Remember all the stuffed animals I made last year? The ones designed by Amy D. Preckshot? Well, I decided to design my own. And I really wanted to make a sheep!
I started with pictures of sheep through a Google image search and found some main qualities that made them sheep.
Take the ears, for example, they are very pointed, stick straight out of the sides of their heads, and are quite large. Also, their noses are quite long and skinny.
They are coated with fur, except for their heads and feet. And they have small pointed tails.
They have bellies that stick out, they don't go up like a lean dog's belly.
Some have fur on the very tops of their heads. Their eyes are outside the fur and by their ears. Their ears are by the outskirts of their fur. Some have darker skin than others.
I also studied pictures of cartoon sheep, because these are cut down to the basics:
In this cartoon below, the main characteristics that stand out to me are (in order): the fluffiness, the dark skin, the skinny legs, and the big ears.
Another cartoon that emphasizes the placement of the fur by the legs and the small heads with the narrow muzzles.
The little tail... and the white AND dark skin in this one...
And of course, there is Shaun the sheep, the little British clay-mation sheep we are all familiar with from the Wallace and Grommet series.
Shaun's hooves remind me that maybe I should make sure I emphasize this feature.
Stay tuned...
