This sweet pup above belongs to one of our collectors who recently commissioned a soft sculpture look-alike. We had never made a Tervuren before, so we set about researching the breed shape and drawing up some pattern pieces to work with.
I had imported some long pile honey mohair that I thought might give me a good starting point, but when it arrived it was curly! I needed straight. This was a slight set back, but nothing a good brushing out and careful pattern placement couldn't fix.
We decided to try for a standing up design with the head facing forward. This meant we only needed a single joint in the neck. The biggest challenge was getting the long, fine nose without making her look like a cartoon character. I don't think we got it quite right, but close enough to still be cute.
To give the true Tervuren look, she then needed a lot of trimming and shading. This alone took most of the afternoon today, and many many layers of colour until we got a depth of black that seemed close enough to real. I would have preferred to get the colour darker, especially on the muzzle, but there are always limitations with materials when making realistic critters!
Then finally we had this beautiful lady looking back at us. Her new family have named her Tammy, and she will be on her way to them early this coming week.
