New Project : Monster Hoodies

This is more the continuation of a project I completed for Jenn a few weeks ago. Many of my friends in San Diego saw her rocking her "monster" hoodie; a purple unicorn hoodie, complete with spiral silver horn, fetlock cuffs, and a mane ending in tail.

 This project was easier than I thought it would be. It took a little creative problem solving to design and sew the spiral into the silver fabric. The hardest part was figuring out how to attach the horn to the hood without cutting away from the hood or sewing the bottom of the horn flat. After a couple of failed tries, I was able to sew the horn to a separate piece of purple velour, attach that to the velour border of the mane (just a folded strip of white faux fur), then sew the whole thing down the back of the hoodie.

 Jenn, unsurprisingly enough, flipped out when she saw it in its finished form. She loves it, but it's not warm enough to wear in cold weather or rain.

 I had a lot of fun making it, and wanted to do it again, this time actually creating a monster. Jezebel, Mike's daughter, has a birthday coming up, and she seemed to like the unicorn hoodie. I know she's been getting into Dungeons and Dragons recently, so I'm going to make a monster hoodie for her with that as a theme.

Here's my reference and inspiration; The Red Dragon. Classic D&D monster. And since each dragon in the game has it's own look and anatomy, it will be a fun challenge to make the hoodie look like a RED DRAGON, and not just a dragon that happens to be red.

I've boiled down the features I want to include in the hoodie;
 - The large swept back horns
 - The smaller horns along the jawline
 - The light-colored scales along the belly
- The fin-like spines along the back and tail
 - MAYBE: the big ear-fins on the sides of its face. 

I bought the fabric and hoodie already. Now to just sketch out how I want to actually do this. I can't realistically cut out individual scales, and if I stuff the back part too much, the hoodie will be uncomfortable when sitting against a chair or couch. Jenn's suggestion is to use a fabric pen and draw the scales on the lighter fabric, and maybe silk-screen the patches of scales on the sides and back. I think the silk screen is a great idea, but if I can, I would prefer to have a physical separation of the scales on the front belly sales. They're much larger than the sides, so I don't need as many, and they're the part she can see when she's wearing it. Hmm.