The Nymph Reveals Herself

A forest nymph shedding her beetle disguise!

When I found out about this contest, I was SO excited!!! Unfortunately I didn't find out about it until after one of the two weeks for it had passed. Not enough time to dedicate to this as I would've liked (but I would always want more time....for everything I work on....forever.......), so I had to compromise a lot to time constraints. I wasn't sure if I would even be able to get this done, hahaha.

Where did you find your inspiration for your entry?
As soon as I read the contest details, I knew I wanted to sew something for it!!! I've been working on several sewing projects recently so I am very much in sewing mode. And what is a more magical transformation than literally stitching an idea into a tangible, cuddly object? Plus I thought this would be a good chance to jump out of my comfort zone and experiment with things I haven't tried before! I wanted to see how things would turn out if I didn't really make a pattern and just cut pieces out on the fly (a decision based on the limited time frame, haha). I also worked with a lot of materials I generally don't use (for the same reason - hoping to shave some time off).
So WHAT was I going to sew? I immediately remembered a very cute tiny horned beetle I'd seen crawling around on the windshield of my dad's truck a couple days before. I absolutely adored its form, and I really wanted to recreate and stylize it. (Unfortunately I ended up not having enough time to sew that particular darling, and made a more generic beetle... One day, my small friend. One day.)
So what was this lil bugger going to turn into, or vice versa? I considered having myself turn into a beetle, but I came to a conundrum.
What the hell was I going to do with a doll of myself after the contest?!! It'd be weird to keep it around. And it would be even WEIRDER to sell the thing!!!
So, I quickly ditched the idea of myself and turned to what I frequently end up turning to: flowers and nature. I imagined a nature spirit or a faerie at first, and then settled on nymphs - similar mythological beings who share a name with a stage of some bugs' lives! Bugs transform throughout their lives... Magical beings are great for transformations... Also PLANTS and FLOWERS. TOO GOOD TO PASS UP.

What programs or tools did you use?
I sketched up some designs for the beetle and a nymph in Paint Tool SAI - not patterns, just drawings of what they might look like. I left the design for the nymph's gown vague so I could do whatever I wanted with it while I was working on her! I went out and gathered some fabrics to play with. I usually work in fleece, microplush, and/or faux fur. The cotton and satin I used for this project were pretty foreign to me. It was bizarre how easily they glided through my sewing machine in comparison!!! But they pay for that with a lack of stretchiness. Also the satin was a huge pain to work with! Not really a trade off I care for.
I bought a ton of fake flowers and leaves to add to the nymph's dress (with my trusty hot glue gun)! But I ended up using only a couple of variations. (At least the rest made for good props in the set.)
I took photos with my phone's camera after setting things up (and employed the use of many lamps). Then I took the photos into Photoshop for colour corrections (and some mild light effects for the middle transition panel) and resizing/cropping them into the template.

How long did it take to complete?
This project consumed me to varying degrees for the past six or seven days... At first it was just planning and thinking about it all the time, and collecting materials, for the first couple days. But when I got down to work, I realized I absolutely did not have enough time to do everything I wanted to do. The original beetle design was scrapped for something simpler and easier to pull off. Also, I originally wanted to sew THREE entire dolls - the third being a direct morph between the nymph and her beetle form. No way I had enough time for that!!! (Obviously I settled for a cloud of polyfil instead.) All of the machine stitching, hand stitching, hot gluing, and dropping things on the floor added up to too many hours to really keep track of. Just imagine me working more and more frantically on this as the week went on, up until this moment, where I have been awake for 36+ hours, I am delirious, and my apartment looks like a tornado went through a craft store before unloading everything here.