During the Christmas break, I went with my Boyfriend to see James Cameron’s Avatar. I had been looking forward to seeing this film, and it did not disappoint. The environments were beautiful, the special effects were believable, and the creature and race design for Pandora were incredible!
I desperately wanted a toy of one of the denizen race of Pandora - the Na’ Vi - described generally as a tribe of nine foot tall, blue ‘cat people’ (I beg to differ, I always thought they resembled a deer more, due to the ears…but come to think of it, now I do see the feline features).
However, the merchandise I found of the Na’ vi on offer were very unlike what I imagined they would be. The toys were tiny, rigid, and lacking in opposability.

After my plush work at Christmas on the corduroy dragon, I brought my sewing supplies with me to Priory Hall. I had quite a lot of felt with me, and sewing the Copycat Shoes and Kettle had gotten me in the mood to make a plushy!

I had my patterns at hand that I had used to make the small Coralline - esque plushies from last year, and decided that I would finally start the Na’ Vi figure I had wanted for so long.
I started with her head - there were no great deviations in the pattern as it was perfectly round, like most of my plushies. The big difference was her face; this was a milestone for me:
My first ever Humanoid Plush, and handmade too!
For the Nose and eyebrows I made a simple shape, and the nose was stitched in like a pocket to conceal the stitches at the bottom. I wanted to go for a cute docile look in comparison to the more ferocious Neytiri.
So I had started the Face, but I still didn’t have a clue what I wanted her body and hair to look like. I started sketching ideas, and went through all different body shapes: from figureless Rag-doll to typical slim line Na’vi, and even Chibi. I finally settled on a more womanly shape. I decided wanted to go back to the Va-va-voom figure that was popular in the 1950’s, with a hint of hula girl and belly dancer.

Next was the hair, which required a lot of stitching and unstitching. The plated ‘pony tail’ pattern was from a rat tail I had previously. Once I had sewn together the head, I felt the hair could do with some low-lights and two tones to give it some depth - this was something I had never done with a plush before, I was working to a new level.
For the body I drew up a new pattern, using the proportions of the pattern used for the dragon. I decided to work it sections, starting with the upper torso, as I knew there would be a lot of trial and error.
I have mixed feelings about my first attempt. The breast hung too low, the arm was too long, and the shoulders appeared bony and restrictive. But despite this, I could see this pattern working well for an older, frailer character. I made the new arms, and put them to one side with the head, and tried to remember the breast pattern I had done before for a larger plush.
For the shoulders, I looked at a Garment I had made for a friend of mine for her project - it was a small orange jacket (Doll-sized), and I had had the seam of the arms facing forward, whilst the body stitch was out-lining. I used this technique with the Na’ Vi, having a circle on the arm and on the shoulder, so the two could be sewn together like the parts of a tennis ball.
I decided to take a break from the Torso for a bit, and work on the Legs. I really wanted to try and give the Na’ vi some curvaceous, effeminate legs, so I had to make sure the pattern was big enough in the right parts. It took three attempts, two in felt, and I had to make sure the knees had enough give (I had decided early on that I wanted this doll to have bendable limbs, so the material had to be able to deal with awkward poses).
The tail was very simple; I used the exact same pattern as with the pony tail. But here I tried out the two-tone hair again, with a little tuft at the tip of the tail. I liked it so much; I unstitched the end of the ponytail to give that a tuft.

I went back to the torso work, adamant that I would solve the dilemma. The breasts were still being awkward, and I wasn’t sure where the material would give (there also the unsightly stitches to be hidden). I finally solved the problem by sketching out the simple breast shape I wanted, and then having a crescent moon - shaped piece of material underneath to give volume and depth.

But anyway, enough about breasts next was the stomach and rear. I knew I wanted the Na’ Vi to have large hips and a round belly, and again like with the legs I had to plan exactly where I wanted it to dip in and how to make the stomach round with appearing fat. This also took several attempts, but then as well as the stomach I had managed to crack the puzzle of crafting the buttocks.
So now I had all my parts, the arms, legs, head, tail and body, all that was left was to put these together, and make the bendy frame. This was made out of pipe cleaners because I have so much experience with them...and they were all I had (otherwise, I would have loved to experiment with ‘soldering metal’). I gave all the limbs two pipe cleaners each for extra strength, anymore and I would not have been able to stuff the arms. I put pipe cleaners in the pony tail as well as the tail (of course) and had one pipe cleaner secured in a loop around the head and neck. All that was left was to carefully stuff my Na’ Vi and sew her up!
Once she was sewn together, I made my Na’ Vi some Tribal-esque clothing. I then contacted my Photographer friend once more, and we arranged a photo session.

I’m extremely pleased with the results of this project, and would definitely make another Na’ Vi, maybe even attempt a boy to keep mine company.