First I built a wire armature. Then second, I built another armature as the first effort was a little out of proportion. Sigh. I should draw out the creature I am making and design the armature to fit -duh! When I’m making something for which there is no extant plan or instructions, I use a lot of guesswork and adjustment as I go along. I do look at photographs of the animal and it's skeleton, but it’s still very much an experiment trying to figure out size and proportion.
I got a little further with the second attempt, but then I made another mistake (there were so many on this poor creature!). I have created bird beaks in the past from air dry clay so that’s what I did here—but unfortunately it turned out way too small.
Note the continuation of the leg wires which I intend to use to mount the eagle on a piece of drift wood. I covered the legs and feet with brown florists tape before I put the yellow wool on, that way I was left with dark talons. I intended to make a fish for the talons to grip.
Fun Fact: It’s a myth that eagles cannot unlock their talons in the water when they catch a fish.
Here is attempt #2 at the head/beak. It’s an improvement, but the proportions are still off. I think the head is still too small, but I stuck with it and attempted to make the rest of the bird fit! I ended up cutting off most of the white “tail” stump as it was too long.
It looks kinda freaky - like something from a horror movie!
Fun Fact: Bald Eagles mate for life, and use the same nest for many years. (I can’t see this one getting a mate!)
However, with a bit of white wool on the head, and an eye, it now it just looks like a demented seagull. Not so scary! It was a challenge adding wool to to the dried clay head, but a little bit of glue helped get it started.
Fun Facts: A bald eagle’s vision is 4 - 5 times better than ours. They also have a see-through eyelid which cleans and protects their eyes.
Here are the wing and tail pieces for the eagle. I did draw out a paper pattern for the wings, which I wet felted. I decided to use chenille stems to stiffen the front edge of the wings and give them shape. For the tail I used some white felt left over from making the Pegasus wings (never throw anything away).
Fun facts: Females are larger than males. They can have a wingspan of up 8 feet, second only to the California Condor.
Here are the wings attached. I sewed the chenille stems on the edge of the wings then sewed the wings to the body. I then felted over the top of my somewhat clumsy sewing so that it was hidden.
Well, it’s kind of an eagle after all — and it flies!
Fun fact: The top speed of a bald eagle is 43 mph (99 mph in a dive)
Here’s the eagle with the felted fish I made for it.
Fun fact: Their favorite food is fish, although they also eat small mammals, reptiles, and carrion, and they will steal food from other birds like the Osprey.
I cut down the leg wires to the required size and inserted them into pre-drilled holes in the drift wood.
Fun Fact: Bald eagles can swim. If they catch a fish too big to enable them to fly off they can use their wings to paddle through the water. (I actually saw this at Shasta Lake. We thought an eagle was drowning, but it did a kind of breast stroke to shore with a huge fish.)
The Eagle Has Landed!
I fished out the “fabric ocean” I made for my mermaid cave and used it, along with an old painting, to create a suitable scene to show off my eagle.