Let me walk you through the project. It is made from one piece of sipo mahogany and the inlay is made from maple. The box itself is not made from boards but from one massive block of wood which i hollowed out. It got two lids. To open the box the upper lid must be slide away it locks the bottom lid with a dovetail inspired cut, the bottom lid then can be pushed backward (locked in place with a half blind dovetail at the end of the box) and turned to the side. This mechanism makes the box very save, it will not open unless you want to and i find this method very interesting. The lids are attached with a screw, i thought about covering it up with another inlay, but i find it blends in very well, and even adds to the overall charm, the box is finished with super blond shellac. The inlay is called a fleur de lis. Hope you like it.
Mom helped me with some origami. She made the lily flower and I tried to make the frog, but it was too hard, and she had to help me finish it. I made the pond and the lillies and stones in it, and designed it all.
I looked for a kitting pattern for a Meerkat but only found a crochet one so had to adapt it. It was harder as I got down to his legs and I had to wing most of it.Progress knitting his head here and finishing off his tummy, stuffing as I go along here A huge thanks to Meerkat for the loan of his Worthian name which inspired me for this contest.For a close up shot of his head look here - I was at the local park taking some outdoor photos of the meerkat toy and a little tot came up and started patting him, she thought he was real :-)
Dalmation
I've cropped and removed some disturbing elements from the background of the original photos , here you can find my inspiration and first modelsThanks to morporkian for critique and tips
Alternative view
This was way too much fun to make. The original Super Mario Bros. is one of only 2 video games I actually played... myself... to the end... The other was the original Legend of Zelda. Then they all went and got too fancy for me. LOLI made this completely out of clay and wire. I'm actually not sure which was harder... making all the pieces or assembling it! I grossly underestimated the weight of all the pieces when they were put together and I ended up having to super glue a lot of the posts back in to most of the pieces. The little blue separators were a huge pain to make, especially when I was assembling it and realized I was 1 short! The entire piece is over 3 feet long. If you zoom, you'll be able to see more detail. I guess there's a height limit on the photos lol.
Phew! This took SO much longer than I thought! Drawing little quilting patterns SOUNDED like a good idea.. Luigi is taller than Mario and that was an interesting twist. I think I cut out and put together about 10 of these before I settled on these two. :)Here is an alternate view so you can see all the tiny tiny tiny little triangles:http://rookery9.aviary.com.s3.amazonaws.com/7940500/7940938_1f68.jpg Here's another alternate whre I'm having too much fun with their removable hats:http://rookery9.aviary.com.s3.amazonaws.com/7940500/7940943_aff3.jpg Hope you like them as much as I do!