Felting for Character Design

Idea

For my final project for Soft Fabrication, I wanted to combine one of the skills we learned in class, felting, with an area of design that I have always been interested in but struggled to make headway in, that area being character design. As someone who isn't the most skilled with a pencil in their hands, the field of character design has always seemed somewhat inaccessible to me because I lacked the ability to visualize the ideas for characters that I had in my head. This caused me to begin looking for alternative ways to design characters. Because of the flexibility of felting as well as the fact that it can look good at low fidelity, it seemed like it might be the perfect medium to try to realize a original character in.

Fundamentals Learning

The first step to trying to use felting as a tool for character design was to actually begin to learn and understand how to shape the material and how it responds to different techniques. In order to do this I decided to felt some simple geometric solids. I started with a sphere which helped me learn how to close up any gaps that appeared in the felt as well as get a feel for how quickly the density of the felt would change as you continued to work it. Next I progressed to a cube. The biggest takeaway from creating this shape was that I began to learn how to shape the felt with more intent and helped me be able to create a very specific form at a reasonable fidelity. Lastly was the cone, which helped learn how to create shapes by gradually adding more and more wool felt as a felted. Bellow are the samples.

Process

After gaining some experience working with the medium, I decided to attempt to create an original character using felting. First, I went to Ideate to pick up some felt for the project. Because a large about of the felt that was available was green or brown, I decided to let these colors drive the color palette for the character. This color palette lead me to want to create something that took some ques from plants/vines. This idea showed up strongest in the characters arms as I decided to make them reminiscent of intertwining vines. I also knew that I wanted the head to be almost mask like. With only those points I began felting, slowly molding the character into existence. I started by making the arm pieces, then I began work on the head, then the body which was comprised of three parts. Lastly, I experimented with the facial features until I had something I liked. This character was the final result.

Final Product

This final character design I feel like accurately captures a character that I was able to imagine in my head but was unable to produce through other mediums. To me, this showed both the strength and validity of felting as a 3D "sketching" medium.

Next Step

There are three things I would like to do moving forward with this project. The first is to simply clean up this character model. unlike the wool that I was using for the shapes, the wool for the character to maintain long strands on its surface even when it was relatively well worked with the felting needle. I have researched several ways to do this which range anywhere using a smaller felting needle to trimming the excess fibers with scissors to actually shaving it with a razor. this will definitely be my next step in my process. The second thing I would like to do is to create another character/creature in the same style as this one and see if I am able to continue generating character ideas while felting or if this was a unique circumstance. This is what will put this method of character sketching to the test. Lastly, I want to see what the character looks like translated into another medium. I am planning on doing some animated sprite work to attempt to begin giving the character life outside of the felted model.