The Legend of Zelda is so good. At the time of writing, I’ve played every game. Even all three CDI ones. Anyway, I wanted to collaborate with my girlfriend who was getting pretty good at needle felting at the time, so we decided to make an Ezlo together. I planned it, she felted the soft bits, and I handled the rigid bits. It was a fun, quick build that introduced me to the world of heat forming.
I began by buying a collapsible traffic cone. I bent it to the angle we wanted Ezlo to sit at, made a pattern around it, and cut out some felt sheets for my girlfriend to begin making uniformly fuzzy.
While that was being worked on, I started into the eyes. I didn’t want them to be hyper-realistic with a sculpted iris or anything, but I wanted some realistic depth in them. So, I opted to make them out of some acrylic hemispheres, and place a flat piece of black plastic inside for the iris/pupil area. That way, as you moved around it, the light would hopefully hit the black plastic in a similar way to a real animal/person. From the side, as well, you would see a clear dome over the center of the eye.
My girlfriend was hard at work shaping the head and its cowlick, all felted onto a foam ball.
Everything got attached together, but we still needed a beak.
I didn’t document the process well, but I carved the rough shape of the beak, top and bottom, out of some scrap wood. I then traced that form out onto a board, and cut out a negative of it.
I heated up some styrene, placed the negative form over-top of it, then lowered both items over the positive carving. Once trimmed, I fiberglassed the inside for rigidity, then layered another piece on the inside to make it look nice and hide the fiberglass.
And that was it! Now I have a fun hat, and a nice tribute to one of my favorite characters from Zelda!
