Horse prop WIP

So in the 2017 triathlon's second round we were required to make a prop for our doll.
I had made a pose-able horse (unicorn) prop for my girl and there was some interest as to how I had made it, so I'm making this thread ^^



I'll be posting this over a few days, as it feels stressful to post it all at once ^^;
This 1st post is for the intro stuff and from post 2 I'll start with the process.

I had a difficult time originally deciding on how to make it and I had suddenly remembered this dress form tutorial that I had used before /threads/how-to-making-a-dress-form-dummy-for-a-doll-you-dont-own.589586/
When I used it, instead of newspaper I had used cardboard to build up the volume as I didn't have newspaper, and thus I decided to used cardboard for my horse.

My horse is approximately 1/4 scale and stands 50 cm tall (ears) and 40 cm (wither). Since cardboard is pretty lightweight, I'm sure it can be used for any scale ^^

Materials used:
Cardboard
Wire and Skewer sticks
Beads
Clay (Pottery clay and lightweight air dry clay)
White fluffy fabric
Yarn
Paint (black, brown, white, gloss)
Fabric scraps and gauze



Unfortunately I did not take pictures of the saddle and bridle process I won't go over it unless someone wants me to. And while I might have taken some pictures of the process (due to paranoia), I don't have pictures for all my steps and the pictures are not of the best quality sorry.
The process also requires some sculpting

I hope everyone enjoys this thread, and if there's anyone who uses this process, I'd totally love to see it

 

First step was figuring out the size I wanted the horse to be and what I wanted it to look like.
I wanted to use an Arabian horse body type (since they're fast), so I looked up some pictures as well as the average height.
I used this picture as my side reference
(yes, it's from a game mod)
And the average height I had used was 4.8 ft or 1.46m, which I divided by my scale(My girl is at a 1/3.75 scale) to get 39cm. For those who don't know, horses are measured to their whither (shoulder), so this measurement is for that ^^ .

So after I did some acrobatics in Microsoft word, I printed out my horse and stuck it together, and put my girl next to it to decide if I liked the size.

Spoiler: What I did for those interested

I cropped the image height so that it was from the whither to the hooves and scaled that to 39cm in the image properties/options. After going back to the image properties I could see how much the image was scaled up (%). I scaled up the full image to this size and divided it between the papers to
get the whole image.

001 by Lidia Kruger, on Flickr
At this time I thought that I might be in over my head because it was pretty big (photos sadly do not do show the size).

After this I looked up some references, mainly for the front, back, top, legs and face/head. The top view would help me grasp the thickness of the parts, while the front and back view showed me the
positioning of certain parts like the legs, tail, shoulders,neck muscles, etc. The head/face was naturally for when I would sculpt the face, I used my Mom's favorite horse's face as reference. The top view was also printed out to the right size.

I used a pencil to draw the different parts on the printed out side view. The parts were: the head, torso, neck, front legs and hind legs.
The legs of which were later cut into smaller pieces, as I had cut openings in them where the joints of the legs would be. Hopefully the later photos will be able to show what I mean ^^;
I also marked where I would want the skewer sticks to go, the skewer sticks would be the main posing part of the horse.

I had then cut some wire, 4 pieces for the legs and 1 piece for the torso. The pieces for the legs don't need to go through the whole leg, as we want the wire for the posing. The wire should be thick and sturdy, but should be able to bend, I made the mistake of using wire that's difficult to bend, so I sometimes struggle to bend the legs XP The wire for the torso should span most of the torso, as well as the neck and most of the head, I bent the wire into a shape following these three parts (basically an s-shape).

This is all for now, will start with the important stuff in a later post ^^
If anything is unclear, please ask.

 

@Teleri thank you very much I really appreciate it and hope you enjoy this project journal.
@BirdieBurrito thanks Hope you'll be able to use it ^^ I'd love to see if you do.

Continuing further, I cut the cardboard into the shapes I mentioned previously by tracing the shapes onto the cardboard (it's a good idea to keep the shapes on a separate piece of paper as well, lest you forget how exactly you drew the shape in the 1st place), for now, 4 torso pieces, 4 hind leg pieces and 4 front leg pieces, but cut as you go/as you need it.
I used a retractable knife for most of the cutting, but scissors for the smaller cutting work, since it's a bit difficult with the knife.

Here's a warning, the scissors might be faster, but you'll bruise your hands, I used the scissors pretty moderately, but still ended up with bruised hands at the end. But the thickness of the cardboard may affect that as well.

Taking 2 of each piece (in pairs for the legs) glue the wire in between the pieces, remember to glue them in a place that wont end up being in the way of the skewer ^^

The glue I used for this step is called No More Nails, and is pretty much a strong all purpose glue. For gluing the wire between the pieces, make sure to use a really strong glue that will actually stick to the wire (most glues I have don't want to stick to wire, or at least peel off too easily).

Unfortunately for me, I was in a hurry and forgot the openings at the joints before I glued, now it became difficult to cut the openings afterwards, as the wire was in the way

After the glue was mostly dry, I matched up the position of the legs on the torso and jabbed the skewer through the legs first, and then the torso. I also poked holes into the other cardboard pieces in the correct places (remember to do it for the rest as well, as I won't specifically mention it again).
After gluing the next two pieces of cardboard on the torso (one on each side) with wood glue (I used wood glue most of the time for the cardboard gluing), making sure they match up using the holes, and letting it dry, I put it together for a quick look.

While waiting for the glue to dry, I had cut out the pieces out of one of the legs. I ended up closing up the bottom joints later, as it resulted in a stability issue that I didn't really have time to fix, I'll definitely fix that during the next attempt ^^
Also, I cut a lot of pieces while waiting for glue to dry.

You can see 2 of the neck pieces that were cut out at the bottom of the picture. Doesn't look like a horse yet ^^;
002 by Lidia Kruger, on Flickr
In the picture below you can see the top view that I had printed out. Using the approximate thickness of the cardboard torso pieces that were glued together, I measured and compared to the top view image to determine approximately how many layers there would be needed for each section on the horse's body, and when I would need to start worrying about altering the shapes I cut out. I wrote it down on the printout.

With the thickness of the cardboard I was using I had approximated that I would need to use at least 12layers of the torso piece before I can start altering it's shape to fit the leg pieces. The hind legs each would approximately need 12 pieces in total and the front legs about 9 pieces in total (excluding the muscle bits that would be just above the leg joint I had made, as it will be part of the torso in the end.
The stomach at it's widest point would need about 10 more layers on each side added to the already determined 12 layers. And the neck would need about 8-9 layers.
These were just approximations though, which some had changed a bit.

So I started building up the thickness of all the parts, the image below showing specifically the hind legs (as well as a pattern for the front legs).
003 by Lidia Kruger, on Flickr
After working a bit and gluing pieces together, I felt proud and put it together again and compared it to my girl. Every now and then I had used some masking tape to hold pieces together while the glue dried, while most off the time I placed everything under heavy objects.
After achieving the thickness I wanted for the torso (14 pieces of cardboard) and both legs were at about 5 layers of cardboard, I ended my work for the 1st day. After this point I would have to start modifying the torso (making space for the legs and rounding the stomach) and leg parts (rounding off) to achieve the look I want.

004 by Lidia Kruger, on Flickr
Who can guess the company of the box in the background?

A hint for building volume with less cardboard: When I didn't need the structural stability of the cardboard, I had used smaller pieces of cardboard to create an outline as well as a few pieces between to create a layer without using a full piece of cardboard, kind of like a roof supported by pillars, the smaller pieces acting as the pillars and the next piece of cardboard acting as a roof, so I got the volume without the work, I 'cheated' 4 layers with this method.

Please ask if something is difficult to understand ^^;
To be continued....

 

The next morning I had glued the two neck pieces that I had cut out to each side of the wire. Unfortunately for me, I had not thought that much of the neck pose ability, which resulted in very limited neck pose ability. The neck and head could only move to the sides, but not up and down, as I had made the neck too large at the edges, so please note this if it would be a problem for you ^^.

005 by Lidia Kruger, on Flickr
Featuring my doll desk in the background.

So following from the above picture came the more complicated stuff. For this part it's better to have as many references as possible to use, and needs a bit of 3d perception. I wish I had photos of in between steps, sorry.
First we alter the main torso pattern to exclude the ares where the legs go, so that from this point on, the mass would be built up around the legs on the torso part. Also after each subsequent layer, the size of the torso piece becomes smaller, staying more or less the same at the leg and neck parts.

After about 6 or 7 layers (don't remember), I started using more oval shapes to shape the belly/rib part of the torso. Since I was doing an Arabian horse, I had kept the volume more towards the front, (Arabian horses have less ribs than other horses, and I wanted a horse more focused on speed), many horses (or at least my mom's, they are well fed) would have the weight towards the center of the torso instead.

Before the last 2 layers of the belly, I started adding the muscle to the front leg where it meets the body. When I altered the torso pattern for the legs, I had left a big space for the front leg to move around (as I wanted to be able to do something like a dressage pose :P). So now when adding the muscle, I would be covering the top part of the front leg and thus covering the hole left for the posing (front view of this doesn't matter that much, since it would be covered with fabric at a later time). For these shapes I used ovals/circles with a chunk cut out (like a pizza slice), the place where the tip of the 'slice' would be would correspond to where the skewer was in the leg (hopefully understandable when looking at the picture below).
I then finished off the torso.

For the legs I had used pretty much the same concepts as before by decreasing the size/width of the leg pieces until I was happy.
But remember, you have to do this on both the insides of the legs as well as the outsides. I don't remember exactly how many layers were used for the lower portions of the legs unfortunately, but for the upper hind legs, I had added 5 or 6 layers on the outside and about 4 layers on the inside of the legs, and for the upper front legs, I added 4 or 5 on the outside and 3 or 4 on the inside.

Remember when cutting the cardboard for the inside of the legs, to make sure that it will not interfere with the torso and end up limiting the pose ability of the legs.
I had taped the lower parts of the legs to see if they were rounded enough to my liking (as it can be difficult to see with just the cardboard).
Also, it would be a good idea to test if your doll can sit on it at this point.
006 by Lidia Kruger, on Flickr
I put it on the floor to stand and the dogs were highly offended by this thing that was bigger than them. But it's starting to look like a horse!

Same as before, I started bulking up the neck, a few pieces of the same size, then pieces that were smaller until the desired look/thickness was achieved.(Also remembering the shape of some of the more obvious muscles).
I also cut 2 rectangles and glued the last bit of wire that stuck out between them, and then cut out 2 outlines of the face/head shape (excluding ears/hair) and glued them onto the rectangles after the glue had dried. the tops of the head shape and the front(nose) were glued together to create a triangular shape between the pieces. Pictured are some clothesline pins clamping the head pieces together.

After that was dry, I took some lightweight clay and filled the hole between the head pieces and smoothed out the bottom.
I also took some pottery clay to make the hooves, why pottery clay? because it's heavy and sturdy (and I have a huge pile of it), thus making it easier for the horse to stand. Just remember that pottery clay is dusty and will loose grip once dry, so after it dries, use glue to secure it (I used hot glue).
007 by Lidia Kruger, on Flickr
We're now pretty much done with the cardboard part of the horse ^^

To be continued again......
Hope everyone's enjoying the process so far please ask if anything is difficult to understand

 

The next step of the process was to support the wires at the joints (and add the volume without limiting the pose ability), I had applied the concept that SCS SugarCharmShop uses for her pose able dolls. So I had taken some of the gauze swabs and fabric scraps to wrap tightly around the joints and glue them in place. First were the joints on the legs (including the 'closed off'/bottom joints).
008 by Lidia Kruger, on Flickr
Super bad quality photo ^^;

Then the joint between the neck and torso, and finally the joint between the neck and head.
I then wrapped some of the gauze swabs around the neck and torso and glued them in place. This is so I can close the gap between the neck and torso and get rid of any lumpy or uneven places.
009 by Lidia Kruger, on Flickr
I used the fabric scraps as stuffing to close the gaps (mainly in the neck area). After wrapping the gauze tightly, it was easier to see where there were problem areas (uneven and bumpy spaces) were, which as said before I filled in/smoothed out with the fabric scraps.

I then glued some aluminum foil to the head to act as some volume so as to not need too much clay for the face/head. Try to make holes for the nostrils and eyes at this point, I had forgotten and it ended up a bit difficult to do so while the clay was on the head.
Most of the volume of the foil should be toward the back of the head though, but also plan ahead for the features you want for your horse.
010 by Lidia Kruger, on Flickr
This looks so weird XD

Next up is the hardest part (for most people), the sculpting.

I used two wooden beads for the eyes and a lightweight air dry clay (called iClay) for the sculpting, mainly because I was wary of using a heavy clay for the head as it may cause some balance issues.

Unfortunately for me, my air dry clay was pretty much already dry, so I had softened it up again by soaking it in water for a few days, it worked, but was partially a gooey mess and difficult to use, but still usable, I had to just after a certain point bombard the thing with some baby powder/talcum powder to smooth everything out (and to touch it without accidentally removing clay). I had originally wanted to sculpt the same face as my mom's favorite horse, but the gooeyness of the clay made it nearly impossible, they are similar though :P.

I'll try my best to explain the sculpting process, but here is a video of SCS sculpting a unicorn out of polymer clay which hopefully should help if I don't explain too well ^^
You can use your scaled printout to act as a guide for what goes where. Remember your references!!

So I added my clay onto the head and spread it around on the side I was working on, you can add more clay as you go, but it's a bit more difficult to remove some if there's too much in this case. Also, don't worry too much about certain details and small lumps, as it will be covered when we add the flocking. Remember to view your work from different angles to make sure to get the placements of everything right.

I distribute the clay mainly towards 3 places; the nose, cheek and eye area. I then try placing the nostril and mouth and smooth out between the clay and cardboard in the front, as well as the nose area and the rest of the head (middle part of head where there is less clay). I then smooth out the face and differentiate some muscles before moving to the cheek.
After rounding off the cheek (It was a bit difficult for me to do the cheeks in one go, as it needs quite a bit of volume), I move to the eye area and put the bead in for the eye, paying careful attention to the placement (from the front and top view as well). And I smoothed the clay over the edges of the cardboard.

After placing the bead, I work the clay around the eye to make the eyelids and the muscle bits that go to the top part of the head (brain part). After working around a bit more and getting everything in the correct places I use the previously mentioned powder as the gooeyness was too much to smooth out everything properly. After the powder, everything could be smoothed out as much as I wanted it to (remember small flaws will not affect it unless you plan to only paint it).
Constantly going back and reworking is your friend, I took 2-3 hours on this side alone (with sculpting experience), so yes, it will take a while, just be patient

I then let it dry in a sunny corner in my room.
(If you want more detail, please ask, I might be able to come up with a picture or something that explains what better I did since I don't have in between photos - gooey hands and all ^^
011 by Lidia Kruger, on Flickr

 

@rolopuppet thank you very much It would definitely be a lot less work intensive, but might be a bit more difficult to get some detail in (if that's what you want anyway) Hope you'll be able to use it.

@Angelesk Thank you very much, I really appreciate it ^^ Our props were required to be made from scratch (no decorating an existing item) so that's what I did XP I'm glad you think so, and I hope you enjoy the rest as well.

 

Continued....
Meanwhile while waiting for the clay to dry, I started on my yarn wefts and flocking powder.
The wefts are pretty basic/easy to do and tutorials can be found on YouTube.

I basically tested the possible length of the yarn (so as to not waste too much) and then cut the yarn a bit more that twice the possible length. My yarn was quite thick, and I used 14 groups of 4-5 strands to make my weft. I tied the yarn (in groups of 4-5 strands) at the center of the piece to a strong wire and unraveled the yarn.
I then used a wire pet brush to brush out the yarn, keeping the waste. I have yet to find a suitable surface to do this on, so I suggest experimenting until you find something to your liking, I had wrapped my fingers in tape to protect them, as I used my fingers as support.
After brushing the yarn, I used a hair straightener to straighten the yarn, but I've heard a clothing iron can work for this as well.
I then taped some cling film/cling wrap to a piece of cardboard and spread some fabric glue in a line on it. I cut off the yarn pieces and one by one spread the cut edge in the glue, saturating it, making sure all the fibers have glue. When the glue has dried you brush out the excess fibers and cut off the extra glue and you have your weft/s.

For the flocking powder, I had taken the waste from the wefts and cut it into very tiny pieces, it's a very time consuming and boring process. Try to cut them as small as you can, in the end I had a small bowl full of the flocking powder, which was just enough to finish my horse.

The yarn wefts were basically only for the mane, as the brushed out yarn was way too short for the tail (unless I did the hair up in a dressage style or something). I used the yarn to measure the length I wanted the tail to have and cut many pieces until I had enough to be satisfied for the tail's thickness. I unraveled all the pieces and would later glue them in place.

Weft in the background.
012 by Lidia Kruger, on Flickr
After the one side had dried, I moved to the other side of the face, doing the same as before, but checking all angles even more frequently to see if the placement matches up to the other side of the head. The placement of the 2nd eye in the picture does indeed look a bit skew, but it is actually due to not having enough clay to completely flesh out the 2nd side.
013 by Lidia Kruger, on Flickr
After letting the 2nd side dry I once again added more clay (this time it was a less gooey white clay of the same type and brand that I had used before, I just had too little of it for the whole thing to use instead of the yellow).
The newly added clay was used to build up some places (the cheeks, the cranium, some parts of the nose, the 2nd side of the face where there was too little clay before,etc.) and smooth out some others (nostrils, lips, front of face/nose).
With this I finished up the clay part.
014 by Lidia Kruger, on Flickr
While I waited for the last clay to dry, I had painted the hooves with some black PVA pant (3 layers) and then went over them with some gloss modge podge(3 layers). Mainly to protect the paint from chipping/peeling.

After everything was dry, I put it together to see what it looks like. Looking more or less like a horse now
015 by Lidia Kruger, on Flickr
Fun to note, our dogs (Toy Pomeranians) are extremely disgusted with the horse (maybe because it's bigger than them) but they really don't like it.

For the next part, I start with the fabric.
So to be continued......

 

I had then put out my fabric on my bed(It was something like fleece, a lot thinner, but still very soft) for the next step, but I left my room for a few minutes, when I had returned, I was met with quite a bit of resistance He looks so happy
016 by Lidia Kruger, on Flickr
So for the fabric I cut pieces for each leg, the neck, torso and a piece that wraps around torso (a long thin piece from the middle of the back to the place where the neck starts).

So first I had decided where I wanted the seams to be, as I started with the legs, I wanted the seams in the back of the legs (which one would see the least of the entire horse). So I took the one front leg and wrapped the fabric around the leg, having them meet at the back of the leg where I wanted the seam to be, and I then pinned the fabric together as tightly around the leg as I could, straightening out any folds. I had then cut the fabric around the leg (where the pins were I cut as close to them as possible. As for the parts of the legs where they meet the body, it's not important for the fabric to cover the whole thing, unless it would allow the cardboard to be seen, I only had enough fabric to go a bit over the edges.

I unpinned my fabric and cut it smooth, flipped it and cut another shape (in the opposite direction) for the other leg. And I repeated the whole process with the hind legs, it takes a bit more fiddling, as the leg is not as straight as the front leg.

Now I had to glue the fabric to the legs. I used hot glue as it really sticks to fabric and dries quickly.
I put the leg with the hooves facing towards me and the side where the seam would be towards me. I put a small line of glue on the edge where the flat part (that meets the body) ends and placed the fabric's edge on it to glue it in place, I continued like that adding a bit of glue, then gluing the fabric until I reached where I wanted it to end on the hoof. Then wrapping the fabric tightly around the leg, I glue the other edge of the fabric to the leg (cut off any excess) until I reached where I started.

The fabric was then pulled tightly towards the edge of the cardboard where the legs would meet the body and was glued in place, with the excess cut away from the folds that had formed. I then trim the fabric around the hoof like I want it.


Next I once again run the skewer through the fabric (from the outside of the leg to the inside, so that the fabric doesn't stretch).
I also make a cap for the skewer (the cap will be hidden by the flocking powder later). I run a piece of paper through the skewer to almost at the flat end (1-2mm from the end) and seal the paper and skewer tip with glue from the hot glue gun. The same method will later be used again to seal off the other edge of the skewer when the parts are put together (the excess skewer will be cut off).
017 by Lidia Kruger, on Flickr
The next piece I cut and glue was the long thin piece starting from the middle of the back, going around the body and ending where the neck would start (which is the length, with the width being the width of the torso between the legs ie. the 14 pieces of cardboard, but a bit bigger so the fabric can go over the edges).

Next was the neck piece, folding the fabric over the top of the neck and pinning it at the bottom of the neck, continuing as before with the legs. This resulted in the seam being in the front, but it would have been better to have the seam at the back of the neck as the mane would have covered it
I put a line if glue on the back of the neck and placed the center of the fabric on it to glue it in place, I put some glue on the side of the neck so that I could show the 'indent' caused by one of the neck muscles, then glued it in place at the bottom of the neck same as before and cutting away any excess. I also glued in place the part between the neck and head to secure it.

Then finally, I did the torso, same as before with the cutting and gluing, although the front leg holes required some fiddling around to get it as I wanted it. I wanted the seam on the belly, so i folded the fabric over the back and pinned it at the belly and at the chest. The border at the neck side was approximately where the original cardboard had ended, and at the posterior side it ended about in the middle of the thigh.
When gluing I started at the chest and glued in place, then went to the belly area behind the front legs before gluing the fabric at the leg holes in place. I then did the part on the back before moving to the rest of the belly and then the pieces that were at the leg holes.
(I anyone is interested in how the seams look in the end, I can take photos).
I then put the horse together and made the caps for the legs, remember to press the legs and body tightly together so that they will not be loose.
018 by Lidia Kruger, on Flickr
After this I had painted the head white and painted the eyes.

Next up: flocking.
So to do this, you add a small area of glue to the place you are going to flock, add the flocking powder pressing it into the glue. After which you let the glue dry, and after it has dried you remove the excess flocking powder and start on a new area. Areas can be flocked more than once, and usually tacky glue is used. I used hot glue again, as I was running a bit short on time
Some of my flocking pieces were also a bit big so I cut it off as close to my horses' head as possible.

So the things I had flocked were: the head (excluding eyes obviously), the caps on the legs, and the seams (yes the fabric seams, some seams were just too much of an eyesore, so glued some flocking powder on to hide them).

Next I cut out the ears (a shape like a rounded diamond with a flat bottom) and glued it onto the head. Make sure you glue it onto the right place, I almost made that mistake. I then flocked the inside of the ears and around the ear seams as well ^^;

I finished off the eyes and glossed them before I moved on to shading.
The shading can sometimes really bring something to life. I used VERY watered down paint to do the shading as I could not reach my pastels. The shading was concentrated mostly around the nose, mouth, eyes and some muscle details.

Finally it was time to add the hair. I simply glued the weft onto the neck and head and flipped it over to the other side and used some heat to keep it that side.
019 by Lidia Kruger, on Flickr
See my small looking hand XD

Then for the tail, I had gathered together all the yarn from before and glued them together and then glued them to the horse where I wanted it with hot glue.

So now, the horse is done now you can test it with your doll yay!
020 by Lidia Kruger, on Flickr
So as seen before, I also made some armor, a saddle and bridle for my horse. I don't have any in progress pictures of it, so unless someone wants me to explain how I did it, I won't put it here (it's simple enough I guess).
021 by Lidia Kruger, on Flickr
I hope you enjoyed this process with me If anything is unclear/confusing please ask.
And I'd love to see if anyone tries this


Something like this would probably have been a better final entry XD

 

I completely forgot to reply to everyone
I honestly appreciate all the comments


@Lunar Bird thank you very much what you said really means a lot to me, I had keep thinking that I should have a backup plan that I'd be able to do if I couldn't finish. But I'm really happy that I managed it in the end

@kurogane thank you I hope you try it, it's fun.

@Star_Dust Thank you

@Ipledreamer Thank you. Haha, you need to figure out the wings though

@wanderingstar Thank you for the compliment
I had a cardboard box in my room that was collecting dust for a few years, so now that I think about it, it is pretty much recycling

 

Thank you very much for the compliments

 

Thank you very much I'm glad you enjoyed it ^^

 

Sorry it seems that they aren't working now, I'll have to replace them. But for now, all the photos are here and in order Log into Facebook | Facebook

 

Pleasure. I hope that you find it useful X)

 

Pictures have been updated. please let me know if you can't see them

 

@wanderingstar Thank you I spent a long time thinking of the materials, so im happy it turned out well.

@rolopuppet thanks I'm looking forward to it as well when I get there eventually.

 

Thank you I'm glad you enjoyed reading it. I actually had originally written 'to victory' on that last pic, but removed it
Definite moral support (When he's not in the way).
Thank you very much, it really means a lot that this project is appreciated.

 

Thank you ❤

 

Thank you very much❤