Crowned Crane progress, part 2: Building the Body

I've made some progress on my trio of crowned cranes since my last blog post on Feb. 3, 2019, about making legs. With the legs done, I now turn my attention to making the bodies. Continue reading to follow along.

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First I drew the pattern. I started by looking online for a side view of the bird, and then traced the outline. I then made oval gussets to widen the back, head, and belly.

Here's the bird after all the pieces have been sewn together. I left an opening in the underbelly for stuffing.

I stuffed the bird with polyester fiber fill.

These are the finished legs from my previous blog.

I spread some white glue on the tops of the legs, and jammed them into the body.

After the glue dried, I stitched up the opening by hand.

For extra support, I added a wire exoskeleton.

The beak was made from a pair of triangle fabric pieces, which I stitched together, stuffed, and sewed to the head.

I shaped the mouth and nostrils with hand-stitching

Above are the three birds in progress.

I then painted the beaks with metallic platinum-colored acrylic paint.

I used a black marking pen to shade the mouth and nostrils.

Finally, I covered the wires with strips of fabric glued in place with Mod Podge Matte, one of my favorite products. It's like working with paper mache, but with cloth instead of paper.
The bodies are now complete, and ready for their feathers, which I'll describe in my next post.

​More on making the crowned crane
​Crowned crane, getting started
​Crowned crane, Part 1: Making legs
Crowned crane, Part 2: Building the body
Crowned crane, Part 3: Feathers
Crowned crane, Part 4: Neck and shoulders
Crowned crane, Part 5: The dreaded crown
Crowned crane, Part 6: Finishing touches

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