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Maleficent Pony - Nightmare Night Contest

HollyIvyDesigns

Published: Oct 31, 2013

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Description

This is my contest entry for the Nightmare Night Contest by:

Whew! Making plushies on a deadline is super crazy hard! I pushed it right up to the last hour before the contest ended, but here she is!

Background: Why Maleficent?

A few weeks back at a party I was talking to one of my friends about sewing and she randomly had the idea that a pony styled after Maleficent would be really super cool. I totally agreed! I kept thinking about it and a few days later the contest was announced - I just knew this was the perfect time to try to make her.

Why does she look that way?

She has a combination of elements from both her human and dragon forms. First, she is a bat pony. Why? Because bat ponies are cool, of course! Okay that's not the real reason, but they are cool anyway. The real reason is because they have very similar wings to her dragon wings. She has her horns because human or dragon that's something she always has. Her eyes are more based on her human eyes than pony eyes, but I kept the bat pony pupil/iris style. Her cutie mark is her magic staff - I went with a whole body cutie mark to be swirly and magical and awesome feeling (and I even blinged it out to add "magic" sparkle!). All of the green swirls and swooshes from her cutie mark to her hair represent her magic and the green fire she is always making. There are purple spiked streaks in her mane and tail to match the ones she has when she is in dragon form. The inside of her wings are purple since her tummy is purple as a dragon.

Working on the pony: I knew this would be a big project because I didn't have an adult pony pattern that I liked anymore. I had been working on one for a while, but it just wasn't right yet. A few more drafts later and I finally had a pattern I was happy with! It was time to move onto phase two: designing the eye and cutie mark! This took a day or two all by itself, I kept changing my mind about the cutie mark and just how swirly it should be. Then I embroidered it all out (Twice on one part! There was a mishap with some loose fabric getting sucked under the embroidery hoop and it was bad - haha) and got to work sewing! I made the tail and mane patterns after her body was done and stuffed by holding up drawings to her. I think this was one of the most fun parts! It was neat getting to design hair that had no limitations, I could draw anything I wanted! Her hair took almost 2 days all by itself. Then I worked on all the bits that were left: ears, horns, wings. Plushie making on a deadline is crazy because there isn't really a way to speed it up. She has a certain number of things that need to get created so the only way to speed it up is to leave parts off which isn't really very helpful because they are all important things. The last few nights before the deadline I was starting to get really worried that I wasn't going to make it even though I was working really hard on her. My husband was super awesome supportive and picked up the cooking and cleaning while I was sewing away and he didn't even tease me too much when I stayed up half the night. In the end it was worth the effort it because I made it with only an hour to spare and I am so happy about it! Hooray!