two of the main characters (Tsukasa and Konata) complete with a kotatsu on the edge of the picture.

 The show itself is a slightly random slice of life show about nothing in particular. It is full of various jokes about japanese, otaku, and american culture (One character is an american exchange student). A good portion of the scenes take place with the four main characters gathered around a kotatsu discussing some facet of life. Its a little hard to get into unless you are familiar with japanese culture and anime in general. If you are familiar its a fun show to watch with many witty observations of strange aspects of life, and some pretty good jabs at Americans.

Hopefully I will post more soon. I definitely have been shirking this duty. Till next time.

Engaged

Wow, I never thought this would happen. (No I am not referring to posting after my long absence) I didn't think I would ever find someone who would say yes. Not only that, but someone this fantastic and beautiful. On Friday the 13th of May, Nicole said yes. Wow. Check out the photo below. Yeah wow.

It is a marvelous and new path I'm treading on. I've never done anything like this before, and I don't have much experience to draw on. I can only continue on doing my best with her by my side. However, I can't imagine anything better.

Electronic Woes

Wow it has been a while. I have recently restarted school and am deep into wonderful software engineering papers and research. So exciting. Starting the semester turned out to be a lot harder than I originally anticipated. In order to give a proper understanding I must start back earlier in June. This is when I had my first clues that electronics just were not for me.

June: My desktop burns out its Video card. Luckily EVGA the producer of my card has a lifetime warranty policy and gladly allowed me to RMA the card for a new one. When I receive my new card my laptop promptly decides to short its own video card and give me lovely pink patterns on the screen. Still I fortunately have a replacement plan on the laptop and sent it in to get repaired.

August 20th: I have been playing laptop tag with the laptop warranty people for over two months now and they still claim to be unable to detect my problem. Finally I tell them to keep the laptop until they can find the problem. A couple days later my video card shorts out on my desktop computer AGAIN! This time it takes the motherboard with it (perhaps the cause of the first problem?). EVGA makes my motherboard as well and gladly lets me RMA both units for a free replacement. (BTW EVGA has incredible technical support well beyond the call of duty and they have fast response times, and allow you to leave your phone number rather then wait on hold. If you do this they will call you back when your place in line is reached. I cannot say enough about how awesome their technical support is.) At this point school starts in a week. Finally the laptop people find my problem and start sending it back.

September 10th: Middle of first week of school. Luckily I have had my laptop to complete assignments. My parts from EVGA arrive. The motherboard arrived dead with the dreaded FF error. (see internet for tells of woe and sadness over the FF error) EVGA again offers free replacement. I pull out my TI-83 calculator to ready it for classes to find out the memory unit has been corrupted and is dead. Missing my good sound system I plug my speakers into my laptop. A day later while sitting on my bed and NOT using my speakers at all they short out and die making HORRIBLE thumping, bumping, staticy screeching sounds. After sitting on hold with Logitech for FOREVER I finally get somebody who barely speaks english to explain to me since Circuit City (the store I bought them from) is closed they cannot complete the warranty and can only give me a coupon. Sad day... I also lost my jumpdrive.

Present Day: My computer and laptop are both finally back up, I found my jumpdrive again, and my replacement speakers are in the mail. Wow... I do not want to repeat that again. However I do have ALOT of experience in dealing with many different tech support lines now. I guess thats a plus. So much for the bonus money I got in scholarships though.

Well I've got homework to do so I'll see you later.