It Begins......

So im going to take a crack at sewing my own custom plushies now, and if you know me then you know I MUST re-create the wheel everytime lol.

I will be doing commsions for plushies once I get a good template in and system so keep a look out!

Overall time from planning to finish it took about 8 hours.

MATERIALS USED:
1 3/4 sheets of open celled polystyrene (0.9inX11.8X35.8in)
3 contractor grade glue sticks
2 8fl oz. bottles of acrylic craft paint (grey for base and blue for color coat)

TOOLS USED:
Utility Knife
Break Away Utility Knife
Dremel 4200
Scissors
Sharpie
Paint Brushes
Sandpaper 60 and 320 grit

GUIDE:

Model
So first you may know that in creating a successful template for any tailor, your going to want a base (or mannequin).
I wanted an extremely accurate mannequin for making templates off of so I went and HIGHLY modified a SFM pony model.

*Remember! This is absolutly not the most efficient way to get this result! Since I am not a sculpter I went this route to ensure accuracy and to save time from having to redo the mannequin.*

So basically I widdled the model down to the base shape removed the eyes and ears 'n such and made a solid mesh.
I then scaled the model to realworld dimensions (in this case 18 inches overall height).

Once I got the base shape I sliced the model 18 times in 1 inch increments

I then took orthografic images of each of the slices, put them in Photoshop and labeled them. Once I got them all to fit on standard sheets of paper I printed them out to use as templates.

Forming the mannequin
Then it was time to start building!

I took all of the printed out templates I made, and cut each peice out and taped them on the foam.

One by one I then cut each "slice" out of the foam using the utility knives, leaving about a quarter of an inch material around the template.

I then did some rough sanding to the areas on the slices that were going to be hard to reach for shaping once assembled.

I hot glued first the head slices together, roughly shaped it and proceed to do the same for both the legs and the body.

Once I got the major parts roughly shaped and glued I then fused  all of them together.

Then I paseed over the form with 60 grit sandpaper and used my Dremel to sand the areas that were hard to reach with a 60 Grit wheel.

Then it was time for the 320 grit.

Sealing the Mannequin
Once I had the shape I was looking for I then dusted it off cleaneed up the work area and preped for paint.
The acrylic paint acts as a secondary glue to seal the otherwise easily flaked surface.

Once everything was preped I layed on a very thick gcaot of grey to act as a primer and base coat. I then went over it again with blue. 
These colors were not intentionally selected in anyway, it just so happens that I had just enough paint for the application.

Then everything was set to dry and to be used as my base for templates!

Thank you for reading! Hopefully I am pretty good at this and can mass produce these little bundles of joy! Just maybe I can be a vendor at this years BronyCon too!