Argus

Hey all! The Plushteam's March/April challenge is "World Mythology Plush". There are several categories including gods/goddesses, magical artifacts, magical creatures and mortals/demigods. Even though the challenge was announced quite a while back it took me a while to get in the groove. On the surface it sounded like an awesome challenge. I love mythology from all parts of the world so I thought I would have no problem finding something to make. However when I started looking on various websites I realized that many mythical characters are human or part human and I really didn't want to make a person (or at least I couldn't envision how to make a human). Then I found this site called MusesRealm.net. They have a magical creatures and beings area with tons of creatures listed in alphabetical order. I nearly looked and read every single one but settled on one of the first ones I saw, Argus, a giant with 100 eyes.

Here is his description from the site:

"Argus was a Giant with 100 eyes that were placed all over his body. He never closed all of his eyes at once, sleeping with at least half of them open. For this reason he made an excellent guard. The Goddess Hera had him guard the maiden Io, a lover of Zeus who had been turned into a white cow. Zeus sent Hermes to rescue the maiden, which the god was able to do by singing to Argus and getting him to close all of his eyes. When Argus was completely asleep and unaware, Hermes killed him. In return for his service and sacrifice, Hera placed his eyes onto the tail feathers of the peacock, a bird which from then on has been sacred to the Goddess."

This is my original sketch of Argus:

It's funny how different a plush can come out from the original sketch (at least for me). I guess he came out pretty much like the drawing except for the face. I like them both. :)

A little bit about my Argus... He is about 13 inches tall from his toes to the tip of his head. He is made from a shaggy blue fake fur and a complimentary blue fleece. He does have 100 eyes all over his body (hopefully). I have to admit he may or may not have 100 total eyes although I am pretty sure he does. Due to some confusion and a couple breaking off I did lose track once or twice. It was a lot of eyes! All of the eyes except a couple are glass (the ones that aren't are plastic) and they are all different sizes and colors. I love how they hide in his fur.

Argus has a lot of details such as a ton of needle sculpting on his hands and face. His fingers are wired and need to be bent so he can stand but you can unbend them if you want.

His nose has warts as you can see in this picture.

When he was done I decided he needed something to break up the blue body so I made him a vest. It is made from brown wool felt with misc. fur and felt patchwork added. There is also a wooden button to finish it off.

My Argus came out sweet and he even loves other creatures.

He is weighted in his feet and stands freely. His arms are jointed at the shoulder with plastic joints so they do move. His legs are not jointed and don't move.

The biggest problem I have found with working on these challenges and plush that is so different from what I normally do is that when the piece is completed I don't want to sell them. I am creating plush that I would buy...maybe that is good but it isn't so good when it comes to responsibility and the need for $.

What do you think of him?