Plush Writeup - Meelo the Goat

I couldn't resist picking both Meelo and Fishbone, as their owners are friends and it would result in cute pictures together! I was interested in the challenges posed by Meelo's horns and hooves, as well as the chance to make those big ears!

There was no appropriate Shannon minky color for Meelo's main body color, so I ended up ordering some minky from Hopen Textiles on AliExpress. First time working with their minky! I still prefer Shannon as I find it easier to work with, but it was still nice and a good backup for hard to find colors.

Meelo would require a new face and hoof pattern. I also wanted to add faux fur details for the tail, on the limbs, and above his hooves.

The first step was to pattern his hooves, as I needed to figure out all the color transitions before doing the applique for his body.

​Rather than pattern them myself, I used demi_creations' cloven hoof pattern, which can be found here. The main adjustment was to lengthen the hooves. 

First attempt with hooves too short

2nd version with appropriate length hooves

I originally planned on having a layer of white minky and then a layer of faux fur over the hooves, but I decided to essentially applique on faux fur over the minky leg base where the minky was originally planned to start. In the past I had tried to do a minky to faux fur transition by color blocking it in, but the transition was too bulky and looked too much like a fur boot. But appliqueing on the fur it helped have a smoother transition from minky to fur!

My client also had a smart idea to add a layer of brown fur above the white which I really liked. This was just another thin layer of fur that was topstitched onto the white fur.

Since the rest of the body didn't require any major patterning, I went ahead and finished up the applique.

Not as many details as a lot of the plush I make, but every pattern piece still needed to be run through the embroidery machine.

Meelo's elbows  needed fur as well. I started with running fur all the way down from the elbow to the wrist, but we decided just to concentrate it around the elbow in the end with a nice triangular shape.

​The back of his legs got a little fur detail as well!

Time to sew it all together!

Meelo would also get magnets in his hands (and eventually plastic armature as well). I used him to record a tutorial on installing magnets in plush which you can view here.

I made his fluffy tail all out of faux fur. There were 4 different colors involved, and it ended up getting a bit bulky on the inside. So I had to hand sew the pattern pieces together, but went over it several times for stability!

Meelo's body all sewn together with his tail pinned on! Still needed some cleaning like trimming the fur around his hooves, sewing the tail on, and adding the dew claws.

I also used demi_creation's technique for the dew claws. A small cut is made in the fur, the minky dew claws are pushed through it, and then they are hand sewn into the fur.

Onto the head next!

Meelo's head was pretty similar to previous ones I made for Audi and Gabe, so I used it as a starting point. The hair here was much too large and needed to be slimmed down significantly to be able to fit in his horns and ears.

I decided to try making ridged horns for Meelo! They are made with a simple base horn with strips of minky sewn into the seam allowance. It was very tricky due to lining up straight pieces of minky over a curved shape as well as the amount of bulk each piece added.

The first strip of minky being pinned to the base horn

This test horn was too tall, so the final one would be shortened.

His ears were very simple patterning. They would be sewn into the seam where the horn attaches to the head. My test ear had some quilt batting in it, which made it too stiff for my liking. I wanted them to be nice and floppy like a real goat's ear! So I ended up not putting any into the final ear.

Once again I tried some gradients - I used a similar method to Tidbit's, using a satin stitch with a connecting color in between.

Meelo has a light pink area around his nose and mouth, so I decided to add a subtle gradient using permanent fabric markers. I would gently draw on top of the minky and then use my finger to rub it into the fabric so the lines weren't streaky.

It really doesn't like to show up on camera, but you can kind of see it here!

Meelo's nose is flat so we just did applique for that piece rather than something 3D!

All the applique and embroidery for Meelo's head!

And his head all sewn together. I love his big floppy ears!

Meelo FLOP!

This was the first time I put plastic armature in one of my standard anthro plush. Since the seam where the arm joints to the body is much slimmer than my muscular pattern, which is the only other one I've done it on, Meelo had much more range of movement that I was very happy with!

​Meelo got a couple outfits. The first was a zip-up galaxy hoodie!
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This was relatively straightforward as I've made a few hoodies by now. My client wanted some pockets, so I added those to the front. I love the star over his heart!

Next up was... a kigurumi! I was thrilled to get this request!

The character is another one of my client's characters. I started by patterning the kigurumi in random fleece fabric that I had. It came out so cute even as a test, I decided to gift it to Meelo's owner anyway!

Cute little face!

The pieces coming together! I finally got some needles that are good with fleece, so it wasn't a nightmare to sew as it has been in the past. I did end up using a serger to finish the seams, so it's nice and secure.

I had a blast making the kigurumi and I hope I get to make more in the future!

With Meelo's armature and kigurumi... I couldn't resist making a little JAMMIES gif! (Because Twitch emotes live rent-free in my mind at all times)

You can watch a timelapse of sewing him here:
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