Rover Boy is a horse character from the 1951 Donald Duck cartoon “Dude Duck.” I needle felted this delightful guy for a custom order.
screen capture from 1951 “Dude Duck” of Rover Boy with hooves outstretched. See his teeth? 
Rover Boy made from wool 
screen capture: Rover Boy next to Donald Duck. See the “6” branded on his rear?
He has a heavy duty wire armature beneath the felted wool because I knew the customer wanted him to have an imposing presence and he had to be tall. I don’t think of wool as being that heavy, but when the head gets felted that densely, it starts to need serious support. He measures 16 inches long and 13 inches tall.
Because he was so big, he took a long time to felt. Every day I worked on him from morning till well into the night. There was a point where it seemed he would never be complete. I would start working on a hoof and think, “oh I’ll be done with the hooves in a just a few hours” only to have them take days.
But once he got that goofy smile on, I couldn’t help smiling back at him, even knowing I still had a long way to go.
There are times when needle felting strikes me as utterly impractical. It simply takes too much time to make each of my creations. But every time I complete a project like this, it’s all worth it!
I took some videos and wrote a little about the process of making Rover Boy. You can see all the behind the scenes content by joining my Patreon. You also get to vote on what I make next and get early looks at all my projects. Not only that, by joining you’re automatically entered into a random drawing to win your very own oddling Snonkey.
Rover Boy inspired me to make my very first STOP MOTION animation! I fumbled my way through this tiny movie and did everything wrong. I am so proud of it anyway! And I learned SO much.
Special thanks to Nick, my husband, for Rover’s neigh!
I’ll definitely be making more animations.
Familiar Oddlings 