Shiny Things Gallery | Fandom | Final Fantasy | Chocobos | Sable

Have you been wanting to keep a chocobo of your very own, but they're just too big? Have you ever wanted to cuddle your chocobo indoors? Have you wanted the companionship of a big feather friend in a smaller friend-shaped package? Drake Chocobo Ranch has the solution for you - miniaturized house chocobos! Loyal, soft, and bred to smell like cedar! (Mostly. Within reason.)

I have to admit... she was kind of an accident. I'd meant to do a regular Play Art Kai-scaled chocobo! And then I just... made the feet too big. And thought, "Well surely putting the claws on will take some length off the toes." ...And it did. ...And it did not matter that much. I spent a good couple of hours considering starting over with smaller feet, but then I just sort of. Didn't. And here we are. I needed this, long story short. Even if the work took way, way longer than I could have imagined, and challenged me much more than I was prepared for. No sob stories here, folks; it's been A Year, and it's my most sincere hope that Sable will make people happy and do a lot of good. And before anyone asks, no never again. (A fabric one, maybe, someday. But not soon.)

The skeleton/armature is comprised of several wound heavy gauge steel wires and occasional flexible plastic rods. The armature itself was covered in felt to make the structure lighter, with the crocheted acrylic yarn more or less being built up around the structure and stuffed with polyfil as I went. Her beak and claws are made of epoxy clay, the beads on her tail are hemalyke, and her folding wing structure is composed mainly of plastic-coated wood, wire and steel. Her collar was an old bracelet of mine, but the tag was etched by EngraverSteve on Etsy. Her eyes are dichroic cabochons made by WillowGlass on Etsy.

Side notes: in Episode Duscae (the first FFXV demo), occasional encounters with black chocobos made them appear to have "sparkly eyes", I believe in part due to some light/reflection error. (Then again it might have been intentional, and that would make me happy.) So yes, I based the design more or less on the FFXV art book's "ancient black chocobo" concept art, with my own little touches. Her feet and legs are poseable, as well as her neck, and all of her tail feathers are wire with either soft or solid heavy gauge wire cores. Her jaw is hinged, the top of her crest is wired, and of course her wings either hang a bit loosely folded at her sides or opened; but due to the nature of the heavy yarn and the stability of the smaller materials needed, her wings can't stay in place when they're raised. That's why I'm including a very simple "wing support bar" that enables the wings to raise at her sides and stay supported. It must be said that her legs are made from a very solid but lightly "springy" wire, and getting her to stand just right may take a few little toe and leg adjustments. The tail itself is designed for better weight distribution, but sometimes she tilts a little. let her stand next to a friend when possible, okay?

All told, Sable wound up about 25 inches tall to the top of her head, and 17 inches from her chest to the very start of her tail. 28 inches long, including the tail. Her full extended wingspan is 27 inches, and she's about 16 inches wide with folded wings at her side. She also weighs in at roughly 6 pounds, so I'm pretty sure any effort made in lightening her frame is definitely looking like a good decision now.

This girl was auctioned at Desert Bus for Hope 2018 for an enormously generous $2,641.94 from ekimekim.


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