Needle felting animal friends

above "critter' was voted the favorite of my new animals by the 3 members of my household....(my cats refused to vote on the grounds that "they" are obviously cutest) . I'm not sure exactly what that allusive "something" is that makes certain felt animals appeal to me and certainly don't know what appeals to others but I think it would be interesting to have a "favorite off" and give away when(if???), I get my new Etsy store opened .(Posing on the dogs head is an unfinished miniature that is waiting for his eyes . )

Above is about the cutest real animal that I have ever seen . I am still working up the nerve to try again to make a sea otter but the babies just seem like a pile of floppy fluff....harder to sculpt then you might imagine .

Below is also from my favorite site of cuteness....Baby Zoo animals....This is my new source for animal pictures which my sculptures do not resemble but are certainly inspired by .

Play Time for Polar Bear Baby

The one I found most difficult was the polar bear, (click the above link if you want to see what a real polar bear looks like)..... which took several reworkings and still doesn't look like a polar bear in about 10 different ways . Perhaps I will try another polar bear now that I have some pictures to look at instead of just trying to "remember" .

I had fun mixing merino and alpaca in my latest animals and think that blending works better then either on their own . Hard to see in these pictures but the natural colored alpaca does add some interesting contrast to the flatter effect of the dyed merino .

The Polar bear is pure white merino and it seems that the white shows the poke holes more and the sculptural detail less . I also found out that even putting the animal eyes in at a few millimeter at the wrong angle can be a huge deal and not to easy to fix . Lessons learned .