Marnie

Marnie started as seperate sculpted limbs made of Sculpey polymer clay and tin foil. I carved a channel into the end of each piece, so that a wire could later be attached and hold the fabric in place against the clay.

Her paint job is based on a black-footed ferret, a wild member of the weasel family native to the USA and once considered extinct, now gravely endangered. I based the style of the fur after Corwin, since I wanted them to match.

After painting and a few coats of spray sealant, the limbs were ready to attach to the fabric. The arms are simple tubes, held in place at the wrists with wires as mentioned (plus some super glue). The excess wire forms the structure for the arm.

I re-did the pattern from Corwin's legs to clean up the shape, especially since she has longer sculpted ankles. The two sides of the legs are sewn at the base, then attached to the legs with wire, afterwards the rest of the edges can be hand-sewn up each side.

The arms are pre-stuffed, and the ends sandwiched between the two body pieces before they're sewn together.

Time to attach everything else. As you can (sort of) see, I started with the tail, inserting it into the back seam of the body and using the carved channel to tightly secure a length of wire. Next I attached the legs, sticking their wires through at the hips.

The head was attached in the same way as the tail, and with all the limbs in place I could finally twist all the wires together into the inner skeleton and sew it all up inside.

With that, the body was finished! She got a little bit of thread sculpting to define her waist, as well as along her elbows so they bend more easily in a specific spot.

Like Corwin, I planned on making her clothing as detailed and layered as possible. She is based on early Victorian era fashion, and I wanted to emphasize luxurious furs and beaded embroidery.

Bloomers

The bloomers were very simple, I widened Corwin's pants pattern and added elastic at the waist and hem. There's also a clasp above the tail.

Skirt layers

Yes, I wanted to make a realistic hoop skirt. I heavily researched how they were crafted, and landed on aluminum cans as a good material of choice that I could find on short notice. The cans were cut into wide strips, then folded into thirds so that neither edge was left sharp. There's a reson they don't recommend cutting into aluminum cans, but luckily I managed to avoid cutting myself before all the edges were cleaned up.

Next, I sewed a long strip of casing for the metal strips, and arranged them into concentric rings. Extra casing worked as the straps to hold the layers together, and after being pinned in placed and tested it was all hand-sewn.

The straps connect to a waistband, which would normally have some sort of lacing to keep it tight and support the weight, but because of the small scale I had to go with hook and eye clasps.

To round out the shape, she got a handful of layered petticoats.

The finished hoop skirt and layers:

Dress

I had originally planned on making her a matching skirt and bodice, but wasn't able to get the bodice sleeves to fit underneath her jacket.

I added wire to the bottom of the skirt, since at such a small scale the lightweight fabric wouldn't rest in the correct position. The stitched from the wire are hidden by black lace.

Jacket

She has a little black velour jacket with an ermine fur trim, lined with red velvet. It was patterened based on the previous unfinished bodice piece.

Bag

Her bag is based on real heavily decorated beaded bags at the time. It does open, and connects to a chain for her to wear over her shoulder. The beaded design is the same on both sides. I used an embroidery hoop to do the beadwork onto my fabric first, before sewing the two sides together and adding a lining inside. It also comes with a little ermine tail, and a large fur muff for her paws.